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Faculty of Management Research Workshop; Chris Tucci, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Details
How Founder Experience Shapes Entry Strategy: Evidence from Dominant Designs in the Hard Disk Drive Industry
Christopher L. Tucci
Even though existing work has long recognized the high degree of uncertainty that characterizes the early stages of a new technology, the different strategic choices firms might make during this “era of ferment” has only recently started to receive close attention. An emerging line of work on nascent industries has investigated various technological and market related uncertainties and the corresponding challenges firms face when navigating such turbulent environments. In this paper, we examine (1) the impact of post-entry market and technology strategy choices of entrepreneurial startups on their adoption of elements of the eventual dominant design and (2) the contingent role of startups’ pre-entry experience on this relationship. We test our hypotheses using longitudinal data on the computer hard disk drive industry from 1974 to 1995. We focus on the two architectural innovations that, together with two component level innovations were key features of the dominant design of the hard disk drive – the Winchester architecture and intelligent interfaces. Both architectural innovations represent product level innovations that involved significant restructuring of how components in the hard disk drive interacted with each other and presented key challenges, particularly for entrepreneurial entrants, in adopting the eventual dominant design. We examine whether post-entry strategies, such as market pioneering, technology pioneering and market focus, are associated with early adoption of the two important architectural innovations and whether pre-entry experience of spinouts plays a role in helping spinouts adopt these features faster than de novo startups. We find that some post-entry technology strategy choices such as operating in multiple niches have a positive impact on product innovation, while other technology strategies, such as being a technology pioneer, have a mixed impact on product innovation. Pre-entry resources such as founder experience may represent superior endowments and may help firms leverage some of their technology strategy choices. Our results contribute to the literature on market entry and industry evolution.
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Where
Bayes Business School, 106 Bunhill Row
2005
106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK
Speakers
Chris Tucci
Christopher L. Tucci is Professor of Management of Technology at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he holds the Chair in Corporate Strategy & Innovation. Professor Tucci was Dean of the College of Management from 2013-2018. He is Visiting Professor of Innovation at Imperial College London and Visiting Thought Leader at CEIBS in Shanghai, China. He received the degrees of Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management, MIT; SM (Technology & Policy) from MIT; and BS (Mathematical Sciences), AB (Music), and MS (Computer Science) from Stanford University. He was an industrial computer scientist involved in developing Internet protocols and applying artificial intelligence tools in the 1980s. Professor Tucci joined EPFL in 2003 where he teaches courses in Design Thinking, Digital Strategy, and Innovation Management. His primary area of interest is in how firms make transitions to new business models, technologies, and organizational forms. He also studies crowdsourcing, Internetworking, and digital innovations. He has published articles in, among others, Academy of Management Review (AMR), SMJ, Management Science, Research Policy, Communications of the ACM, SEJ, Academy of Management Annals, and JPIM. His article with Allan Afuah, “Crowdsourcing as solution to distant search,” won the Best Paper of 2012 for AMR. He is currently an Associate Editor of Academy of Management Discoveries. He has served in leadership positions in the Academy of Management (AOM) and the Strategic Management Society.