Nils Levsen focuses on the international diffusion of product and service innovations for elderly users. In particular, the existence and location of lead markets is being investigated. Lead markets are characterized by their early adoption of innovations and their influence on design choice in a subsequent international diffusion process. Finally, two boundary conditions to the applicability of lead market theory are being identified and described.
Nils Levsen focuses on the international diffusion of product and service innovations for elderly users. In particular, the existence and location of lead markets is being investigated. Lead markets are characterized by their early adoption of innovations and their influence on design choice in a subsequent international diffusion process. Finally, two boundary conditions to the applicability of lead market theory are being identified and described. Contents Early Adoption Patterns and Lead Markets of Selected Age-Based Innovations Analysis of Lead Market Candidate Countries Based on Extant Theory Market Participant Study Age-Specialized Innovations: Stakeholder Structure and Implications Target Groups Researchers and students of innovation management, technology management, sociology, and gerontology Executives of product development The Author Nils Levsen has been working at the Institute of Technology and Innovation Management at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg and examines the international diffusion of innovations.
India is still perceived by some as a developing country that has yet to create world-class products of its own. However, this book shows that in recent years India has emerged as a lead market for frugality-driven innovations that are affordable, robust and successful even outside its geographic boundaries. Many global companies have recognized these changes and are ramping up their local R&D capabilities. At the same time, several Indian firms are venturing out to international shores and gaining access to new markets. Using a top-down approach, the book takes a closer look at systems of innovation at work and presents examples of successful, corporate innovations in multiple industries and their contextual conditions.
Malte Marwede explores the impact of cognitive distance in product development, in particular whether large distances between developers and the customer target groups adversely affect the creation of customer-centric product ideas. Furthermore, he shows how practical user involvement measures can potentially mitigate negative effects of cognitive distance in an applied industry-context. Silver Agers, people in their third age, and the aviation industry are in focus for the empirical analysis. Extensive market knowledge and insights are provided for this target group.
In this study among camping tourists of all age groups between 19 and 86 years of age, Konstantin Wellner compares key characteristics regarding innovative behavior of different age groups. The focus of the analysis is on the so-called “Silver Market” segment (consumers of at least 55 years) which gains importance to the demographic shift. Generally, older users are still actively innovating, especially if it relates to age-specific improvements (e.g., comfort and compatibility to other equipment). Analysis by a Structural Equation Model showed that the most important determinant of innovative behavior for older users is technical expertise and that being relatively ahead of trends increases their dissatisfaction with existing products. Additional evidence was found that user with high use experience suffer from functional fixedness.
A trio of experts on high-tech business strategy and innovation reveal the principles that have made platform businesses the most valuable firms in the world and the first trillion-dollar companies. Managers and entrepreneurs in the digital era must learn to live in two worlds—the conventional economy and the platform economy. Platforms that operate for business purposes usually exist at the level of an industry or ecosystem, bringing together individuals and organizations so they can innovate and interact in ways not otherwise possible. Platforms create economic value far beyond what we see in conventional companies. The Business of Platforms is an invaluable, in-depth look at platform strategy and digital innovation. Cusumano, Gawer, and Yoffie address how a small number of companies have come to exert extraordinary influence over every dimension of our personal, professional, and political lives. They explain how these new entities differ from the powerful corporations of the past. They also question whether there are limits to the market dominance and expansion of these digital juggernauts. Finally, they discuss the role governments should play in rethinking data privacy laws, antitrust, and other regulations that could reign in abuses from these powerful businesses. Their goal is to help managers and entrepreneurs build platform businesses that can stand the test of time and win their share of battles with both digital and conventional competitors. As experts who have studied and worked with these firms for some thirty years, this book is the most authoritative and timely investigation yet of the powerful economic and technological forces that make platform businesses, from Amazon and Apple to Microsoft, Facebook, and Google—all dominant players in shaping the global economy, the future of work, and the political world we now face.
This upper level textbook provides a coherent introduction to the economic implications of individual and population ageing. Placing economic considerations into a wider social sciences context, this is ideal reading not only for advanced undergraduate and masters students in health economics and economics of ageing, but policy makers, professionals and practitioners in gerontology, sociology, health-related sciences, and social care. This volume introduces topics in labour economics, including the economic implications of ageing workforces. It covers pension economics and pension systems with their macroeconomic and distributive effects, and the question of risk. Finally, it describes macroeconomic consequences of ageing populations on aggregate saving, inflation, international trade, and financial markets.
An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, and history—now in paperback It all starts with a rolling suitcase. Though the wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the suitcase in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the holdup? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because “real men” carried their bags, no matter how heavy. Mother of Invention is a fascinating and eye-opening examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Because it wasn’t just the suitcase. Drawing on examples from electric cars to tech billionaires, Marçal shows how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back, delaying innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and distorting our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way as those associated with men. Mother of Invention is a sweeping tour of the global economy with a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential.
Why does one country take the lead over others in the development and introduction of environmental innovations? This book analyzes lead markets for innovations such as fuel cells and photovoltaics, and offers insight into why this is. The authors use case studies to illustrate the policy framework that favors environmental innovation, and offer recommendations for research and development, environmental and industrial policies.
1. 1 Summary This thesis intends to answer three questions: First, what is a lead market; second, what constitutes a lead market, and third, how companies can harness lead markets to generate global innovations. Considering the international, cross-border diffu sion of innovations one can observe that a particular technological design such as the facsimile machine, the personal computer or the mobile cellular telephone is often adopted by one country or region much earlier than by other countries which subsequently follow this country, which I will call the lead market. A lead market is defined as a country that adopts an innovation that is subsequently adopted worldwide. When different designs of an innovation compete internationally, the design preferred in the lead market becomes the global dominant design. The study suggests a theoretical explanation for the phenomena of lead markets and collects empirical evidence from a detailed case study of the cellular mobile tele of an innovation design adopted first phone industry. The international diffusion by the lead market, i. e. subsequent adoption of an innovation design preferred in the lead market by other countries, can be put down to the special market context in the lead market. The market context includes demand preferences, the environ mental condition and the degree of competition. Multinational firms are often confronted not only with varying market acceptance of new products and processes from country to country, but with national prefer ences for particular specifications of an innovation, i. e.
