The incumbent's curse? Incumbency, size, and radical product innovation
The incumbent's curse? Incumbency, size, and radical product innovation
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DOI：
10.1509/jmkg.64.3.1.18033
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发表时间：
2000-07-01
影响因子：
12.9
通讯作者：
Tellis, GJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chandy, RK;Tellis, GJ
创新领域的一种普遍看法是，现有的大型公司很少推出激进的产品创新。这类公司倾向于通过相对渐进的创新来巩固自己的市场地位。他们甚至可能会拒绝那些提出激进创新的企业家，尽管他们自己也有这样的创业根源。因此，激进的创新往往来自小公司，即局外人。这一论断，我们称之为“在位者的诅咒”，在学术和大众对激进创新的描述中被普遍接受。这个话题很重要，因为激进的产品创新是经济增长的引擎，它创造了整个行业，击倒了巨头，同时使小公司一举成为市场领导者。然而，对文献的回顾表明，现任总统诅咒的证据是基于轶事和高度专业化创新的零星案例研究。目前还不清楚它是否在几个产品类别中广泛应用。作者通过对耐用消费品和办公产品类别中相对大量的激进创新的历史分析，重新审视了现任总统的诅咒，特别是试图回答以下问题：(1)这种现象有多普遍？现任者与非现任者引入的激进创新的比例是多少？与大公司相比，小公司引入的激进创新的比例是多少？(2)这种现象是不是总是困扰着当前行业中的大公司？它是由在职人员还是规模驱动的？以及(3)这种现象的一致性如何？随着时间的推移，公司规模和复杂性的增加是否加剧了这一点？它是否因国界而异？研究结果表明，关于现任总统诅咒的传统观点可能并不总是正确的。
A common perception in the field of innovation is that large, incumbent firms rarely introduce radical product innovations. Such firms tend to solidify their market positions with relatively incremental innovations. They may even turn away entrepreneurs who come up with radical innovations, though they themselves had such entrepreneurial roots. As a result, radical innovations tend to come from small firms, the outsiders. This thesis, which we term the "incumbent's curse" is commonly accepted in academic and popular accounts of radical innovation. This topic is important, because radical product innovation is an engine of economic growth that has created entire industries and brought down giants while catapulting small firms to market leadership. Yet a review of the literature suggests that the evidence for the incumbent's curse is based on anecdotes and scattered case studies of highly specialized innovations. It is not clear if it applies widely across several product categories. The authors reexamine the incumbent's curse using a historical analysis of a relatively large number of radical innovations in the consumer durables and office products categories, In particular, the authors seek to answer the following questions: (1) How prevalent is this phenomenon? What percentage of radical innovations do incumbents versus nonincumbents introduce? What percentage of radical innovations do small firms versus large firms introduce? (2) Is the phenomenon a curse that invariably afflicts large incumbents in current industries? Is it driven by incumbency or size? and (3) How consistent is the phenomenon? Has the increasing size and complexity of firms over time accentuated it? Does it vary across national boundaries? Results from the study suggest that conventional wisdom about the incumbent's curse may not always be valid.