Technology Vision for Radical Innovation and Its Impact on Early Success

Authors:Reid, S. E., Roberts, D. and Moore, K.

Publication: Journal of Product Innovation Management, Forthcoming.

Abstract:

For firms involved with the very early stages of emergent radical innovation, technical goals are often held in the mind(s) of only one or a few individuals. The way these individuals mentally imagine or visualize such goals, or “technology visions,” provides an important looking glass for understanding a firm's progression along the path of involvement from a technical discontinuity toward project-level and organizational-level involvement with a given technology. Utilizing a large sample of firms engaged in radical innovation in North America and the United Kingdom, this empirical study examines the impact of five dimensions of technology vision on early success: benefits goals, efficiency goals, magnetism, specificity, and infrastructure clarity. Technology vision is found to have a significant positive impact on technical competitive advantage, early success with customers, and ability to attract capital, as measures of early success.

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