Knowledge that Transforms

This paper investigates how the structure of cooperation in an industry influences the dynamics of entry by start-up firms. Competition over technological dominance induces the entry of start-up firms into new subfields as incumbent firms seek to expand the consumer base using their technology. By cooperating, incumbent firms succeed to varying degrees in establishing their technologies as a dominant standard by building central positions in a cooperative network. Start-ups tend to enter, however, if there is reasonable certainty that a dominant technology has been established. We find strong support for the relationship between network centrality, as a measure of technological dominance of a standard, and the entry of start-up firms into the semiconductor industry.

This paper investigates the career progress of scientists at ‘major and minor universities’ once they have chosen to participate in the development of an emerging field, posing three fundamental questions: (1) are scientists who are involved in the early stages of a field's development and who persist more likely to graduate from more prestigious universities? (2) In an emerging field, do graduates from prestigious universities pursue career paths that differ from the ones pursued by their peers from less prestigious institutions? (3) Are graduates from prestigious universities who choose academic careers more likely to find employment at prestigious universities? Empirical evidence is provided on the career progress of 373 scientists working in the field of neural networks, graduating from US universities. The prestige of a scientist's graduate school is found to be a significant indicator of the prestige of his or her academic appointment in the initial five years after graduation. Beyond five years, the effect of graduate school prestige becomes non-significant. Whether one entered the field before or after it gained widespread legitimacy in the scientific community apparently does not affect subsequent career progress in terms of institutional prestige.

In this paper we argue that the ‘standard’ view of the relationship between military and civilian technology is too simple and cannot account for the variety of historical experiences. In order to understand this relationship, attention must be paid to two things: that technologies have a lifecycle, in different parts of which different types of learning are important; and that the relationship between military and civilian sectors will change depending on the nature of the technology involved, in particular whether it is a process or a product technology. In addition, the standard view does not pay heed to the fact that there are specific organizational requirements to realize any potential cross-benefits. We describe a framework with which to analyse the various features of the relationship taking into account these considerations.

Product architecture is the scheme by which the function of a product is allocated to physical components. This paper further defines product architecture, provides a typology of product architectures, and articulates the potential linkages between the architecture of the product and five areas of managerial importance: (1) product change; (2) product variety; (3) component standardization; (4) product performance; and (5) product development management. The paper is conceptual and foundational, synthesizing fragments from several different disciplines, including software engineering, design theory, operations management and product development management. The paper is intended to raise awareness of the far-reaching implications of the architecture of the product, to create a vocabulary for discussing and addressing the decisions and issues that are linked to product architecture, and to identify and discuss specific trade-offs associated with the choice of a product architecture.