Ferdinand Jaspers

Entry and Innovation in Maturing Markets: Virtual Operators in Mobile Telecommunications

Abstract In the last few years the mobile telecommunications industry has witnessed the entry of a large number of new service providers. Traditionally, mobile users get their mobile services from the service providers owned by vertically integrated mobile network operators (MNOs). The new entrants do not own a network of their own however, because they use the existing mobile infrastructure, i.e. they are ‘mobile virtual network operators’ (MVNOs). By granting these virtual operators access to their networks, MNOs actually facilitate the entry of potential competitors for their own downstream service providers. These new entrants might attract additional users by offering competitive services and create extra value with their well-known brand names and other complementary assets. This study focuses on the mobile market of the Netherlands, where competition is intense and MVNOs proliferate. The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of the entry of virtual operators in general, and specifically by explaining why and how virtual operators enter the mobile market and the impact they have on competition in the mobile market.

Open innovation and systems integration: How and why firms know more than they make

This paper investigates open innovation for the development of complex products. In this context, systems integrators are firms that integrate component innovations into existing product systems and that design entirely new product architectures. To successfully execute these systems integration tasks, these firms need to monitor and absorb the rapid and diverse technological developments that surround them. Systems integration therefore explains why firms know more than they make. Open innovation, on its part, provides the mechanisms that indicate how firms can expand their knowledge boundary. Open innovation and systems integration are strong complements therefore. More specifically, a contingent and a balanced approach to open innovation is suggested: open as far as abundant component knowledge is concerned, and closed with respect to the generation and exploitation of scarce, internally developed architectural knowledge.

Chapter 5 The Analysis of Temporally Ordered Configurations: Challenges and Solutions

In organizational research the object of study is often a process, that is, a complex of events and activities that unfolds over time. In this chapter we focus on temporally ordered configurations, which can be defined as those configurations in which conditions occur in a specific temporal order. We illustrate the aims, characteristics, and limitations of several approaches that have been proposed as tools for the analysis of temporal order. Our illustration involves an analysis of the “gestation activities” of nascent entrepreneurs, that is, persons involved in the creation of a new firm. We aim to identify temporal sequences of gestation activities that generate or allow a successful outcome of the gestation process, while an occurrence of the same activities in another temporal order will not generate or allow that outcome. First we discuss Event Structure Analysis and Optimal Matching and conclude that these approaches cannot provide the kind of analysis that we are aiming at in this chapter. Then we discuss Temporal Qualitative Comparative Analysis, for which our analysis points to technical limitations that constrain its application. We then present and discuss an alternative approach, Temporal Necessary Condition Analysis.