Dominant design is a technology management concept introduced by James M. Utterback and William J. Abernathy in 1975, identifying key technological features that become a de facto standard.[1] A dominant design is the one that wins the allegiance of the marketplace, the one to which competitors and innovators must adhere if they hope to command significant market following.[2]
When a new technology emerges (e.g. computer GUI operating systems) – often firms will introduce a number of alternative designs (e.g. Microsoft – Windows, Apple Inc. – Mac OS and IBM – OS/2). Updated designs will be released incorporating incremental improvements. At some point, an architecture that becomes accepted as the industry standard may emerge, such as Microsoft Windows.[3] The dominant design has the effect of enforcing or encouraging standardization so that production or other complementary economies can be sought. Utterback and Suarez (1993) argue that the competitive effects of economies of scale only become important after the emergence of a dominant design, when competition begins to take place on the basis of cost and scale in addition to product features and performance.[4]
Dominant designs may not be better than other designs; they simply incorporate a set of key features that sometimes emerge due to technological path-dependence and not necessarily strict customer preferences. An often cited, albeit incorrect, example is the QWERTY keyboard, supposedly designed to overcome operative limitations on the mechanical typewriter but now almost universally preferred over other keyboard designs.[5] Dominant designs end up capturing the allegiance of the marketplace; this can be due to network effects, technological superiority, or strategic manoeuvering by the sponsoring firms.
Dominant designs are often only identified after they emerge. Some authors consider the dominant design as emerging when a design acquires more than 50% of the market share.[6] A more promising approach is to study the specific product innovations introduced by different firms over time to determine which ones are retained.[7]
^Suarez, Fernando F. (2004). "Battles for technological dominance: an integrative framework" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
^Utterback, James (1994-01-01). "Mastering the dynamics of innovation". Harvard Business School Press. Archived from the original on 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
^Anderson, Philip; Tushman, Michael L. (1990). "Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs: A Cyclical Model of Technological Change". Administrative Science Quarterly. 35 (4): 604–633. doi:10.2307/2393511. ISSN 0001-8392. Archived from the original on 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
^Utterback, James M.; Suárez, Fernando F. (1993-02-01). "Innovation, competition, and industry structure". Research Policy. 22 (1): 1–21. doi:10.1016/0048-7333(93)90030-L. hdl:1721.1/2335. ISSN 0048-7333.
^Stamp, Jimmy. "Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
^Anderson, Philip; Tushman, Michael L. (1990). "Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs: A Cyclical Model of Technological Change" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
^"Strategies for Survival in Fast-Changing Industries". 1996. Archived from the original on 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
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