Framing in the Emergence of Dominant Design

Abstract

Research on the origins of dominant designs has focused primarily on technical and economic factors (Murmann & Frenken, 2006; Narayanan & Chen, 2012). Building on social movements and cognition work, this paper applies a social movements perspective as a basis to consider how framing actions and framing contests shape the emergence of a dominant design. This perspective suggests that factors that are often taken as facts of the contest are, instead, collective frames of participants, and are therefore subject to change and contestation. Distinguishing between the factors and the frames regarding them, I develop propositions regarding frames of network effects, technological superiority, and platforms. I also consider the importance of prototypes and product entry for influencing a framing contest, and thus, design dominance.