Market strategies for offshore wind in Europe: A development and diffusion perspective

AbstractOffshore wind will contribute to the decarbonization of European power systems, but is currently costlier than many other generation technologies. We assess the adequacy of market strategies available to private actors developing offshore wind farms in Europe, by employing the development and diffusion pattern model. The model includes two earlier phases in addition to the large-scale deployment phase of other diffusion models: the innovation and the market adaptation phases. During its development and diffusion offshore wind moved from experimentation to a dominant design (monopile foundations and a permanent magnet generator). Simultaneously, wind farms shifted from an experimental to a commercial purpose and grew from 10 to 316MW on average. The turbine and wind farm development markets kept a high concentration throughout all phases. Also, the wind farm life cycle and supply chain became more integrated and drew less from the onshore wind and oil & gas sectors.This development and diffusion was shaped by the barriers of cost, project risk and complexity, capital requirements, and multi-disciplinarity. Wind farms developers combined three niche strategies to address these barriers: the subsidized, the geographic, and the demo, experiment and develop. The barriers make these niche strategies more adequate than strategies of mass-market (dominating a market) or wait-and-see (developing resources but waiting for uncertainty reduction before market entrance). Nonetheless, the barriers and market strategies changed during the development and diffusion pattern. Thus, cost and risk reductions decreased the importance of the subsidized niche, while the geographic niche becomes less important as offshore wind develops outside of Europe.The study also identified an increase in cooperation for wind farm development, as development became more international and with more frequent alliances. Wind farm developers and development and diffusion models research must consider how contemporary forms of cooperation improve or hinder the market strategies

ASIC Commercialization Analysis: Technology Portfolios and the Innovative Performance of ASIC Firms during Technology Evolution

We examine the relationship between application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) firms’ technology portfolios and their innovative performance. This relationship is complex, and we hypothesize that it changes according to the stage of ASIC technology evolution. We test our hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset of 67 firms from the ASIC industry over the period 1986–2003. We find that ASIC technology evolution negatively moderates the effects of the size and diversity of the internal technology portfolio on ASIC firms’ innovative performance. This implies that, in earlier phases of ASIC technology evolution, successful ASIC firms developed large and diverse portfolios to cope with technological uncertainty. During later phases of ASIC technology evolution, they tend to have relatively smaller and less diverse portfolios, and they focus on unique, protectable, and exploitable advantages

Optimal Distinctiveness: The Role of Platform Size and Identity

Recent theoretical advances hold that platforms comprise a second strategic dimension next to size, called identity, which describes the platform’s techno-logical and market scope. Letting go of platform size as the main criterion for platform value opens the possibility for platforms to pursue differentiation strategies with a distinct market positioning. The concept of optimal distinctiveness (OD) implies that differentiation can be optimized so that it maximizes performance. In this paper, we draw on recent OD research in and outside of the field of platforms and elaborate on the role of platform size within the distinctiveness framework. We discuss platform size and identity in the context of OD and suggest propositions for future research. The paper contributes to the management of platforms and OD in platform markets by showing how a platform’s distinctiveness strategy may depend on its size. We contribute to platform management across various platform sizes and to research on OD in platform markets

What’s the tally? An Investigation into the Field(s) of Dominant Designs and Platforms

Dominant designs and platforms are two distinct scientific fields in the analysis of innovation of and competition between technologies. Responding to calls for more synthesis in management research, we study the commonalities and differences between the fields surrounding these concepts. To this end, we develop a framework for the comparison of concepts and apply it to dominant designs and platforms. We show that dominant designs and platforms differ most prominently regarding their central mechanisms, their unit and level of analysis, and the timeframe. We will elaborate how they are complementary by developing a research agenda

Innovation ecosystems as structures : Actor roles, timing of their entrance, and interactions

Despite their importance little is known about how innovation ecosystems come into existence. We address this gap through an historical case study Herceptin, a revolutionary drug developed for the treatment of ovarian and breast cancer, and the innovation ecosystem that emerged around this drug between 1978 and 1998. Through qualitative content analysis of a broad scope of archival documents (2474 in total), we define a cast of roles and determine their timing of entry onto the stage of ecosystem emergence, and in turn describe the interaction of these roles that govern emergence. We find that the locus of ecosystem emergence shifts gradually from discovery, resource provision and commitment, to the formation of connections and trust, and finally to complementarity and value creation. These activities are facilitated by specific roles that gain significance at various points in time. We additionally witness shifts in interaction dynamics, from individual level interactions early on, to interactions across levels, and finally to interactions at the organisational level. We synthesize these findings to propose a framework of a processual understanding of how innovation ecosystems come into existence.</p

Roles during innovation ecosystem genesis: A literature review

This paper addresses recent calls to enhance our understanding of innovation ecosystem genesis, focusing in particular on the roles that come to prominence during this important yet volatile phase in the innovation ecosystem lifecycle. To this end, we undertook a systematic review of the literature, which has allowed us to study in detail 60 publications appearing in journals and conference proceedings. Our results propose several roles seminal to innovation ecosystem birth, which we have collated thematically into four groups – leadership roles (‘ecosystem leader’ and ‘dominator’), direct value creation roles (‘supplier’, ‘assembler’, ‘complementor’, and ‘user’), value creation support roles (‘expert’ and ‘champion’), and entrepreneurial ecosystem roles (‘entrepreneur’, ‘sponsor’, and ‘regulator’) – and defined in terms of the specific activities they carry out during ecosystem birth. Furthermore, our findings tentatively suggest the entrance of these roles at different times as the process of genesis unfolds. Particular roles, such as the champion, are likely to be pivotal in ensuring that the innovation can move successfully from discovery to its commercialization. We conclude our paper by discussing future research avenues that can build on our role typology, to shed further light on the process of innovation ecosystem genesis.submittedVersionPeer reviewe

Exploring the Market for Breakthrough Technologies

In this article, the gap between futures research (long term) and market research (short term) is closed in two ways. Firstly, by describing methods of market exploration that can be used earlier on in the process of development and diffusion of breakthrough technologies, so market research can be applied along with futures research. Secondly, the gap is closed by actually combining futures research and market research. We start the article from the perspective of the market research discipline and describe the problems in market research that require new approaches. The validity of market research results is often low when breakthrough technologies enter the market. To investigate this problem, assumptions for valid market research results are presented. In some cases, when breakthrough technologies first enter the market, these assumptions do not hold and market research becomes problematic whereas in other cases customers' needs and preferences are not an issue at all and attention focuses on technological issues. Potential solutions to explore the market in the former cases are suggested. Four approaches are distinguished: (1) adapting existing methods; (2) combining consumer research with market structure analysis or futures research; (3) using theoretic models; and (4) probe and learn approaches. These approaches require different subsets of assumptions and are therefore applicable in different situations. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved