Types and Patterns of Innovation

11 important questions on Types and Patterns of Innovation

What is the difference between product innovation and process innovation?

Product innovations are embodied in the outputs of an organization - its goods or services. While process innovations are innovations in the way an organization conducts its business.

Why do product- and process innovations often occur in tandem?

- New processes may enable the production of new products
- New products may enable the development of new processes
- A product innovation for one firm may simultaneously be a process innovation for another

What is the difference between radical and incremental innovations?

Radical innovations would be new to the world and exceptionally different from existing products and processes. While incremental innovation might not be particularly new or exceptional. It might have been previously known to the firm or industry, and involve only a minor change from existing practices.
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What are the differences between competence-enhancing innovation and comptence-destroying innovation?

An innovation is considered to be competence enhancing from the perspective of a particular firm if it builds on the firm's existing knowledge base. An innovation is considered to be competence destroying from the perspective of a particular firm if the technology does not build on the firm’s existing competencies or renders them obsolete.

What is the difference between architectural innovation and component innovation?


An innovation is considered a component innovation (or modular innovation) if it entails changes to one or more components, but does not significantly affect the overall configuration of the system. In contrast, an architectural innovation entails changing the overall design of the system or the way that components interact with each other.

What is an discontinuous technology?


Technologies do not always get the opportunity to reach their limits; they may be rendered obsolete by new, discontinuous technologies. A new innovation is discontinuous when it fulfills a similar market need, but does so by building on an entirely new knowledge base.

What is shown in the meaning of the s-curve in technological improvement?

When the effort, time and money, put in a technology are plotted there is often first slow improvement, then accelerated and then diminishing. If however a deeper understanding of the technology is gained the development starts to accelerate. It is seen as more legitimate and it will attract new researchers. Also more evaluation methods are known, making it possible to put the effort where it is needed. When the technology begins to face its limits the curve will diminish. The cost of marginal improvements begin to rise, flatting the curve.

What is the meaning of a discontinuous technology?

A technology is discontinuous when it fulfills a similar market need by building an entirely new knowledge base (from propeller to jet-engine). It might be that the discontinuous technology in the beginning has less power than the older ones (first steam cars).

What does an s-curve in technology diffusion mean?


S-curves in technology diffusion are obtained by plotting the cumulative number of adopters of the technology against time. This yields an s-shape curve because adoption is initially slow when an unfamiliar technology is introduced to the market; it accelerates as the technology becomes better understood and utilized by the mass market, and eventually the market is saturated so the rate of new adoptions declines.

For what kind of purposes is a s-curve usefull for a manager?


They could use these curves to assess whether a technology appears to be approaching its limits or to identify new technologies that might be emerging on s-curves that will intersect the firm’s technology s-curve. Managers could then switch s-curves by acquiring or developing the new technology. However, as a
prescriptive tool, the s-curve model has several serious limitations.

What are the sections a s-curve consists of?

- Period of turbulence
- Rapid improvement
- Diminishing returns
- Ultimately replacement  by new technologies

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