Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technovation
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/technovation

Episodic change: A new approach to identifying industrial transition

Jungsub Yoon a, b, *, Jeong-Dong Lee a, Seogwon Hwang b
a
Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program, College of Engineering, Seoul National University, 08826, Republic of Korea
b
Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), 370 Sicheong-daero, Sejong-si, 30147, Republic of Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study aims to suggest a new approach to identify the emergence of an industrial transition, which refers to
Episodic change an episodic change. The causes of episodic change, referred to episodic events, categorized into introduction of
Technological change new technological characteristics, product speciation, and producer change. The introduction of new techno­
Product demography
logical characteristics is defined as a change in the number of technological characteristics introduced in the
Mobile phone industry
process of product evolution, which is an essential event in the evolution of the product improving the perfor­
mance of products. Product speciation addresses a phenomenon that a new product having an additional tech­
nological characteristic than existing products is sequentially released in the market, which determines whether
the product forms a new product category or it remains as a mutation. Finally, producer change is observed
through the entry types of firms that released products in a new product category. Since each indicator can be
regarded as a precursor of episodic change, episodic change occurs in the evolution of the product when all three
indicators are satisfied. This study analyzes cell phones released between 2004 and 2013 to determine whether
an episodic change has occurred in the mobile phone industry. We identify the precursor of episodic change by
analyzing the events that occurred before the change. This study helps to establish the direction of industrial
policy to trigger the episodic change of products through the proxies for precursors.

1. Introduction depending on the level of newness compared to existing products

During the last century, the emergence of new technologies such as
the steam engine and internet has led to the industrial transition. New
technologies have created the product innovation by the recombination
of existing products (Schumpeter, 1934). During the repeat of the
product innovation, unexpected technologies have emerged, leading to
the emergence of new industrial transition. Since the industrial transi­
tion is considered as ex-post phenomena, previous studies have focused
on the methods for monitoring technological change (Dahlin and Beh­
rens, 2005) and the strategies during the industrial transition occurred
by the radical and disruptive change (Ansari and Krop, 2012; Bergek
et al., 2013; Cozzolino and Rothaermel, 2018; Eggers and Park, 2018;
Roy et al., 2018).
However, the industrial transition can be considered as the results of
continuous changes in technologies, industries and markets, and in­
stitutions (Geels, 2002, 2010; Giachetti and Marchi, 2017; Lee and
Malerba, 2017; Perez and Soete, 1988). Technological innovation and
product innovation initiate the industrial change. Product innovation is
distinguished by incremental innovation and radical innovation
(OECD/Eurostat, 2005). New products are mostly the result of incre­
mental innovations, reflecting slight changes compared to existing
products, while changes in the industrial environment emerge in the
market as the result of radical innovations that appear to differ signifi­
cantly from existing products (Davies, 1997). This phenomenon is one of
the stylized facts observed in the evolutionary process of products
through the accumulation of those two types of innovation (Orihata and
Watanabe, 2000).
Episodic change, widely used both in biology and in evolutionary
economics, helps to illustrate the industrial transition (Boero, 1996;
Wagner and Rosen, 2014; Weick and Quinn, 1999). In biology, the
scarcity of fossils makes scholars difficult to show gradual changes, and
one of the representative examples is the Cambrian explosion (Wallace,
2014), which involved a large-scale episode of punctuated equilibrium
that occurred 500 million years ago. The mechanism of episodic change
is compounded by short-term punctuation between long-term periods of
stasis (Weick and Quinn, 1999). However, episodic change in evolu­
tionary economics occurs by the accumulation of technological changes
that leads to great changes in the industrial environment (Lyytinen and

* Corresponding author. Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program, College of Engineering, Seoul National University, 08826, Republic of Korea.
E-mail address: jungsub@stepi.re.kr (J. Yoon).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102474
Received 5 August 2020; Received in revised form 23 October 2021; Accepted 23 January 2022
Available online 1 February 2022
0166-4972/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Yoon et al.
Newman, 2008; Wagner and Rosen, 2014). Thus, this study defines the
episodic change as the successive and cumulative process occurred at
multiple levels.
Episodic change helps to explain the dynamics of an industry by
considering the components of the industry and their relationships. It is
a phenomenon that occurs due to cumulative changes at the technology,
product, and industry levels, compared to radical innovations, which
focus on the birth of a completely novel product or business (Chandy and
Tellis, 2000), and disruptive innovations, which emerge by creating new
demand through the expansion of demand to a niche (Christensen,
1997b). Thus, the concept of episodic change enables the emergence of
industrial change to be anticipated by understanding the driving factors
that have been accumulated before the punctuation.
The driving force of episodic change is defined as episodic events
(Boero, 1996). The concept of episodic events is used in biology, but
previous studies on product innovation have also attempted to define
episodic events in terms of disruptive technology (Christensen, 1997a;
1997b), architectural innovation (Henderson and Clark, 1990), and
breakthrough innovation (Frenken et al., 2007). These previous studies
have qualitatively defined episodic events as a result of the product
portfolio diversification of existing firms and new entrants or changes in
consumers’ preferences, leading to the creation of new demand (Adner
and Levinthal, 2002; Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Levinthal, 1998; Utter­
back and Abernathy, 1975). If the breakout of the episodic events is
investigated by proxies operationally defined, the environment can be
predicted where episodic changes are expected to occur in advance.
This study proposes proxies for episodic events, which are defined as
the following three sequential events through a modification of the
description suggested by Boero (1996): 1) technological change as the
introduction of new technological characteristics, 2) product speciation
as the emergence of a new product category, and 3) producer change as
the release of a new product included in the new product category by
both an existing firm and a new entrant. Technological change is defined
as a marginal increase in the number of technological characteristics
that compose products. It creates a new product category with a new
technological characteristic. After the emergence of a new product
category, product speciation can be occurred if products belonging to a
new product category are released in succession. If there is no successive
introduction of products in the product category, product speciation
would not be occurred. Product category is distinguished by the intro­
duction of new technological characteristics, and thereby consists of
products with the adoption of the same sort of technological charac­
teristics. The last indicator, producer change, is determined by whether
an existing firm and a new entrant release products in the new product
category in the same time period. Each indicator represents a change in
the physical technology, the product selection environment, and the
strategy of firms, respectively, similar to the concept of phase transition
in economic growth (Beinhocker, 2006).
In this study, we used data for products released in the Korean mobile
phone market between 2004 and 2013 to investigate the episodic events
that occurred before the episodic change, and to compare the properties
of the products before and after the occurrence of the episodic change. In
the mobile phone market, numerous new technologies, technological
change, have been introduced, and most of new product categories are
expected to emerge the product speciation. Even though several new
entrants have entered into the market, the result shows that the pro­
ducer change has emerged in 2009H1 and 2009H2, which means that
the industrial transition may occur afterwards.
This study is composed as follows. Section 2 reviews previous studies
on radical innovation and disruptive innovation to distinguish the
concepts of episodic change and episodic events. Section 3 proposes
indicators for episodic events. Section 4 identifies the occurrence of
episodic changes in the Korean mobile phone market by applying the
indicators and examines the evolutionary patterns during the emergence
of the episodic change. Section 5 concludes with a discussion of the
contributions and limitations, followed by a presentation of future
2
Technovation 115 (2022) 102474
research questions.
2. Literature review
2.1. Radical innovation and disruptive innovation
A new industry emerges by the changes in technologies, market, and
institutions (Geels, 2002, 2014). Technologies uncover new niches and
then creates new demands, requiring new institutions. The introduction
of new technology generates new product design, also referred to
product speciation, which may lead to new market creation. A new
market opens a new opportunity for firms to achieve higher perfor­
mance, and a new firm is likely to enter the market as it recognizes
windows of opportunity (Giachetti and Marchi, 2017; Lee and Malerba,
2017; Perez and Soete, 1988). If the new market is highly likely to be
extended, a new firm would join the market and then a new institution
needs to be established as the traditional mobile phone industry has
changed into the smartphone industry.
In explaining industrial change, the concept of windows of oppor­
tunity is important to understand actors’ behavior. The windows of
opportunity refer to “the role of the rise of new techno-economic para­
digms” and has three types: technological windows, a demand window,
and an institutional/public policy window (Lee and Malerba, 2017). The
introduction of new technologies opens the technological window, the
creation of new demands provides the demand opportunity, and the
institutional change emerges the institutional window (Lee and Mal­
erba, 2017). It can be interpreted that each type of windows is originated
by the product innovation and affects firm’s decision-making.
Most important and fundamental events opening the technological
window in the industry are the emergence of the radical innovation and
disruptive innovation that lead to radical and disruptive change. The
introduction of both radical innovation and disruptive innovation cre­
ates new niches and affect the changes in market share of firms. Radical
innovation, a major factor of the product evolution, causes the industrial
and business changes (Coccia, 2016). Radical innovation creates new
demands by launching a novel product that has not previously existed
(Coccia, 2016; Ettlie and Rubenstein, 1987; Leifer, O ’connor, & Rice,
2001). The example of the radical innovation is the quartz watch by
adopting the semiconductor, and the Swatch that coverts the concept of
the watch from the timepiece to the jewelry, creating new demands for
time instruments (Verganti, 2008).
Disruptive innovation is considered as the similar phenomena as
radical innovation. Disruptive innovation creates the new niche market
regardless of the technological superiority, or attracts non-users in the
existing market into the new market by satisfying new demands
(Christensen, 1997b). Although disruptive innovation does not always
attract new consumers by the improvement of technological level, it
sometimes makes the new consumers participate in the market due to
the relatively lower price, leading to the niche creation (Christensen
et al., 2015). The representative example of the disruptive innovation is
the 3.5-inch floppy disk that attracts non-users into the new market by
making the disk smaller than 5.25-inch floppy disk (Christensen and
Rosenbloom, 1995).
Even though radical innovation and disruptive innovation are
considered as the driving forces for the emergence of an industrial
transition, it still lacks explanation on how the transition emerges.
Previous research has attempted to propose the criteria for investigating
the emergence of the innovation. The emergence of the radical inno­
vation is determined by whether a new product is composed of a sub­
stantially different core technology from the existing core technology
and provides substantially higher benefits to consumers (Chandy and
Tellis, 1998). The emergence of the new trajectory to evaluate the per­
formance of products and the new niches is considered as the key criteria
for determining the disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2015).
Due to the significance of radical innovation and disruptive inno­
vation, previous studies have proposed proxies to capture both radical
J. Yoon et al. Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

innovation and disruptive innovation. Dahlin and Behrens (2005) pro­ The episodic event in biology has a huge impact on the environment
poses a measurement of radicalness with three criteria: novelty, such as the natural calamity (Griffin and Prakash, 2014). After the ca­
uniqueness, and influence on future inventions. They use patent data to lamity, the system recovers as actors continuously adapt to the new
empirically show the applicability of the measurement. In addition, Guo environment (Lyytinen and Newman, 2008). While occurring the usual
et al. (2019) presents a multidimensional measurement framework for dynamic changes, unpredictable phenomena can be captured (Boero,
the disruptive potential of product innovations by considering techno­ 1996). The episodic events are mainly identified by the four historical
logical features, marketplace dynamics, and policy and macroeconomic events: the change in the composition of the species in the biological
factors. Even though attempts have been made to understand the radical communities, the change in the features of species by the speciation or
changes that cause industrial transition, there still lacks of criteria and the extinction, the environmental change where species survive, and the
empirical studies. change in the ratio of the species (Boero, 1996). The first episodic event
is the changes in species composition of bio-communities due to immi­
2.2. Episodic change gration of exotic species or local distinction by emigration or terminal
extinction. The second episodic event is defined as the change in the
Furthermore, both radical innovation and disruptive innovation are features of species due to extinction by speciation or to fragmentation by
represented by new products, services, or business models, which means allopatric or sympatric speciation. The third episodic event occurs in the
that these concepts hardly consider the evolutionary process. In order to environment such as climate change due to the shifts in season occur­
address the industrial transition as an evolutionary process, Episodic rence or changes in the features of seasons. The El Nino is the example in
change is helpful to illustrate the huge transition emerged by the that it causes the increase in the temperature that leads to local
episodic events—episodes that comprise normal flows of the relative extinction (Glynn and de Weerdt, 1991). The last event is the change in
events and the birth of the novel entity (Boero, 1996). In a system, a the contribution of the species to the biomass of the community due to
variety of episodes occurs between organisms, between organisms and the rare species becoming abundant or to abundant species becoming
environment, leading to both incremental and radical changes. rare.
Table 1 summarizes the triggers, examples, and features of radical In evolutionary economics, previous research on the industry dy­
change, disruptive change, and episodic change and shows the differ­ namics and the economic development such as Avnimelech and Teubal
ence among the changes. The episodic change is considered as the (2006) and Dutrénit and Teubal (2011) has characterized the
evolutionary process that occurred by infrequent episodic events. The pre-emergence phase, which is similar to the episodic events (Dutrénit
episodic events include the changes in the product category at the micro- and Teubal, 2011). The pre-emergence phase consists of the inventions
level and the subsequent change in the industrial environment where and innovations that define a new product category and a standard
products are engaged. After the emergence of new products, a growing product configuration, and for the successful transition to the emergence
misalignment between an inertial deep structure and perceived envi­ phase is led by the ‘scaling up’ of the mutational innovations (Dutrénit
ronmental demands cause the divergence (Weick and Quinn, 1999). It and Teubal, 2011), leading to the introduction of new entrants. The
means that the interactions among changes in technologies, demands, emergence of the mutational innovations leads to the emergence of the
and the industrial environment occurred in the ecosystem of the product technological windows that may create the demand window. After the
evolution are also considered as the major drivers (Lyytinen and New­ episodic events emerge, windows of opportunity also rise, and thereby
man, 2008). In other words, the episodic change is caused by the com­ incumbents and new entrants compete to obtain industrial leadership.
plex set of events at different level, whereas the radical change and the
disruptive change focus on the changes in the core technology or the 3. Methodology
creation of the new market. Thus, the episodic change is ignited by the
technological innovation due to the radical and disruptive innovation 3.1. Indicators for identifying the episodic change
and then the sequential change in the environmental factors causes the
episodic change as the form of the episodic events. Numerous research has lacked the discussion on how to capture the
episodic change. While reviewing the proxies for the episodic change, as
Table 1 far as the authors know, Boero (1996) is considered as an only study that
Summary and comparison between radical change, disruptive change and proposes the proxy for the episodic change. Thus, this study adopts the
episodic change. Boero (1996)’s definition of the four episodic events in Section 2.2 and
Radical change Disruptive change Episodic change converts them into the terms of product innovation.
The first event is related to changes in the product category. The
Trigger Radical innovation: Disruptive innovation: a Episodic event:
a product/service change in the process of an infrequent
product category can be considered as analogous to the species of the
and process with creating a product/service event product (Bayus, 1998); thus, it is regarded as an indicator for identifying
unprecedented while a smaller can intentionally changes in the composition of an ecosystem due to the emergence of a
performance or challenge incumbent caused in short- new species. The second event involves changes in the features of the
unknown features businesses with fewer term (Weick and
entities; therefore, an indicator for the second event is the presence of
that significantly resources—disruption ( Quinn, 1999)
affect existing Christensen, 1997b; modifications in the composition of the technological characteristics.
market (Leifer Christensen et al., 2015) The third event is related to environmental change. In product evolu­
et al., 2001) tion, product is regarded as an organism and other factors such as firms
Example Swatch (Verganti, 3.5-inch floppy disk Evolution of and consumers are considered as environmental factors (Yoon et al.,
2008) (Christensen, 1997) books from paper
Apple’s iPhone ( to e-book (
2014). The decision-making of each firm is shown in products it releases,
Christensen et al., 2015) Wagner and but the industrial environment such as the competition and the number
Rosen, 2014) of firms is considered as an external factor. Thus, it is analogized with
Feature Substantially Creation of new market by Composition of changes in the demography of firms considering new product develop­
different core bridging new features to the episodes such
ment strategies. The fourth event corresponds to a change in the
technology and consumers (Christensen, as invention and
higher consumer 1997b) scaling-up, and composition of a biological community after the emergence of an
benefits (Chandy industrial change episodic change, and thereby it is considered as the emergence of the
and Tellis, 1998) during the pre- industrial transition. In this study, the fourth event is simply shown by
emergence phase the phase transition between products belonging to the existing regime
of new industry
(i.e. feature phone), and those belonging to the emerging regime (i.e.

3
J. Yoon et al.
smartphone). Therefore, the first three episodic events are involved in
the emergence of an episodic change.
In line with previous research, episodic events are considered as
phenomena occurring in the pre-emergence phase of industrial change
(Dutrénit and Teubal, 2011). Inventions and innovations, and the
scaling-up of mutational innovations, are translated into technological
change and product speciation, which causes episodic change (Dutrénit
and Teubal, 2011). Catastrophic phenomena such as radical change and
disruptive change cause changes in demand that may affect the indus­
trial ecosystem and may lead to changes in producers’ action.
3.1.1. Technological change and product innovation
One of the most significant events in the evolutionary process is the
generation of a mutant as a result of genetic variation. A new entity
genetically different from an existing entity increases species diversity.
Since technological characteristics c are considered as genotypes of
products (Ma and Nakamori, 2005), each product category can be
distinguished by the combination of c. For example, a mobile phone
adopting touch function and that without touch function belong to
different product categories due to the adoption of touch function. An
existing product pei , in the e th product category Pe is defined in Eq. (1)
and Eq. (2).
pei = {cei1 , cei2 , ⋯, ceil }, (1)
Pe = {pe1 , pe2 , ⋯, pen }, (2)
where ceil is l th technological characteristic adopted in product pei and n
is the number of products belonging to Pe .
The number of products in the existing product category Pe shown in
Eq. (3).
∑i=n
NPe t = Npei t , (3)
i=0
where Npei t is the population of the product pi and NPe t is the population
of the product category Pe at time t. Since Pe has already been introduced
in the market, the population of Pe in previous period T-1 is not zero.
Genotypic change in product evolution means the introduction of a
new idea (Mokyr, 1990). The new idea is adopted as a form of a new
technology, leading to product innovation (Utterback and Abernathy,
1975). Product innovation is regarded as a mutation different from an
existing product, as previous research has defined the change in the
genotype as the technological change comprising a product (Ma and
Nakamori, 2005). Thus, the adoption of a new technological charac­
teristics to a new product is the most significant event to focus on when
investigating the emergence of a new product category and the envi­
ronmental change that subsequently occurs. A new product adopting
technological characteristic cfij is defined as Eq. (4) and a new product
category Pf is described in Eq. (5).
{ }
pfi = cfi1 , cfi2 , ⋯, cfil , ⋯, cfij , l < j (4)
{ }
Pf = pf 1 , pf 2 , ⋯, pfm , (5)
where cfij is the j th new technological characteristic adopted in product
pfi and m is the number of products belonging to Pf .
∑i=m
NPf t = Npfi t , (6)
i=0
∑T−
(7)
1
t=0
NPf t = 0,
where NPf t is the population of the product category Pf at time t.
The first episodic event TCT at time T, a technological change due to
the introduction of new technological characteristics, is defined as
follows:
4
Technovation 115 (2022) 102474
{ ∑T− 1
TCT =
TCT− 1 + 1, NPf T > 0, t=0
NPf t = 0
. (8)
TCT− 1 , otherwise
Since TC is cumulative and it shows the introduction of a new
technology in the industry, TCT indicates the number of technological
change occurred until time T.
The products belonging to the initial product category Pe can mutate
after the introduction of new technological characteristics ceij , which can
be considered as a one-shot mutation or can lead to later speciation. In
this process, it is assumed that the number of the technological char­
acteristics adopted in the products increases, which reflects the fact that
mutations are irreversible and species cannot return to the their former
genotype (Mokyr, 1991).
3.1.2. Product speciation
Speciation is a key event that occurs during the evolution of an or­
ganism by generating new genealogies (Schluter, 2009), which means
that multiple generations survive in the environment. In biology,
speciation occurs by genetic mutation, geographic isolation, or behav­
ioral isolation, whereas product speciation emerges through the intro­
duction of a new product with new technological characteristics. Thus,
product speciation is distinguished from mutation because it launches
innovative descendants. In other words, a mutation leading to subse­
quent products can be defined as the origin of product speciation.
Product speciation is defined as the second event in episodic change,
through which a new product category emerges within an industry. The
change in the population of the new product category is what distin­
guishes product speciation from mutation. When products with the same
combination of the technological characteristics to those of a mutant
product are launched right after the introduction of the mutant product,
product speciation has occurred. Thus, the emergence of the second
episodic event, product speciation PST at time T, is defined as follows:
{
PST− 1 + 1 , NPf T− 1 NPf T > 0
PST = , (9)
PST− 1 , otherwise
where NPf T denotes the number of products belonging to product cate­
gory Pf released at T, and the product with a new technological char­
acteristic cfij has not been released until T − 1. Since PS is cumulative
and it shows the continuous introduction of a new product belonging to
a new product category in the industry, PST indicates the number of the
product speciation occurred until time T.
3.1.3. Producer change
Product speciation after the introduction of new technological
characteristics means that a new market will be created. Previous
studies have shown that a new entrant creates breakthrough product
designs in the environment where product innovation occurs, while
incumbents release new products by incremental innovation (Davis and
Tomoda, 2018). Incumbents trigger the product speciation by intro­
ducing the mutation that becomes the origin of the product speciation
(Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Henderson, 1993; Mitchell, 1991; Mitchell
and Singh, 1993). As incumbents develop new products and may
introduce a new product with a new technological characteristic. The
success of the mutation leads to the product speciation, and incumbents’
success within a product category by technological innovation attracts a
new firm to enter the market, and incumbents begin to defend their
position (Gatignon et al., 1997). If the incumbent is in trouble to make
success from the mutation, it sticks to existing technology due to the
inertia (Chandy and Tellis, 2000), which means that the product
speciation is largely dependent on the behavior of the incumbent. In
contrast, a new entrant has an advantage in instances of product
speciation, as it is better able to adapt to the environment compared to
the incumbents and can release new products belonging to the new
product category (Bessant, 2005).
J. Yoon et al. Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

The entry of a new firm into an industry means that the output of
product speciation is likely to emerge in that industry as the new entrant
makes a strategic decision on its entry, implying expansion of the in­
dustry. The environmental change in the industry following product
speciation is regarded as the concurrent release of the new products in
the new product category. Therefore, the third episodic change, the
producer change PCT at time T, is defined as follows:
{ MP3 technology, and GPS technology were introduced before 2004. In
PCT− 1 + 1, NrPf T N(r+1)Pf T > 0
PCT = , (10)
PCT− 1 , otherwise
where NrPf t and N(r+1)Pf t released by the incumbent r and the new entrant
r + 1 are the population of the products belonging to the new product
category Pf . It means that both the incumbent r and the new entrant r+ 1
should release products belonging to Pf at time T, which indicates that
both types of firms will be likely to release new products within Pf
continuously and the industrial transition may occur afterwards. Since
PC is cumulative, PCT indicates the number of the producer change
occurred until time T.
If PCT becomes 1, episodic change is likely to occur. As an episodic
change comprises product innovation, product speciation, and the in­
dustrial environmental change, this concept is useful for identifying the
current stage in the industrial life cycle and predict the emergence of the
industrial change.
3.2. Data
The data used in this study comprise the mobile phones launched in
the Korean market from January 2004 to June 2013, including both
feature phones and smartphones. The technological characteristics of
mobile phones were gathered from the webpages of the manufacturers
and websites with product reviews, such as Cetizen (www.cetizen.com)
and OpenMobile (www.openmobile.net), following the data collection
regime of previous research (Dewenter et al., 2007; Kivi et al., 2012;
Watanabe et al., 2010). The number of mobile phones used in this study
was reduced to 763.
Table 2 describes the characteristics of the mobile phones analyzed
in this chapter. Their technological characteristics comprise the display,
Table 2
Description of the variables.
Variable Description Unit
Telecommunication Adoption of fourth generation Binary
technology telecommunication technology
Display Physical size of the screen Inch
AP chipset Performance of the main chipset of a GHz
smartphone, which executes the
operating system
AP chipset, RAM, product volume and weight, battery performance,
camera pixel, telecommunication technology, touch technology, DMB
technology, Bluetooth technology, GPS technology, smartphone OS, Wi-
Fi, and open platform of applications. Since all existing mobile phones
are equipped with a screen, RAM, volume, weight, battery, ROM, and
telecommunication technology, these characteristics were classified as
existing characteristics. Furthermore, touch technology, camera pixel,
contrast, DMB, Bluetooth, smartphone OS, Wi-Fi technologies, and the
open application platform were newly introduced technological char­
acteristics after 2004. Therefore, TC and PS were confirmed using these
characteristics. The last PC was defined as the entry of a new firm using
the firm variable.
3.3. Analytic framework
This study analyzes the pattern of episodic events in the mobile
phone industry and examines the timing of the emergence of episodic
changes by investigating the phenomena of technological change (TC),
product speciation (PS), and producer change (PC). Through the anal­
ysis, the process of episodic change in the mobile phone industry is
shown to be the result of the accumulation of changes that occurred in
the evolutionary ecosystem.
In order to provide support for this phenomenon driven by the
accumulation of the changes within the product evolution system, this
study compares the complexity of the mobile phone models. The
complexity of the mobile phones was calculated by modifying Shan­
non’s entropy, which is an index used to investigate the diversity of
entities in a system (Frenken, 2006; Wu et al., 2013) as follows:
∑b ∑b
H= a=1
za log 2 (1 / za ) = − a=1
za log 2 za (11)
where za means the probability that the entity a exists.
za in Eq. (8) is replaced by the k th technological characteristic cik of
product pi , assuming that firms tend to adopt the technologically supe­
rior product. To convert the technological characteristics of products
into the adoption rate adoptik , the value of cik is normalized to values
between 0 and 1 through max-min normalization, as follows:
cik − min(ck )
adoptik = (12)
max(ck ) − min(ck )
When adoptik is 0.3678, the contribution of the characteristics is maxi­
mized, so adoptik is multiplied by 0.3678 and the adjusted adoption rate
of each characteristics newadoptik is defined. Thus, the complexity Hi of
the product pi increases as cik rises, and is defined as follows:
∑K
Hi = − (newadoptik )log(newadoptik ). (13)
k=1

Camera pixel Resolution of the camera Million

As a result, the entropy increases as the technological characteristics
mega pixels
RAM Amount of main memory, to which read Gigabyte
increase, but the trend of the increase diminishes.
and write operations can be directed To analyze changes in the mobile phone industry, the mobile phones
Volume Case size described through three cm3 were grouped using k-means clustering. K-means clustering is a method
dimension of the smartphone (i.e., width of minimizing the variance by calculating the distance from the center of
x height x depth)
each cluster and finds clusters based on the Dunn index defined as the
Weight Weight of the smartphone 100g
Battery Amount of electric charge Ampere- ratio between the minimum distance between clusters and the maximum
hour distance within clusters.
ROM Amount of non-volatile read-only data Gigabyte ∑k=K ∑
storage V= |xv − μk |2 , (14)
MP3 MP3 technology support Binary
k=1
v∈Sk
Touch Existence of a touch screen Binary
DMB A digital radio transmission technology Binary where μk is the center of cluster k, Sk indicates a product belonging to
for sending multimedia
Bluetooth Existence of the Bluetooth technology Binary
cluster k. Sk belongs to the nearest cluster μk by calculating the
GPS Existence of GPS hardware Binary Euclidean distance, and μk is continuously updated by the center of mass
Smartphone OS Adoption of smartphone OS Binary of products engaged in cluster k until becoming stable.
Wi-Fi Adoption of Wi-Fi technology Binary
Open application Adoption of open application platform Binary
platform

5
J. Yoon et al. Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

4. Result the first half of 2005, the second half of 2005, the second half of 2007,
and the second half of 2009, respectively. The cumulative number of TCs
Among recent high-tech products, episodic change can be observed was 5 by the second half of 2009, the time when the last new techno­
in the evolutionary process of mobile phones. The mobile phone market logical characteristic was added.
is characterized by a short product lifecycle, rapid changes in the tech­ Next, PS in the mobile phone industry has occurred four times. DMB
nology and the environment, and widespread variety and high fre­ technology triggered the first PS in the second half of 2004. The second
quency of product innovation (Wirtz et al., 2007); thus, this framework PS emerged as a result of Bluetooth technology in the first half of 2005.
is useful for identifying the patterns of innovation that occur during the The third PS occurred in response to the smartphone OS and the Wi-Fi
evolutionary process as Drosophila (fruit fly) is used to explain the fast technology. The smartphone OS was introduced in the second half of
evolution in biology due to its short generation time. 2005, but subsequent products adopting a smartphone OS had not yet
Incremental innovation improves the technological characteristics of been released; therefore, this is regarded as a mutation. Subsequently,
products, whereas radical innovation is defined as the introduction of mobile phones adopting a smartphone OS appeared in the second half of
novel technological characteristics into products (OECD/Eurostat, 2007 and the first half of 2008, forming a new category of products with
2005). Examples of radical innovation occurring in the mobile phone smartphone OSs. Wi-Fi technology also penetrated into the market in the
market include the introduction of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Touch, and the second half of 2007, and subsequent products with Wi-Fi technology
smartphone OS. The most successful among these technologies was the were launched in the first half of 2008, constituting a new product
smartphone OS, which led to the beginning of the smartphone industry. category. The last PS occurred in the second half of 2009 due to the
Apple’s iPhone 3 was the product that made the biggest contribution to continuing launch of products with an open application platform.
the transition from the feature phone market to the smartphone market. Finally, it appears that new firms entered the mobile phone industry
In the first half of 2009, before the launch of the iPhone 3, the Windows in the first half of 2009 and the second half of 2009. During this period,
Mobile OS had already been adopted in smartphones, so considering the both the new entrants and incumbents released new products belonging
technological characteristics of the product, the iPhone 3 can hardly be to new product categories with smartphone OSs and an open application
regarded as the result of radical innovation. However, after the launch of platform. In other words, as different types of firms launched products in
the iPhone 3, the number of smartphones that adopted the Android OS the new product category, it can be said that producer change has been
increased abruptly, contributing to the emergence of the industry, as occurred in 2009H1 and 2009H2 (PC2009H1 =1, PC2009H2 = 2). Therefore,
previous research has argued that Apple’s iPhone yielded a disruptive episodic change can be seen to have occurred after the first half of 2009,
innovation (Christensen et al., 2015). when TC2009H1 was 4, PS2009H1 was 3, and PC2009H1 was above 0.
Even though Apple’s iPhone seems to have contributed to the From the first half of 2004 to the time that the episodic change
emergence of a new industry, this analysis is the result of an ex-post occurred, the introduction of new technological characteristics was
investigation. Therefore, this section investigates the emergence of a relatively frequent, with a probability of about 42 percent. The new
new industry in light of episodic change by using the indicators for product species–beyond one-shot mutation– emerged with a probability
episodic events proposed in Section 3.1. of about 33 percent. The probability of environmental change due to a
new entrant was about 17 percent. To summarize, the introduction of
new technological characteristics and the speciation of the existing
4.1. Emergence of the episodic change in the Korean mobile phone product categories into new product categories were continuously
industry attempted by existing firms, and episodic change emerged as new en­
trants gave signals about the emergence of a new industry and market,
To identify episodic change in the mobile phone industry, the in­ after which the incumbents coped with the industrial changes resulting
dicators proposed in Section 3.1. were used. We only count the emer­ from those signals.
gence of a new technological characteristic, a new product in a new
product category, and a new entrant that releases new products in a new 4.2. Comparison of the patterns of industrial transition: product
product category, regardless of its value and numbers. The first indicator demography
identifies changes in the adoption of new technological characteristics in
the mobile phones. The second indicator confirms the timing of the To analyze product demography, we count the number of different
emergence of PS. Finally, the last indicator shows the timing at which products and the number of incumbents and entrants. Fig. 1 shows the
both incumbents and a new entrant release new products belonging to introduction of technologies and the emergence of new product cate­
the new product category. gories. Products that consisted of existing technological characteristics
Table 3 shows the emergence of episodic events. First, the techno­ occupied the majority until the first half of 2006, but since the second
logical characteristics introduced in the mobile phone industry since half of 2006, the number of mobile phones with Bluetooth increased.
2004 were DMB, Bluetooth, smartphone OS, Wi-Fi, and the open New product categories emerged due to the introduction of new tech­
application platform, which were introduced in the second half of 2004, nologies. In the first half of 2009, when the episodic change is thought to
have occurred, it seems that mobile phones with Bluetooth and touch
Table 3 technology, those with Bluetooth only, and those with all four new
Emergence of the episodic events. technological characteristics were relatively equally produced. Since
Time (t) TCt PSt PCt then, however, the population of mobile phones with the five new
technological characteristics has increased, taking up a larger propor­
2004H1 0 0 0
2004H2 1 (DMB) 1 (DMB) 0
tion than products belonging to other categories. These changes
2005H1 2 (Bluetooth) 2 (Bluetooth) 0 occurred slowly, but a shift of the major product category occurred from
2005H2 3 (OS) 2 0 the existing product category to a new product category. The result in­
2006H1 3 2 0 dicates that before the episodic change, several episodic events with
2006H2 3 2 0
incremental changes led to the emergence of new products and new
2007H1 3 2 0
2007H2 4 (Wi-Fi) 3 (OS and Wi-Fi) 0 industries.
2008H1 4 3 0 Fig. 2 shows the new products released by firms before the emer­
2008H2 4 3 0 gence of the episodic change. Fig. 2 briefly presents information on the
2009H1 4 3 1 (HTC) change in the type of mobile phones from non-smartphone OSs to
2009H2 5 (Open platform) 4 (Open platform) 2 (Apple)
smartphone OSs. The number of types of mobile phones increased

6
J. Yoon et al. Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

Fig. 1. Technological change and emergence of new product category.

Fig. 2. New products released according to the entry mode.

between the first half of 2004 and the second half of 2008, although a
temporary decrease occurred in the second half of 2007. During this
period, all products were released by incumbents, and the incumbents
survived until the third episodic event emerged. In other words, the
incumbents continuously released new products for survival before the
episodic change occurred.
Fig. 3 shows the number of products adopting new technological
characteristics—new product categories—released by incumbents and
new entrants. Before the episodic change, the incumbents continued to
adopt new technological characteristics. In the second half of 2005,
Curitel, the predecessor of Pantech, released a mobile phone with
Windows Mobile OS. In the second half of 2007, it was found that
Samsung, the incumbent, expanded PS by generating new product cat­
egories in which Wi-Fi and an OS were introduced. After the emergence
of the third episodic event, incumbents such as LG and Nokia launched
products belonging to new product categories, and the number of new
entrants started to increase, which is a typical pattern of the emergence
of a new industry. To summarize, these changes—the episodic

7
J. Yoon et al.
Fig. 3. New products in new product categories released according to the entry mode.
events—led to the emergence of an episodic change with a high likeli­
hood of creating a new industry.
4.3. Comparison of the patterns of industrial transition: product
complexity approach
To calculate the complexity, the value and performance of techno­
logical characteristics are used as it indicates the advancement of the
technology level. Fig. 4 presents the result of k-means clustering using
the calculated complexity of each product and the portion of each cluster
per year. The average product complexity of Cluster 1, Cluster 2, and
Cluster 3 were found to be 2.354, 3.779, and 7.070, respectively. The
complexity of Cluster 2 was about 1.6 times higher than that of Cluster 1,
and that of Cluster 3 was about 1.87 times higher than that of Cluster 2.
Most mobile phones in 2004 were included in Cluster 1. Since then, the
share of Cluster 2 had inclined, and mobile phones belonging to Cluster
3 were launched starting in 2008. Since the first PC occurred in 2009,
firms have increased in the introduction of new mobile phones
belonging to Cluster 3, and the proportion of Cluster 3 increased by 77
percent in 2011, which is considered to be the period after the episodic
change.
Fig. 5 shows trends in changes in product complexity. Product
complexity increased slowly before the episodic change. However, after
Fig. 4. Change in the composition of clusters.
8
Technovation 115 (2022) 102474
the episodic change, the slope increased rapidly. This can be attributed
to the change in the technological characteristics adopted in the prod­
ucts of the corresponding cluster. Even if products with high product
complexity were released before the episodic change, their contribution
was not significant due to their small population. After the emergence of
the episodic change, product complexity increased by about 10 percent
more than the complexity of the existing feature phones. Until 2008, the
complexity of the overall mobile phone industry could be represented by
the complexity of feature phones, as the number of mobile phones with
new technological characteristics was relatively small compared to the
number of existing feature phones. Then, the number of feature phones
released after the episodic change decreased and the proportion of
smartphones in the mobile phone industry increased. In other words, the
mobile phone industry may appear to have changed dramatically in
response to the episodic change. However, a detailed analysis of the
changes in the industry due to the changes in products shows that the
changes in the mobile phone industry were caused by TCs before the
episodic change, and the drivers of that change were accumulated by
product innovation.
4.4. Discussion
The episodic change in the Korean mobile phone industry is shown to
have taken place after the first half of 2009. New products with a
smartphone OS and those with the open application platform were
launched by both incumbents and new entrants in the first half of 2009
and the second half of 2009, respectively, showing that both the
smartphone OS and the open application platform were key to the
emergence of the episodic change. The trends of product complexity in
the Korean mobile phone industry also show that the episodic change
occurred immediately after 2009.
Fig. 6 shows when the industrial transition in the Korean mobile
phone market emerged. Since first TC and PS occurred in 2004H2, first
PC rose in 2009H1, which means that the episodic change in the market
has continued from 2004H2 and industrial transition would occur after
2009H1. In the market, industrial transition occurred in 2010H2 as the
major regime in the market becomes the smartphone regime from the
feature phone regime.
In detail, as shown in Fig. 1, the open application platform played a
crucial role in the emergence of the episodic change. A product with a
J. Yoon et al. Technovation 115 (2022) 102474

Fig. 5. Trend of complexity change.

Fig. 6. Industrial transition in the Korean mobile phone market.

smartphone OS was first introduced in 2005 by adopting Windows
Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Smartphone. Following it, numerous
incumbents released new products with Window Mobile OS (Windows
Mobile 6.0, Windows Mobile 6.1, and Windows Mobile 6.5). Despite the
fact that products with Window Mobile OS were called smartphones,
they did not have a significant impact on the Korean mobile phone in­
dustry. When new products with an open application platform, such as
the iPhone 3 GS, were first introduced in the second half of 2009, in­
cumbents and the following new entrants adopted the open application
platform, leading to a significant increase in the product complexity. As
a result, Apple, which launched the iPhone 3 GS with an open applica­
tion platform, is considered to be the pioneer of the smartphone era, as
discussed by Christensen et al. (2015).
In addition to the role of the new entrant, Apple, the incumbents also
contributed to the emergence of the episodic change. The incumbents
launched new products with new technological characteristics. In the
Korean mobile phone market, mobile phones with DMB technology were
introduced starting in the second half of 2004. Curitel first launched PH-
1000V, a mobile phone with DMB technology, and even after the
episodic change, incumbents continued to release products with DMB
technology. Furthermore, several mobile phones with Bluetooth tech­
nology, such as the KF1000 by LG, the SPH-V6900 by Samsung, and the
PH-S6000 by Curitel, were also introduced beforehand. Following these
TCs and the PS, Curitel launched the PH-S8000T, the first smartphone
with Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Smartphone, and Sam­
sung released the SCHM620 with both Wi-Fi technology and a smart­
phone OS. These products are considered to be triggers of the episodic
change, as they contributed to the speciation of products. Even after
Apple entered the market by introducing the iPhone3GS with its open
application platform, the incumbents released new products by

9
J. Yoon et al.
combining the technological characteristics they had adopted with the
open application platform. Thus, the continuous trials of the incumbents
formed the cornerstone of the emergence of the episodic change.
To sum up, the introduction of new technologies in the mobile phone
industry, the explosion of the population of new types of mobile phones
with new technologies, and the new entrants with new product species
have made the emergence of the episodic change in the mobile phone
industry. In other words, the episodic change can be predicted by
capturing the emergence of the three types of episodic events.
The meaning of the episodic change is to investigate the industrial
transition caused by the cumulative events such as technological inno­
vation, product innovation, and the changes in the composition of in­
cumbents and new entrants. Technological innovation in the mobile
phone market such as the introduction of the OS and the open appli­
cation platform explains the possible changes in the technological tra­
jectories in the mobile phone industry, but does not guarantee the
emergence of the new technological trajectories nor the industrial
change. Product speciation such as the emergence of the new population
of mobile phones with the OS shows the new path of evolution in the
mobile phone industry, but does not illustrate the transition of the in­
dustry since the agents in the industry have routinized behavior. A new
firm producing old-fashioned products is likely to follow strategies of
incumbents in decision-making process, which may not change the in­
dustrial environment. Thus, it can be difficult to explain and anticipate
the industrial transition by only using a single event. In this respect, the
episodic change is helpful to predict the industrial transition by ex-ante
monitoring events at multiple levels; technological change, product
speciation, and producer change.
5. Conclusion
This study proposes a new approach to capturing industrial transi­
tion by using the concept of episodic change. We develop proxies for the
phenomena with three driving forces, introduction of new technological
characteristics, product speciation caused by the emergence of a new
product category, and the entry of new firms. The indicators are applied
to explain an instance of episodic change in the Korean mobile phone
market. It demonstrates the importance of the introduction of iPhone,
which has been referred to as disruptive innovation by Christensen et al.
(2015). Thus, the indicators proposed in this study can contribute to
analyses of the emergence of episodic changes.
This study also contributes to the analysis of episodic events at
multiple levels and the environmental changes before an episodic
change. After the accumulation of technological changes, and sequential
product speciation events in response to those changes, episodic change
occurred through new entrants that promote the environmental change
in the industry. It can be considered that the episodic change is caused
by the accumulation of earlier events at multiple levels. Furthermore,
incumbents continued their efforts to generate new species, new prod­
ucts belonging to a new product category, before the entry of new firms.
Radical innovations in products occur due to continuous product inno­
vation by the incumbents, but it seems that new entrants make a greater
contribution to product innovation that leads to product speciation.
Incumbents strongly depend on their inertia which may easily lead to
the locked-in to the release of the existing products (Chandy and Tellis,
2000), and they may fall behind compared to the challenging new en­
trants (Lee and Malerba, 2017). The emergence of a new technology and
the new entrant enable incumbents to break their inertia–competency
destroying (Tushman and Anderson, 1986). Even though the compe­
tency destroying technology rarely emerges (Danneels et al., 2017), the
new entrant motivates incumbents to develop and to adopt a new
technology continuously. Therefore, it can be said that the emergence of
a new industrial environment and the resulting changes in the market is
likely to occur in response to new entrants.
In addition to the technological innovation and product innovation,
industrial transition is a matter of a new entrant’s attitude. Without new
10
Technovation 115 (2022) 102474
entrants, incumbents would continuously release products which they
had previously released due to their decision-making routines. As new
entrants engage in a market and threaten incumbents, incumbents start
to reconsider both new product development strategy and market
strategy. Incumbents would continue to release products with the con­
ventional way when they realize that the new entrants follow their
strategy, which is unlikely to emerge an industrial change. Only when a
new entrant signals its heterogeneity to incumbents by the release of
fully innovative products, incumbents would cope with the industrial
change by changing their routines.
This study has several implications in both academia and policy.
First, we propose a novel approach to capture precursors for industrial
transition and indices for the change. The indices can be applied to
investigate future industrial transition and help firms monitor threats in
both market and industry. This study helps policy-makers to establish
industrial policies on new growth engines by creating a new industry.
The findings of this research lead to the proposal that the government
should encourage firms that have been involved in another industry and
can launch new products in a new product category to enter a new in­
dustry. Furthermore, we expect that the government can strengthen the
incumbents by promoting the new entry outside of the industry. To
create new products and a new industry, the competency destroying of
incumbents by the new entrants is important, so the government con­
trols the entry of the new firms. Finally yet importantly, the indices may
help policy-makers to monitor industrial changes and capture the
possible industrial transition. As industry is getting dramatically
changing, the government needs to rapidly establish the industrial pol­
icy and amend the regulation. The adoption of the concept and the
indices of the episodic change can contribute to setting up the govern­
mental plan.
This study has limitations as follows. We do not take into account the
attributes of the new entrants. In reality, most new entrants have ad­
vantages over existing ones because they enter the industry with factors
that can lead to success. However, the attributes of the new entrants
analyzed herein are difficult to quantitatively measure and analyze.
Thus, future research will need to consider the attributes of the new
entrants that affect episodic change. Second, this study only focused on
the episodic changes in the mobile phone industry. In order to generalize
the concept of the episodic change, it needs to be applied to the other
industries which have changed enormously, such as the automotive
industry. Third, this study focused on the micro- and meso-level phe­
nomena as it analyzed the technological characteristics and features of
firms. Thus, future research will need to develop the model by
expanding the linkages and scopes to macro-level phenomena.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No.
2017R1A2B4009376).
Acknowledgements
This paper was modified and developed from the Ph.D. thesis of the
first author.
References
Adner, R., Levinthal, D.A., 2002. The emergence of emerging technologies. Calif. Manag.
Rev. 45 (1), 50–66.
Ansari, S., Krop, P., 2012. Incumbent performance in the face of a radical innovation:
towards a framework for incumbent challenger dynamics. Res. Pol. 41 (8),
1357–1374.
Avnimelech, G., Teubal, M., 2006. Creating venture capital industries that co-evolve with
high tech : insights from an extended industry life cycle perspective of the Israeli
experience. Res. Pol. 35 (10), 1477–1498.
Bayus, B.L., 1998. An analysis of product lifetimes in a technologically dynamic industry.
Manag. Sci. 44 (6), 763–775.
J. Yoon et al.
Beinhocker, E., 2006. The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical
Remaking of Economics. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Bergek, A., Berggren, C., Magnusson, T., Hobday, M., 2013. Technological discontinuities
and the challenge for incumbent firms: destruction, disruption or creative
accumulation? Res. Pol. 42 (6–7), 1210–1224.
Bessant, J., 2005. Enabling continuous and discontinuous innovation: learning from the
private sector. Publ. Money Manag. 25 (1), 35–42.
Boero, F., 1996. Episodic events: their relevance to ecology and evolution. Mar. Ecol. 17
(1–3), 237–250.
Chandy, R.K., Tellis, G.J., 1998. Organizing for radical product innovation: the
overlooked role of willingness to cannibalize. J. Market. Res. 35 (4), 474–487.
Chandy, R.K., Tellis, G.J., 2000. The incumbent’s curse? incumbency, size, and radical
product innovation. J. Market. 64 (3), 1–17.
Christensen, C., 1997a. Patterns in the evolution of product competition. Eur. Manag. J.
15 (2), 117–127.
Christensen, C., 1997b. The Innovator’s Dilemma: when New Technologies Cause Great
Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA.
Christensen, C., Raynor, M.E., McDonald, R., 2015. What is disruptive innovation? Harv.
Bus. Rev. 93 (12), 44–53.
Christensen, C., Rosenbloom, R., 1995. Explaining the attacker’s advantage:
technological paradigms, organizational dynamics, and the value network. Res. Pol.
24 (2), 233–257.
Coccia, M., 2016. Radical innovations as drivers of breakthroughs: characteristics and
properties of the management of technology leading to superior organisational
performance in the discovery process of R&D labs. Technol. Anal. Strat. Manag. 28
(4), 381–395.
Cozzolino, A., Rothaermel, F.T., 2018. Discontinuities, competition, and cooperation:
coopetitive dynamics between incumbents and entrants. September 2017 Strat.
Manag. J. 1–33.
Dahlin, K.B., Behrens, D.M., 2005. When is an invention really radical?: defining and
measuring technological radicalness. Res. Pol. 34 (5), 717–737.
Danneels, E., Verona, G., Provera, B., 2017. Overcoming the inertia of organizational
competence: Olivetti’s transition from mechanical to electronic technology. Ind.
Corp. Change 27 (3), 595–618.
Davies, A., 1997. The life cycle of a complex product system. Int. J. Innovat. Manag. 1
(3), 229–256.
Davis, C., Tomoda, Y., 2018. Competing incremental and breakthrough innovation in a
model of product evolution. J. Econ. 123 (3), 225–247.
Dewenter, R., Haucap, J., Luther, R., Rötzel, P., 2007. Hedonic prices in the German
market for mobile phones. Telecommun. Pol. 31 (1), 4–13.
Dutrénit, G., Teubal, M., 2011. Coevolution, emergence and economic development:
some lessons from the Israeli and Mexican experience. In: Antonelli, C. (Ed.),
Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change. Edward Elgar
Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 451–491.
Eggers, J.P., Park, K.F., 2018. Incumbent adaptation to technological change: the past,
present, and future of research on heterogeneous incumbent response. Acad. Manag.
Ann. 12 (1), 357–389.
Ettlie, J.E., Rubenstein, A.H., 1987. Firm size and product innovation. J. Prod. Innovat.
Manag. 4 (2), 89–108.
Frenken, K., 2006. Innovation, Evolution and Complexity Theory. Edward Elgar
Publishing, Cheltenham, UK.
Frenken, K., Van Oort, F., Verburg, T., 2007. Related variety, unrelated variety and
regional economic growth. Reg. Stud. 41 (5), 685–697.
Gatignon, H., Robertson, T.S., Fein, A.J., 1997. Incumbent defense strategies against new
product entry. Int. J. Res. Market. 14 (2), 163–176.
Geels, F.W., 2002. Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a
multi-level perspective and a case-study. Res. Pol. 31 (8–9), 1257–1274.
Geels, F.W., 2010. Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the
multi-level perspective. Res. Pol. 39 (4), 495–510.
Geels, F.W., 2014. Reconceptualising the co-evolution of firms-in-industries and their
environments: developing an inter-disciplinary Triple Embeddedness Framework.
Res. Pol. 43 (2), 261–277.
Giachetti, C., Marchi, G., 2017. Successive changes in leadership in the worldwide
mobile phone industry: the role of windows of opportunity and firms’ competitive
action. Res. Pol. 46 (2), 365–375.
Glynn, P.W., de Weerdt, W.H., 1991. Elimination of two reef-building hydrocorals
following the 1982-83 El Niño warming event. Science 253 (5015), 69–71.
11
Technovation 115 (2022) 102474
Griffin, J.J., Prakash, A., 2014. Corporate responsibility: initiatives and mechanisms.
Bus. Soc. 53 (4), 465–482.
Guo, J., Pan, J., Guo, J., Gu, F., Kuusisto, J., 2019. Measurement framework for assessing
disruptive innovations. April 2018 Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 139, 250–265.
Henderson, R., 1993. Underinvestment and incompetence as responses to radical
innovation: evidence from the photolithographic alignment equipment industry.
Rand J. Econ. 24 (2), 248–270.
Henderson, R., Clark, K.B., 1990. Architectural innovation: the reconfiguration of
existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. Adm. Sci. Q. 35
(1), 9–30.
Kivi, A., Smura, T., Töyli, J., 2012. Technology product evolution and the diffusion of
new product features. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 79 (1), 107–126.
Lee, K., Malerba, F., 2017. Catch-up cycles and changes in industrial leadership: windows
of opportunity and responses of firms and countries in the evolution of sectoral
systems. Res. Pol. 46 (2), 338–351.
Leifer, R., O ’connor, G.C., Rice, M., 2001. Implementing radical innovation in mature
firms: the role of hubs. Acad. Manag. Exec. 15 (3), 102–113.
Levinthal, D.A., 1998. The slow pace of rapid technological change: gradualism and
punctuation in technological change, 1985 Ind. Corp. Change 7, 217–248.
Lyytinen, K., Newman, M., 2008. Explaining information systems change: a punctuated
socio-technical change model. Eur. J. Inf. Syst. 17 (6), 589–613.
Ma, T., Nakamori, Y., 2005. Agent-based modeling on technological innovation as an
evolutionary process. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 166 (3), 741–755.
Mitchell, W., 1991. Dual clocks: entry order influences on incumbent and newcomer
market share and survival when specialized assets retain their value. Strat. Manag. J.
12 (2), 85–100.
Mitchell, W., Singh, K., 1993. Death of the lethargic: effects of expansion into new
technical subfields on performance in a firm’s base business. Organ. Sci. 4 (2),
152–180.
Mokyr, J., 1990. Punctuated equilibria and technological progress. Am. Econ. Rev. 80
(2), 350–354.
Mokyr, J., 1991. Evolutionary biology, technological change and economic history. Bull.
Econ. Res. 43 (2), 127–149.
OECD/Eurostat, 2005. Oslo Manual: Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting
Innovation Data, third ed. OECD Publishing, Paris, France.
Orihata, M., Watanabe, C., 2000. Evolutional dynamics of product innovation: the case of
consumer electronics. Technovation 20 (8), 437–449.
Perez, C., Soete, L., 1988. Catching up in technology: entry barriers and windows of
opportunity. In: Dosi, G., Freeman, C., Nelson, R., Silverberg, G., Soete, L. (Eds.),
Technical Change and Economic Theory. Pinter Publishers, London, pp. 458–479.
Roy, R., Lampert, C.M., Stoyneva, I., 2018. When dinosaurs fly: the role of firm
capabilities in the ‘avianization’ of incumbents during disruptive technological
change. Strat. Entrepren. J. 12 (2), 261–284.
Schluter, D., 2009. Evidence for ecological speciation and its alternative. Science 323
(5915), 737–741.
Schumpeter, J.A., 1934. The Theory of Economic Development. NP Transaction
Publishers, New Brunswick.
Tushman, M.L., Anderson, P., 1986. Technological discontinuities and organizational
environments. Adm. Sci. Q. 31 (3), 439–465.
Utterback, J.M., Abernathy, W.J., 1975. A dynamic model of process and product
innovation. Omega 3 (6), 639–656.
Verganti, R., 2008. Design, meanings, and radical innovation: a metamodel and a
research agenda. J. Prod. Innovat. Manag. 25 (5), 436–456.
Wagner, A., Rosen, W., 2014. Spaces of the possible: universal Darwinism and the wall
between technological and biological innovation. J. R. Soc. Interface 11 (97), 1–11.
Wallace, R., 2014. A new formal perspective on “Cambrian explosions.”. Comptes Rendus
Biol. 337 (1), 1–5.
Watanabe, N., Nakajima, R., Ida, T., 2010. Quality-adjusted prices of Japanese mobile
phone handsets and carriers’ strategies. Rev. Ind. Organ. 36 (4), 391–412.
Weick, K.E., Quinn, R.E., 1999. Organizational change and development. Annu. Rev.
Psychol. 50, 361–386.
Wirtz, B.W., Mathieu, A., Schilke, O., 2007. Strategy in high-velocity environments.
Long. Range Plan. 40 (3), 295–313.
Wu, Y.R., Huatuco, L.H., Frizelle, G., Smart, J., 2013. A method for analysing operational
complexity in supply chains. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 64 (5), 654–667.