Presentation Slides (.PDF file)

The ability of technological change to destroy old industries, create new ones, or simply provide the basis for overturning or reinforcing existing competitive advantage has been the subject of research since at least Schumpeter. This research can be divided into three broad streams:

• The incentive to invest stream, which argues that whether incumbents are replaced by new entrants is a function of the extent to which the new technology is likely to render existing products or services non-competitive and, therefore, reduce or increase incumbents' incentive to invest in it.
• The capabilities view, which argues that whether incumbents are overthrown by new entrants is a function of the extent to which the capabilities on which the new technology rests differ from those on which the old technology rested.
• The network view, which sees technological change as having an impact on more than the firms in the industry; it sees technological change as also having an impact on the capabilities of suppliers, customers, and complementors. Thus, how deep and widespread the impact of a technological change is in an industry is also a function of the impact of the change on other members of the industry's value chain.

As far as exploring the depth and breath of creative destruction by technological change is concerned, the focus of these research streams has two limitations. First, the research has focused largely on manufacturing firms and technological change that has an impact on their value chains and products, neglecting service firms and other value configurations. Second, little attention has been given to other properties of the new and old technologies outside of the differences between the competitiveness of new and old products, and of the differences between existing capabilities and those required to exploit the new technology. This research builds on these research streams to explore the depth and breadth of the creative destruction from the Internet. First, we go beyond manufacturing industries and their vertical value chains. In particular, we draw on Thompson's (1967) classification of organizational technologies as long-linked, mediating and intensive to argue that the Internet's power for creative destruction is most prevalent in industries with mediating organizational technologies. Second, we look more deeply into the properties of the Internet and their impact, combined or individual, on the depth and breadth of creative destruction in different industries.

About the speaker

Christopher L. Tucci is Assistant Professor of Management and Operations Management, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University. His primary area of expertise is in how firms manage technology to gain competitive advantage. He has conducted a survey of European research and development (R&D) managers and has analyzed how strategic technology alliance partner characteristics interact with ongoing behavior, such as "trust building," to influence alliance performance. He is also interested in how companies in knowledge- and technology-intensive industries develop and sustain their competitive advantage through internal or external R&D processes. He has published articles in Journal of Engineering and Technology Management and IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, and served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Strategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Prof. Tucci received the degrees of Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences (1982), Bachelor of Arts in Music (1983), and Master of Science in Computer Science (1984) from Stanford University. He also received the degree of Master of Science in Technology & Policy (1992) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management, MIT, in 1997.

Location

This research seminar will be held at the New York Information Technology Center, 55 Broad Street, in the "Global Digital Community Sandbox" on the Fourth Floor. (Note: 55 Broad Street is in the Wall Street District of Manhattan, a block away from the New York Stock Exchange.) Click here for directions.

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