Michèle Routley

Charting Exploitation Strategies for Emerging Technology

OVERVIEW: Strategy development for early-stage technology and innovation is challenging, with a need to maintain flexibility in the face of high levels of technical and commercial uncertainty. There is a demand for lightweight, agile methods that can support strategic dialogue at this stage, particularly between business functions and collaborating organizations. We have developed an “emergence roadmapping” workshop method that helps organizations to clarify the nature of a potential future value opportunity and articulate the route towards it as a series of demonstration-based milestones. The approach builds on a study of how a variety of current industries have emerged from the science and technology base in the past, allowing characterization of the phases, transitions, milestones, patterns, enablers, and barriers that may apply to current and future emergence.

The industrial emergence of commercial inkjet printing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supply and demand interact during industrial emergence. Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on previous theorising about co-evolutionary dynamics, exploring the interaction between supply and demand in a study of the industrial emergence of the commercial inkjet cluster in Cambridge, UK. Data are collected through 13 interviews with professionals working in the industry. Findings – The paper shows that as new industries emerge, asynchronies between technology supply and market demand create opportunities for entrepreneurial activity. In attempting to match innovative technologies to particular applications, entrepreneurs adapt to the system conditions and shape the environment to their own advantage. Firms that successfully operate in emerging industries demonstrate the functionality of new technologies, reducing uncertainty and increasing customer receptiveness. Research limitations/implications – The research is geographically bounded ...

Understanding and navigating industrial emergence

Industrial emergence is a broad and complex domain, with relevant perspectives ranging in scale from the individual entrepreneur and firm with the business decisions and actions they make to the policies of nations and global patterns of industrialisation. The research described in this article has adopted a holistic approach, based on structured mapping methods, in an attempt to depict and understand the dynamics and patterns of industrial emergence across a broad spectrum from early scientific discovery to large-scale industrialisation. The breadth of scope and application has enabled a framework and set of four tools to be developed that have wide applicability. The utility of the approaches has been demonstrated through case studies and trials in a diverse range of industrial contexts. The adoption of such a broad scope also presents substantial challenges and limitations, with these providing an opportunity for further research.