Determining Major Turning Points in Industry Evolution

Abstract

Recently in academic research it has been explicitly acknowledged that the evolution of industries is not a smooth process but it contains dramatic turning points, and especially the takeoff point in evolution has attracted growing attention. The earlier research has identified that the takeoff point in evolutionary trajectory of adoption of innovations is of special interest in managerial decision-making since at this point the basis of competition change from technological functionality to more marketing related competencies as the dominant designs are adopted. However, existing studies do not evaluate the reliability of identification methods in comparison to alternative methods. The present study analyses three different ways to determine the takeoff point and their reliability in relation to each other. The results of the study show, among other things, that the experts' determinations produce notably better and more reliable results than other methods, like diffusion analysis.