Mobilising resources to bridge technological discontinuities

This research aims to address how a firm can mobilise resources through interfirm relationships to bridge technological discontinuities.

This research adopts a processual single case study to undertake an empirical investigation from the perspective of a technology-bundled net as the research boundary.

This research produces three key findings. First, mobilising resources across firm boundaries to create an adequate bundling of product, process and marketing technologies is the cornerstone of bridging technological discontinuities. Second, resource mobilisation between firms in the transition to a new technological trajectory is affected by the sediments accrued in the existing (old) trajectory. Third, technological discontinuities may be competence-enhancing, and their radical effects may originate from non-technical causes.

This paper contributes to the research of radical innovation from an interaction and networks perspective and also by focusing on resource mobilisation taking place in the transition from an existing technological trajectory to a new one. In particular, this paper takes into account the relatedness of resources and the influences of past interaction underpinning an old trajectory in the bridging of technological discontinuities.