Essays on technology recombination and search in industry evolution: analyses of innovations in the smartphone industry

Abstract

This dissertation investigates when and how firms generate new product innovations in the context of the smartphone industry. Particularly, we examine how product component recombination, technological search, product component reuse, and industry lifecycle affect firms’ generation of new product innovation by the following three aspects. In the first essay, we investigate how two experiences of technology search and product component reuse singly and jointly drive firms to generate subsequent new product innovations. We find that firms’ product component reuses have multifaceted effects on new product innovations, and that the alignment of firms’ experiences with technology search and product component reuse is critical in shaping new product innovations. In the second essay, we investigate how performance above or below aspirations motivates firms to generate radical product innovation in the new industry. We find that the driving forces of firms to develop radical product innovations are contingent on the early and late stages of the industry lifecycle. In the third essay, we investigate how different component combinations lead to firms’ survival and product success. We find that firms generating innovation hinged on prior knowledge can survive longer and achieve product success. We corroborate our hypotheses using data on patents of smartphone manufacturing firms and components of smartphone devices introduced worldwide from 2006 to 2018. We find broad support for our hypotheses.