Allan Afuah

Users as Innovators: A Review, Critique, and Future Research Directions:

What role do users play during innovation? Ever since it was argued that users can also be the sources of innovation, the literature on the role of users during innovation has grown tremendously. In this article, the authors review this growing literature, critique it, and develop some of the research questions that could be explored to contribute to this literature and to the theoretical perspectives that underpin the literature.

How much do your co-opetitors' capabilities matter in the face of technological change?

Firms often lose their competitive advantage when a technological change renders their existing capabilities obsolete. An important question that has received little or no attention is, what happens to these firms’ competitive advantage when the technological change instead renders obsolete the capabilities of their co-opetitors—the suppliers, customers, and complementors whose very success may underpin that of the firm and with whom it must collaborate and compete. This paper explores the effects on a firm of the impact of a technological change on its co-opetitors. It argues that a firm’s post-technological change performance decreases with the extent to which the technological change renders co-opetitors’ capabilities obsolete. It uses detailed data on the adoption of RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) technology by computer workstation makers to demonstrate the need to view resources as residing in a network and not in the firm alone. Copyright

Dynamic Boundaries of the Firm: Are Firms Better Off Being Vertically Integrated in the Face of a Technological Change?

Building on transaction cost economics and the knowledge-based theory of the firm, I argue that, following a technological change that is competence-destroying to firms and their suppliers, firms t...

The open innovation research landscape: Established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

A model of the Internet as creative destroyer

The extent to which a technological change is a creative destroyer is of interest to entrepreneurs who can exploit the opportunity and to incumbents who must defend their existing competitive advantages from the change. In the face of a technological change, an important question is: To what extent is it a creative destroyer? In this paper, we offer a model for exploring the depth and breadth of creative destruction from the Internet and the implications for wealth creation and competitive advantage. We apply the model to three groups of industries, each of which rests on one of Thompsons three categories of organizational technologies: long-linked; mediating; and intensive. The application suggests that incumbents in all industries should experience some erosion of competitive advantage. Industries with predominantly mediating technologies should experience creative destruction. Those with intensive technologies should experience more erosion of competitive advantage than those with long-linked technologies.

The emergence of a new supercomputer architecture

Abstract A model on the dynamics of innovation among multiple productive units and other innovation models are used to examine the emergence of a new supercomputer architecture. Data on entry and exit of firms producing supercomputers having three distinctive architectures appear to conform to the main hypotheses of the models examined. Based on these data, the authors speculate that the new generation of massively parallel supercomputers will replace the currently accepted von Neumann architecture for supercomputers, although the ascendant dominant architecture cannot yet be spelled out in detail. Complementary assets, especially software, and chance events will all play a part in determining which massively parallel designs may ultimately be used for most supercomputing applications.

The Dynamic ‘Diamond’: A Technological Innovation Perspective

A firms local environment can constitute a source of national or regional cornpetitive advantage. An important question, therefore, is how these environments come about and how they can be lost. In this paper, we argue that a local environment is a function of the process of technological evolution. It is a function of how certain initial and prevailing conditions, the type of innovation, and chance events, influence the processes of uncertainty resolution, capabilities building, and survivor selection that are characteristic of technological evolution. We also argue that a region can lose its advantage when a dominant design emerges or when a technological discontinuity obsoletes the localized technological capabilities of not only manufacturers, but also of their suppliers, customers and related industries. The environment is dynamic as firms and nations, in response to their performances, also influence it by changing their strategies or policies.

Profiting from Innovations: The Role of New Game Strategies in the Case of Lipitor of the US Pharmaceutical Industry

In exploring why innovators often do not profit from their innovations, researchers concentrate on innovators versus imitators and the extent to which owners of complementary assets capture profits from innovations. The literature provides scant attention to factors that sap profits from innovations. This paper argues that an innovators positioning vis-a-vis customers, suppliers, complementors, and other co-opetitors plays a critical role in the innovators profitability. The article explores how an innovator can use new game strategies to better positioning, thus capturing rents from innovations and enabling further innovations in the future. The study examines the case of Lipitor, one of the worlds best-selling drug, to illustrate how positioning can play in a firms ability to profit from its innovations.

Is Ford 2000 the right strategy for innovation? A management theory perspective

• In consolidating its North American and European product development into five Vehicle Program Centers (VPCs) to develop cars for all markets, integrating its manufacturing, supply, marketing and sales into a worldwide operation, Ford is moving from a so-called multi-domestic strategy to a global one. • The question is if this is the right strategy for an automobile company that wants to offer new low cost and/or differentiated products to its customers worldwide. • This article advances three points: • First, that although the strategic change is appropriate, it may not have gone far enough. • Second, to get the best out of the strategy, in any case, Ford must implement it well, moulding the right organizational structure, systems/processes, and the right people in the right positions. • Third, it must integrate into its systems, the right information and communications technologies. Optimal performance requires a fit between strategy, structure, systems/processes and people.