ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on established firm survival in technologically competitive industries during periods of relative design stability. It argues that the incremental changes will be experienced as either cumulative or as discrete in terms of an established firm’s technical capabilities. The chapter also argues that the more times an established firm is the first to market successful cumulative or discrete changes in the product technology the greater its market share. Innovating cumulative changes in the product technology is expected to have a greater affect on the firm’s subsequent market share than that associated with innovating discrete changes in the product technology. The concept of a technological paradigm enables us to delineate the boundaries of technological change cycles and to delineate the direction of change. Competence-enhancing discontinuities are more likely to represent breakthroughs in science or material technology that build upon industry know-how and experience implicit to previous developments.
