The role of competitive aggressiveness in the emergence of dominant design: A contingency approach

Abstract

We advance the strategic choice perspective in the dominant design literature, examining the role of firm’s competitive actions on the emergence of dominant designs. Integrating literatures on dominant design, competitive dynamics and modularity, this study offers a contingency model to examine the relationships between the emergence of dominant designs, firms’ competitive moves, and the characteristics of product design and market dynamics. We test our hypotheses using a unique sample of 126 product classes and a total number of 279 technologies that competed for dominant designs. We found that a firm’s aggressiveness in undertaking competitive moves directly influences its chance to create a dominant design. However, the impact of firms’ competitive moves depends on (1) if technological design is a platform or a component, as well as (2) if the technological design is sold at a market for technology or a product market.