STR
TIM
Ron Adner
Dartmouth College, United States
Charlotte Jacobs
Louisiana State U., United States
Gwendolyn Lee
U. of Florida, United States
Najoung Lim
Melbourne Business School, U. of Melbourne, Australia
Rajshree Agarwal
U. of Maryland, United States
Ram Ranganathan
U. of Texas at Austin, United States
Daniel Albert
Drexel, United States
Martin Ganco
Wisconsin School of Business, United States
While technology standards and standard-setting organizations have been the foci of economics and policy scholars for decades, there is a renewed interest among strategic management and innovation scholars in examining the role of standards in firm strategy and performance. A key reason for this research resurgence is the foundational role that standards play as ‘alignment structures’ that spur the growth of modern day platforms and ecosystems. While standards are central to the growth and success of platforms and ecosystems, their crucial role has often been implicitly assumed in the recent literature that showcases these types of organizations. The literature on standards, on the other hand, has been focused on the inter-firm level of analysis, with clear opportunities to both broaden and narrow the scope of research while integrating more directly with mainstream strategy questions. Thus, there is a need for a dedicated forum that can bring together scholars who can speak to these unaddressed research challenges and opportunities. Our objective is to reinvigorate discussions on the core issues around technology standards and the standardization process, emphasizing their profound influence on firm, ecosystem, and industry dynamics. The proposed symposium aims to spotlight emerging research ideas in technology standards by bringing together a collection of papers to present their insights on the strategic implications of standard specification, implementation, and adoption for subsequent competition and performance. The four papers encompass diverse theoretical perspectives including ecosystems, demand-side view, evolutionary perspective, and modularity, and employ a wide range of methodologies including conceptual, quantitative, qualitative, and computational modeling methods. By sharing ongoing endeavors that drive research on standards and their related issues, this symposium seeks to deepen our understanding of standards as the bedrock of technological and industry evolution.
Author: Ron Adner – Dartmouth College
Author: Charlotte Jacobs – Louisiana State U.
Author: Gwendolyn Kuo-fang Lee – U. of Florida
Author: Najoung Lim – Melbourne Business School, U. of Melbourne
Author: Rajshree Agarwal – U. of Maryland
Author: Ram Ranganathan – U. of Texas at Austin
Author: Daniel Albert – Drexel
Author: Martin Ganco – Wisconsin School of Business