Title: Innovation behind the frontier: strategies of technological laggards

Authors: I. Kim Wang

Addresses: Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, 120 Tremont St., Boston, MA, USA

Abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that technological laggards should catch-up with technological leaders and warns of the consequences of falling behind. Like leaders, laggards also advance their technology, but scarce scholarly attention has been paid to understanding laggards. Using a 17-year panel data set from the global flat panel display industry, we find that laggards pace technological advances. A laggard technology strategy suggests a unique approach to managing technology competition from behind the frontier, such that laggards are largely exempt from the perennial pressure to 'innovate or die'.

Keywords: competition; technology frontier; technological laggards; technology deployment; innovation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2021.115757

International Journal of Technology Management, 2021 Vol.86 No.1, pp.1 - 24

Accepted: 09 Nov 2020
Published online: 21 Jun 2021 *

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