Laggard strategy: why a firm is sometimes better off lagging the technology frontier

This dissertation focuses on using organizational capabilities and the anticipated economic payoff from innovation to explain and predict the dynamics of a technological laggard's behavior. The firm capabilities research that focuses on organizational capabilities suggests that a technological laggard has to innovate, while the competitive dynamics research focuses on the anticipated economic payoff that a technological laggard can gain from innovating. Together, the central hypothesis in this dissertation is that a firm is more likely to remain a technological laggard if doing so enables the firm to better utilize its current organizational capabilities, and if it anticipates a better economic payoff by remaining a technological laggard than by becoming a technological leader in innovation. A technological laggard chooses to move to the technology frontier when it has the capabilities to realize the anticipated economic payoff. Using panel data from the flat panel display industry for the 1991-2008 period, I empirically corroborate the hypothesis. This dissertation provides a more complete picture than the extant literature of a technological laggard's behavior by combining the firm capabilities research with competitive dynamics research.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Wang, I-Chen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hoetker, Glenn P.
• Mahoney, Joseph T.
• Bercovitz, Janet E.L.
• Echambadi, Rajagopal

• technological laggards
• technological capabilities
• competitive dynamics

Statement dc:rights

• technological laggards, technological capabilities, competitive dynamics

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31958

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/31958