1650: How Non-Dominant Laggards Remedy Challenges Inherent in Continuous Innovations (10631)

Monday, August 12, 2024

15:00 – 16:30 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

Location: Sheraton: Grant Park

Session Number: 1650
Paper Session
Orientation: Practice,Theme,Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/jPBpMx

Author(s)

SJ

Shilong Jia

School of Economics and Management Tsinghua U., China
DY

Delin Yang

School of Economics and Management Tsinghua U., China
QM

Qian Ma

School of Economics and Management Tsinghua U., China
PZ

Pengxiang Zhang

Guanghua School of Management, Peking U., China

Continuous innovations substantially benefit customer adoption yet exert negative effects. As most of the economy, non-dominant (non-market-leading) laggards (long technological legacies) face unique challenges in continuous innovations compared to dominant leaders. By studying six B2B products in China’s software industry, we develop a theoretical framework for how they remedy challenges inherent in continuous innovations: Patching on the Dark Side. They are patching (1) to the future market leadership, (2) to the present legacy lever, and (3) between the present and the future. This process effectively balances and combines future iterative time and existing technology complexity, primarily contributing to continuous innovations of non-dominant laggards. Broadly, we contribute to technology evolution on customer adoption by clarifying remedy effectiveness among effective non-dominant laggards.

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