Technology Systems and Strategy
Our aim is to understand how organisations leverage technical change to solve problems: their own, their customers’ and those of society. We are interested in understanding the obstacles that prevent the adoption of new technologies or the realisation of their full potential. Key questions focus on strategic entry into new technological areas, the integration of new and existing technologies, and the evolution of boundaries and internal processes that manage innovation and change.
Ongoing projects
It has always been important for firms to develop so-called architectural capabilities, to design, manage, and control the interdependencies between components in their product systems. Now, digital technologies are bringing together fields that were previously separate and make products – and their architecture – changeable. And, in the near future, advances in artificial intelligence are set to radically change firms’ capabilities and the way they design products in the first place. Is it time to revisit what we know about architectural capabilities, what they look like, and how they are deployed?
Building on in-depth industry studies and newly available datasets and analysis tools, the goal of this project is to map firms’ architectural capabilities and to understand their role in the development of product systems. In other words, we aim to understand the importance of architectural capabilities both for multitechnology firms and for the technological trajectories they shape. In doing so, we try to help firms understand the capabilities they need to develop and maintain in the current wave of industrial change – including firms in currently underdeveloped areas.
Project lead: Nikki Lagerweij
It has always been crucial for national defense organizations to stay on top of emerging technologies. Recent innovations increasingly blur the boundaries between civilian and military applications – so-called “dual-use technologies” – and they are increasingly developed in the civilian domain, with new contingencies for national defense actors. What are the challenges of modern dual-use technologies for collaboration, influence over the direction of innovation, and the adoption and integration of externally developed innovations?
In collaboration with armasuisse Science and Technology at the Federal Office for Defence Procurement and the Military Academy at ETH Zurich, we study how defense actors can effectively tap into civilian-driven innovations, and how they should adjust their internal organization and capabilities. In this project, we focus on drones and cybersecurity. We aim to develop frameworks that help defense actors balance openness and strategic control, to remain resilient in a rapidly changing technological landscape, and to responsibly shape and harness dual-use technologies.
Project lead: David Baschung
Complex technological systems are conceived and leveraged by firms’ strategists, but their actual development is done by individuals. Does the day-to-day problem-solving activity of developers really scale up to strategic objectives of the firms in charge of the system? Nowhere is this tension as clear as in today’s cloud computing platforms: ever-evolving technical structures with multiple interlocking layers, and with users needing to interact with many sides of the system to develop applications and keep them running. How do individuals identify problems, and how do they solve them? And what are the strategic implications for cloud service providers that aim to leverage openness and generativity while competing for users’ engagement?
In this project, we leverage quantitative data from Stack Overflow, a microcosm of problem-finding and problem-solving activity in all parts of the cloud architecture. We study how questions are framed, the technical scope of the answers, and how the evolving structure of the cloud computing architecture shapes – and is shaped by – problems solved in one component at a time.
Project lead: Maria Enrica Zamponi
It has always been critical for industries to recognize when a fundamental change in underlying knowledge and methods is taking shape – to detect technological shifts and predict their effects. Yet, most approaches rely on retrospective assessments, identifying radical shifts only after they have reshaped competitive hierarchies. At the same time, we lack clear, real-time insights into what factors allow certain firms to thrive while others lose ground once these shifts take hold – particularly when new entrants disrupt incumbents’ market shares.
In this project, we develop an automated, patent-based framework to capture early signals of technological shifts and to quantify their impact on both incumbent capabilities and market structures. We use text analysis to analyze firms' movement in the technology space, and study how technology-driven factors interact with firm-level strategies to influence leadership changes. Ultimately, our goal is to equip managers and policymakers with real-time early-warning indicators of disruptive innovation and a deeper understanding of how firms can preserve – or overturn – market hierarchies.
Project lead: Ming Chen
The “ecosystem” metaphor for innovation systems is becoming ever more popular. In modern industrial settings, firms increasingly coordinate and compete both within and across segments. New technologies offer opportunities for improvement, but may also upend the rules of the game. All of this raises new questions: to what extent can firms shape the environment they operate in, how can firms leverage their industrial position and technologies, and what does “fitness” really mean?
In this project, we develop and study formal and agent-based models of innovation, coordination, and adaptation. We base our modeling strategies on in-depth case studies and insights from our industry partners. We aim to understand the dynamics of innovation when firms are independent in their objectives but interdependent in their opportunities, and when digital technologies allow firms to change product architectures unilaterally.
Project lead: Axel Zeijen
Platforms transform the industrial environment wherever they appear. We know that platforms “work” and create value differently than products, and that they have important implications for competition – and firms as well as regulators are responding to new industry structures. But how do platform industry structures evolve, in comparison to product industries at the core of our industry evolution frameworks? And will pre-existing industry power structures persist or dissolve when platform-based gatekeepers enter and replace existing distribution channels?
We study these questions through multiple research methods. We leverage evidence from the recorded music industry after the transition to streaming to study the evolving relationship between traditional gatekeepers and new, and the impact of streaming models on the discovery and success of new music and artists. More broadly, we study the “lifecycle” of platform ecosystems, to predict change in stability in platform design and governance, and shifts in innovation and competition patterns among platform owners and their complementors.
Project lead: Axel Zeijen
Papers
A selection of TESS-related publications and working papers are the following:
(for more papers see our publications page):
Reference points form an essential element of organizations’ problemistic search and adaptation behavior. Yet, if search is triggered by shortfalls compared to peers, but alternatives are discovered on the fly, it is not clear whether and when peer comparison leads to better search outcomes. We contribute to the literature by studying how reference points guide search and which outcomes they allow organizations to achieve. Specifically, we develop a model of search in complex landscapes in which agents’ search behavior is guided by an upper (aspiration level) and a lower (survival point) social reference point. In our model, agents move across a subjective “terraced” landscape that is a simplified transformation of the “real” one. The vertical positions and shapes of these terraces are determined by the agents’ reference points, and change over time as a result of their own and their peers’ performance evolution. In turn, these terraces define the search space that is navigated and the outcomes that can be reached. We show that the upper and lower bounds play fundamentally different roles in the search process, the upper bound being more important in the short run, and the lower bound more important in the long run. Studying heterogeneous populations, we find that reference points drive dynamic tradeoffs between how easily decision-makers can reach their aspiration level and how much they benefit from doing so. We highlight the importance of both internal fit between reference points and external fit with environmental factors.
external page Aguiar, L., Waldfogel, J., & Zeijen, A. (2024) Platform Power Struggle: Spotify and the Major Record Labels
Digitization has facilitated the emergence of large distribution platforms downstream from traditionally powerful suppliers. Digital platforms can carry many suppliers’ products, test the products’ consumer appeal, and choose which products to promote, potentially shifting power from the suppliers to the platforms. We study these forces in the recorded music industry, which was traditionally dominated by a few “major” record labels distributing their products through fragmented radio stations and retailers. Now, the majors receive most of their promotion and distribution through platforms like Spotify, which carry millions of songs from both major and “independent” suppliers. We study Spotify’s use of playlists using data covering 2017-2020. First, Spotify used their expanded playlist capacity to test – and discover – proportionately more independent songs to promote on their playlists. Second, at least relative to major-label playlists, Spotify-operated playlists promoted new independent songs more than was indicated by their subsequent success. Third, placement on Spotify new-music playlists has a large causal impact on streams. The independent-label share of new-music promotion rose from 38 percent in late 2017 to 55 percent in early 2020, which helps to explain the reported decline in the share of Spotify royalty payments to major-label suppliers over the same period.
external page Zeijen, A., Marengo, L., & Brusoni, S. (2023) Search and Performance in Ecosystems: The Changing Role of Product Architectures. LEM Working Paper Series 2023/16
A crucial assumption in organization theory is that product architectures form a stable basis on which firms make strategic choices, over a period of time. However, emerging digital technologies challenge this idea, by allowing firms to redesign architectures at will. In this paper, we explore this novel phenomenon, its effects, and its theoretical implications. We develop an NK model suitable for studying (i) variable interdependence structures between components and (ii) the dynamics of search and adaptation in ecosystems. We find that the possibility to redesign product architectures undercuts the stability on which vertical relationships are based. We distinguish two pathways through which firms can benefit from redesigning product architectures: by enhancing the fitness landscape (landscape redesigns) or by altering the conditions on which inter-firm coordination is based (ecosystem redesigns). The availability of these two pathways depends on a firm’s positioning (vertical scope and location in the value chain). Our results shed light on the changing role of interdependence structures in ecosystems, the differential advantages of integration and specialization strategies, and the effects of digital technologies in both technical and organizational domains.
external page Arrieta, J. P., Fontana, R., & Brusoni, S. (2023). On the strategic use of product modularity for market entry. Industrial and Corporate Change, 32(1), 155-180.
We model the conditions under which firms should enter the market with modular products that support multiple standards instead of an integral product that supports a single standard. Product modularity enables firms to broaden their portfolios and increase their chances of investing in the “right” technologies early in a technology cycle. Entry with integral products instead occurs later in the cycle. We test the model’s predictions on a sample of the Local Area Network industry entrants during the 1990s.
external page Schulze, A., & Brusoni, S. (2022). How dynamic capabilities change ordinary capabilities: Reconnecting attention control and problem‐solving. Strategic Management Journal, 43(12), 2447-2477.
Building on the attention-based view of the firm, we elaborate the concept of dynamic capabilities and identify two constitutive elements: attention control and problem-solving. We show empirically that the control element of dynamic capabilities regulates how organizations (dis-)engage attention on operational versus change-oriented tasks. On this basis, we develop a process model of how control and problem-solving interact to reconfigure resources and thus modify ordinary capabilities. We study the adoption of lean management in the R&D unit of a large U.S. corporation. Our longitudinal case study identifies obstacles that organizations have to overcome to establish effective dynamic capabilities that enable their adaptation to changing environmental circumstances.
external page Michael G. Jacobides , Stefano Brusoni , Francois Candelon (2021) The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem. Strategy Science 6(4):412-435.
We analyze the sectoral and national systems of firms and institutions that collectively engage in artificial intelligence (AI). Moving beyond the analysis of AI as a general-purpose technology or its particular areas of application, we draw on the evolutionary analysis of sectoral systems and ask, “Who does what?” in AI. We provide a granular view of the complex interdependency patterns that connect developers, manufacturers, and users of AI. We distinguish between AI enablement, AI production, and AI consumption and analyze the emerging patterns of cospecialization between firms and communities. We find that AI provision is characterized by the dominance of a small number of Big Tech firms, whose downstream use of AI (e.g., search, payments, social media) has underpinned much of the recent progress in AI and who also provide the necessary upstream computing power provision (Cloud and Edge). These firms dominate top academic institutions in AI research, further strengthening their position. We find that AI is adopted by and benefits the small percentage of firms that can both digitize and access high-quality data. We consider how the AI sector has evolved differently in the three key geographies—China, the United States, and the European Union—and note that a handful of firms are building global AI ecosystems. Our contribution is to showcase the evolution of evolutionary thinking with AI as a case study: we show the shift from national/sectoral systems to triple-helix/innovation ecosystems and digital platforms. We conclude with the implications of such a broad evolutionary account for theory and practice.
external page Masucci, M., Brusoni, S., & Cennamo, C. (2020). Removing Bottlenecks in Business Ecosystems: The Strategic Role of Outbound Open Innovation. Research Policy, 49 (1), 103823.
This paper investigates how firms can orchestrate outbound open innovation strategically to accelerate technological progress among the firms they collaborate with, thus removing technological bottlenecks in their business ecosystem. We examine how a major oil and gas producer fostered, through its internal corporate venture unit, the development of new technologies aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the oilfield services offered by its key providers. The comparative analysis of five innovative projects suggests that two factors were critical for the successful deployment of the proposed technologies: their potential to broaden service providers’ portfolios and the possibility to retain control over the relevant intellectual property. The concurrent presence of these two factors incentivized service providers to deploy the new technologies, aligning their interests with those of the oil major company. By revealing unexplored aspects of the interplay of inter-firm collaborations and open innovation processes, this paper extends our understanding of how firms can align the incentives and activities of other actors in their business ecosystems by strategizing their open innovation initiatives.
external page Tuna, S., Brusoni, S., & Schulze, A. (2019). Architectural knowledge generation: evidence from a field study. Industrial and Corporate Change, 28(5), 977-1009.
This article studies how a world-leading technology-intensive firm organized to renew its architectural knowledge (AK) to escape the mirroring trap. On the strength of a longitudinal, in-depth, qualitative study, we develop a process model that identifies the phases, learning modes, and core design decisions that led to new AK. The analysis of our case highlights that the development of architectural and component knowledge could not be perfectly separated. Further, we infer that the renewal of AK can be attained through partial mirroring and by dissolving extant technical and organizational boundaries. Finally, we show how resource constraints affect the extent of AK generation.
external page Cirillo, B., Brusoni, S., & Valentini, G. (2014). The Rejuvenation of Inventors through Corporate Spinouts. Organization Science, 25 (6), 1764-1784.
This article focuses on corporate spinouts as a strategy that can rejuvenate the inventive efforts of inventors with a long tenure in the same company. We rely on an unbalanced panel of 5,604 inventor-year observations to study a matched sample of 431 inventors employed by the Xerox Corporation and find evidence in support of three predictions. First, inventors who join a spinout increase the extent of exploration in their inventive activities. Second, they decrease the extent to which they rely on the parent organization’s knowledge. Third, because long-tenured employees, through socialization, tend to progressively adopt more exploitative behavior than short-tenured members, they benefit relatively more from the spinout experience. These results are robust to several econometric specifications that try to account for the endogeneity of the inventors’ decision to join the spinout, for the fact that spinouts’ inventive activity may be intrinsically different from that of the parent company, and for the possible presence of novel external stimuli for those who join spinouts. The data provide large-sample evidence consistent with the idea that socialization reduces opportunities for organizational learning; we discuss the implications for theory and practice.
external page Brusoni, S., Prencipe, A., & Pavitt, K. (2001). Knowledge Specialization, Organizational Coupling, and the Boundaries of the Firm: Why do Firms Know More Than they Make? Administrative Science Quarterly, 46 (4), 597-621.
This paper uses an analysis of developments in aircraft engine control systems to explore the implications of specialization in knowledge production for the organization and the boundaries of the firm. We argue that the definition of boundaries of the firm in terms of the activities performed in house does not take into account that decisions to outsource production and other functions are different from decisions to outsource technological knowledge. We show that multitechnology firms need to have knowledge in excess of what they need for what they make, to cope with imbalances caused by uneven rates of development in the technologies on which they rely and with unpredictable product-level interdependencies. By knowing more, multitechnology firms can coordinate loosely coupled networks of suppliers of equipment, components, and specialized knowledge and maintain a capability for systems integration. Networks enable them to benefit from the advantages of both integration and specialization. Examples from other industries extend to other contexts the model we develop.
Resources
We are active in the Theoretical Organization Models (TOM) Society.
We co-organize the external page NK Landscape Search Algorithm Competition — inspired by the game theorists' strategy tournament, we aim to find the best-performing strategy for traversing a rugged performance landscape.
Instruction material for the TOM Summer school can be found here soon!
AI is a critical driver of innovation, yet a recent study by ETH Zurich found that DACH companies are lagging behind their U.S. counterparts in adopting AI across organizational functions.
In partnership with external page Bluemorrow, we have developed a comprehensive AI Innovation Readiness Assessment, targeted at senior executives in strategic roles.
See the assessment page for more information, or contact Alan Cabello.
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