Innovation Ecosystems and the Pace of Substitution: Re-Examining Technology S-Curves

Why do some new technologies emerge and quickly supplant incumbent technologies while others take years or decades to take off? We explore this question by presenting a framework that considers both the focal competing technologies as well as the ecosystems in which they are embedded. Within our framework, each episode of technology transition is characterized by the ecosystem emergence challenge that confronts the new technology and the ecosystem extension opportunity that is available to the old technology. We identify four qualitatively distinct regimes with clear predictions for the pace of substitution. Evidence from 10 episodes of technology transitions in the semiconductor lithography equipment industry from 1972 to 2009 offers strong support for our framework. We discuss the implication of our approach for firm strategy.