Discussion Questions

September 18&20, 2012 POSTECH Strategic Management of Information and Technology Laboratory (POSMIT: http://posmit.postech.ac.kr)

Dept. of Industrial & Management Engineering POSTECH

Discussion Questions

■ Chapter 3. Types and Patterns of Innovation 3.

Why do technologies often improve faster than customer requirements? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a firm of developing a technology beyond the current state of market needs?

Reason of technologies’ faster improvement

– – – – To get some “Title” as the best company To Predict customer requirements in advance To gain the competitive advantage by preoccupied technologies To achieve the firm’s goals (e.g., success in their targeted market, pricing objectives…) – Pure result from R&D

Advantages

– The first-mover’s advantages – – Ownership of the future technologies (Monopoly, Patent, … ) Possible to lead the industry in the future

Disadvantages

– – – Doubtful investment in the new technology Customers’ pressure to learn the usage of the new technology Lack of distribution channel

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Discussion Questions

■ Chapter 3. Types and Patterns of Innovation 4.

Reclassify the a) types and b) patterns of innovation in your own way (You can add/delete some categories to the existing one, or make totally different classification) and explain your classification with proper examples.

Please refer to the supplement material “Mr. Noh’s Innovation”

a) Types of innovation:

– Strength Reinforcement vs. Weakness Elimination – – Position vs. Paradigm Cannibalization vs. Pie-expansion

b) Patterns of innovation

– Miniaturization – – – – Enlargement Extraction Change of state High dynamicity

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