Speaker(s): Gwendolyn Lee
(Berkeley) -- Recruiting Talk
Title:
Abstract
The objective of the paper is to explain the effect of a firm’s
capabilities on the speed at which the firm enters an emerging product market,
when the firm is under the pressure of technological convergence as the
boundaries between initially distinct industries become blurred. This paper
develops a theoretical framework and a general methodology to build a dynamic
model and analyze the evolution of a firm’s product portfolio, so as to
estimate the probability of firm entry and the amount of time it takes a firm to
enter a product market. Three important questions addressed are: (1) which
emerging product markets should a firm enter? (2) from what industries do
potential entrants arise? and (3) why do some firms enter an emerging market
faster than others? The basic proposition is that the heterogeneity of firms'
timing of market entry can be explained by the firms’ capabilities inferred
from their pre-entry product portfolio. The proposed model aims to make the
proposition precise and provide specific predictions. Using a multi-population
panel of firms over a thirteen-year period from 1989 to 2001 collected from a
natural experiment, I found strong empirical support for my hypotheses in the
case of technological convergence between telephony communications and computer
networking technologies.