Innovation behind the frontier: strategies of technological laggards

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that technological laggards should catch-up with technological leaders and warns of the consequences of falling behind. Like leaders, laggards also advance their technology, but scarce scholarly attention has been paid to understanding laggards. Using a 17-year panel data set from the global flat panel display industry, we find that laggards pace technological advances. A laggard technology strategy suggests a unique approach to managing technology competition from behind the frontier, such that laggards are largely exempt from the perennial pressure to 'innovate or die'.