Strategic Use of Technology

Abernathy W. J. Clark K.B. , “Innovation: Mapping the Winds of Creative Destruction,” Research Policy, 14 (1985):3.

Porter M.E. , “The Technological Dimension of Competitive Strategy,” in Rosenbloom R.S. , ed., Research on Technological Innovation, Management and Policy (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1983), p.3.

Frohman A.L. , “Putting Technology into Strategic Planning,” California Management Review, 27/2 (Winter 1985):48.

Cooper A.C. Schendel D. , “Strategic Responses to Technological Threats,” in Tushman M.L. Moore W.L. , eds., Readings in the Management of Innovation, Second Edition (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), p. 249.

Maidique M.A. Patch P. , “Corporate Strategy and Technology Policy,” in Tushman Moore , eds., op. cit., p.236.

See for example, Rosenbloom R.S. Abernathy W.J. , “The Climate for Innovation in Industry,” Research Policy, 11 (1982):218.

“The Semiconductor Industry: Report of a Federal Interagency Staff Working Group,” National Science Foundation, Washington D.C., November 16, 1987.

Quoted in National Research Council, Photonics: Maintaining Competitiveness in the Information Era (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988), p.67.

See Brody H. , “U.S. Robot Makers Try to Bounce Back,” High Technology Business (October 1987); Bylinsky G. , “Japan's Robot King Wins Again,” Fortune, May 25, 1987.

Thurow L.C. , “A Weakness in Process Technology,” Science, December 18, 1987, p. 1660.

Quoted in National Research Council, op. cit., p.66.

National Science Foundation, Japanese Technology Evaluation Program, JTECH Panel Report on Mechatronics in Japan, 1985; JTECH Panel Report on Telecommunications in Japan, 1986; JTECH Panel Report on Advanced Materials in Japan, 1986.

See for example, “The State of Strategic Thinking,” The Economist, May 23, 1987, p. 22.

For a discussion of the relationship between technology and industry structure, see Abernathy Clark , op. cit.; Porter , op. cit., and of course, Schumpeter J.A. , Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, NY: Harper Brothers, 1942).

Abernathy W.J. Utterback J.M. , “Patterns of Industrial Innovation,” in Tushman Moore , op. cit. See also Tushman M.L. Anderson P. , “Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 31 (September 1986); and Strebel P. , “Organizing for Innovation over an Industry Cycle,” Strategic Management Journal, 8 (1987).

Clark K.B. , “Competition, Technical Diversity, and Radical Innovation in the U.S. Auto Industry,” in Rosenbloom , ed., (1983), op. cit.

Foster R.N. , “Timing Technological Transitions,” in Horwitch M. , ed., Technology in the Modern Corporation (New York, NY: Pergamon Press, 1986), p.41.

See for example, National Research Council, Management of Technology: The Hidden Competitive Advantage (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987).

For a recent review of this literature, see Roberts E.B. , “Managing Invention and Innovation,” Research/Technology Management, 31 (January/February 1988).

National Research Council, Management of Technology, op. cit., p.9

See for example, Hayes R.H. Wheelwright S.C. , Restoring our Competitive Advantage (New York, NY: Wiley, 1984); Cohen S. Zysman J. , Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1987); Thurow , op. cit.

See for example, Mansfield Edwin , “The Speed and Cost of Industrial Innovation in Japan and the United States: External vs. Internal Technology,” presented at annual meeting of American Economic Association, December 1987.

See for example, Hamilton W.F. , “Corporate Strategies for Managing Emerging Technologies,” in Horwitch , ed., op. cit.

Rosenbloom R.S. , “Managing Technology for the Longer Term: A Managerial Perspective,” in Clark K.B. Hayes R.H. Lorenz C. , eds., The Uneasy Alliance (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1985), pp.299–301. Note that while Rosenbloom is especially interested in revolutionary innovations in the work quoted here, our interests are broader. The question is, why are some firms more adept than others at seizing opportunities to develop new, technology-based products and processes—whether those new products and processes represent breakthroughs or more modest departures. For our purposes, such opportunities are of interest if they are significant enough to rise to the attention of the management of the firm.

Maidique Patch , op. cit., pp.273–74, 277.

Kantrow A , “The Strategy-Technology Connection,” Harvard Business Review (July/August, 1980). The same point is also made by Freeman C. , The Economics of Industrial Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982); Porter , op. cit. Friar J. Horwitch M. , “The Emergence of Technology Strategy,” in Horwitch M. , ed., op. cit.

Friar Horwitch , Ibid., p.58.

See for example, Burgelman R. A. , “Managing Corporate Entrepreneurship” and Hamilton , op. cit., in Horwitch , op. cit.; Roberts E.B. Berry C.A. , “Entering New Businesses: Selecting Strategies for Success,” Sloan Management Review, 26 (Spring 1985); Teece D.J. , “Profiting from Technological Innovation: Implications for Integration, Collaboration, Licensing and Public Policy,” Research Policy, 15 (December 1986); and Shrivastava P. , “The Strategic Management of Technological Innovations: A Review and A Model,” Journal of Management Studies, 24 (January 1987).

Porter , op. cit.

Freeman , op. cit.

Rosenbloom , op. cit.: Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit.; Rosenbloom R.S. Cusumano M. A. , “Technological Pioneering and Competitive Advantage: The Birth of the VCR Industry,” California Management Review, 29/4 (Summer 1987).

Quinn J.B. , “Innovation and Corporate Strategy,” in Horwitch , ed., op. cit.

Maidique M.A. Hayes R.B. , “The Art of High-Technology Management,” Sloan Management Review, 25 (Winter 1984).

Maidique M.A. Zirger B.J. , “The New Product Learning Cycle,” Research Policy, 14 (December 1985).

Gomory R.E. Schmitt R.W. , “Science and Product,” Science, May 27, 1988.

Johansson J. Nonaka I. , “Market Research the Japanese Way,” Harvard Business Review (May/June 1987).

Takeuchi H. Nonaka I , “The New New Product Development Game,” Harvard Business Review (January/February 1986).

Frohman A. , “Technology as a Competitive Weapon,” Harvard Business Review (January/February 1982).

See Simon H. A. , Administrative Behavior (New York, NY: Free Press, 1976) and “The Architecture of Complexity,” in The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969); March J.G. Simon H.A. , Organizations (New York, NY: Wiley, 1965); Newell A. Shaw J.C. Simon H.A. , “The Process of Creative Thinking,” in Gruber H.E. Terrell G. Wertheimer M. , eds., Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking (New York, NY: Atherton Press, 1967). For applications of this perspective to public administration, see Braybrooke D. Lindbloom C.E. , A Strategy of Decision (New York, NY: Free Press, 1970); Steinbruner J.D. , The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974); Monroe J.G. Woodhouse E.J. , Averting Catastrophe (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986).

Nelson R.R. Winter S.G. , An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 171, 276.

Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit., p.218.

Quinn , op. cit., p.170

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit.

See for example, Bylinsky , op. cit.; Byrne J.A. , “The Miracle Company,” Business Week, October 19, 1987.

Thurow , op. cit., p. 1662.

Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit., p.218.

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p.6.

Quinn , op. cit., p.170.

Maidique Hayes , op. cit., p.19.

Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit., p.218; Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p. 6, 9.

Bylinsky , op. cit., p. 56.

Maidique Hayes , op. cit., p.20.

See, for example, Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit., p.223.

See, for example, Roberts E.B. , op. cit.

For a related discussion, see Morone J. Alben R. , “Matching R&D to Business Needs,” Research Management, 27 (September/October 1984).

For an example from GE, see Ibid.; for one from GTE, see Mitchell G.R. , “New Approaches for the Strategic Management of Technology,” in Horwitch , op. cit.; more generally, see Steele L. , Innovation in Big Business (New York, NY: American Elsevier, 1975) and virtually any recent issue of Research/Technology Management.

Frohman , 1982, op. cit.

The degree of uncertainty will of course vary with the nature of proposed technological opportunity. For a discussion for the differences in risk and uncertainty among different kinds of innovation, see Clark , “Investment in New Technology and Competitive Advantage,” op. cit.

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p.7.

Johansson Nonaka , op. cit., p.16.

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p.17.

Maidique Zirger , op. cit., p.311.

Takeuchi Nonaka , op. cit., p.146.

Takeuchi Nonaka , op. cit., p.143.

Gomory Schmitt , op. cit., p.1203.

See for example, Peters T.J. Waterman R.H. , In Search of Excellence (New York, NY: Warner, 1984), p.223 ff.

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p.15,16.

Maidique Zirger , op. cit., p.305,6.

Rosenbloom Cusumano , op. cit., p.16.

Thurow , op. cit., p.1661.

Rosenbloom Abernathy , op. cit., p.223.

Frohman , Technology as a Competitive Weapon, pp.98–9.

Petre , loc. cit.