the way a firm implements its market orientation (e.g.,
listening to current customers’ articulation of existing
needs or conducting proactive research on potential
customers’ unarticulated needs; see also Henderson,
this issue).
For those who study the successful commercializa-
tion of technological innovation, a logical question
arises as to the overlap between Christensen’s work
and the influential work of Geoffrey Moore in Cross-
ing the Chasm (1991, 2002). Moore’s work highlights
the difficulties firms face in commercializing new tech-
nologies, focusing on (among other things) the choice
of the initial market segment to target and how to
modify the initial marketing approach that was suc-
cessful with early adopters of the product so that
mainstream customers will also embrace the new tech-
nology. These issues were also identified in Danneels’s
(2004) critique of Christensen’s (1997) work. For ex-
ample, Danneels discusses the complexities in fore-
casting when mainstream customers will actually
embrace the new technology and in selecting a target
market for the new innovation when the firm has not
previously served customers in that target market.
Given the commonalities between Christensen’s
(1997) and Moore’s (1991, 2002) works in understand-
ing the successful development and commercialization
of technological innovations, one purpose of this ar-
ticle is to build links between Christensen’s influential
work on the innovator’s dilemma and Moore’s work
on crossing the chasm. A second purpose is to explore
whether or not a customer–market orientation is a
liability in developing disruptive innovations.
The common thread in this article binding these
two somewhat distinct purposes together is our belief
that a firm’s strategic orientation (in particular, based
on the Miles and Snow [1978] typology of prospectors,
analyzers, and defenders) offers useful insights for un-
derstanding why some firms are more successful at
commercializing technological innovations than
others. This typology is well validated and continues
to receive quite a bit of empirical attention (e.g.,
DeSarbo et al., 2005; Hambrick, 2003; Vorhies and
Morgan, 2003).
In particular, we examine how firm strategy (i.e.,
prospector, analyzer, defender) can explain success in
commercializing technological innovations with re-
spect to (1) the customer groups the firm targets;
and (2) its approach to being market oriented. For
clarity, it is important to realize that we are not
offering a new classification of Christensen’s disrup-
tive-sustaining innovation typology. Rather, we are
suggesting that by overlaying the Miles and Snow
(1978) typology of firm strategy onto the disruptive-
sustaining innovation typology, additional insights
regarding which firms are more likely to develop
and benefit from sustaining or disruptive innovations
may be gleaned.
Market Strategy and Success with
Disruptive Innovations
Market strategy is concerned with how businesses
achieve competitive advantage. Miles and Snow
(1978) developed a comprehensive framework that
addresses the alternative ways organizations define
and approach their product-market domains and con-
struct structures and processes to achieve success in
those domains. They identified three archetypes of
how firms address these issues. Prospectors seek to
locate and exploit new product and market opportu-
nities, whereas defenders attempt to seal off a portion
of the total market to create a stable set of products
and customers. Analyzers occupy a position between
the two extremes by combining the strengths of both
the prospector and defender to cautiously follow pros-
pectors into new product-market domains while pro-
tecting a stable set of products and customers.
In conjunction with Moore’s (1991, 2002) and
Christensen’s (1997) work, we draw on the market
strategy implementation literature (e.g., Matsuno and
Mentzer, 2000; Olson et al., 2005; Slater and Olson,
2001) and market orientation literature (e.g., Kohli
and Jaworski, 1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; Slater
and Narver, 1998) to refine our understanding of suc-
cess in developing and commercializing technological
innovations, as illustrated in Figure 1. Our argument
is that, based on their specific strategy type, firms de-
velop skill sets associated with success for some—but
not all—types of situations in commercializing tech-
nological innovations. For example, firms that are
adept at satisfying needs in the innovator and early
adopter segments are most likely to possess the re-
sources and capabilities to develop disruptive inno-
vations. Moreover, these firms’ specific approach to
being market oriented allows them to use innovative
research techniques to discover customer knowledge
that becomes the foundation for disruptive inno-
vation. Conversely, firms that are successful at satis-
fying needs in mainstream markets are more likely to
develop sustaining technologies or incremental inno-
vations. Their more traditional approach to market
SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION J PROD INNOV MANAG
2006;23:26–33
27

+13062052269

info@desklib.com

Product Development & Management PDF

Contribute Materials

Related Documents

IBM inventions and innovations