Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms

Rebecca M. Henderson; Kim B. Clark

Article | Administrative Science Quarterly | March 1990

Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms

by Rebecca M. Henderson and Kim B. Clark

Keywords: Design; Innovation and Invention; Product; Technology; Failure; Business Ventures;

Format: Print

22 pages

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Henderson, Rebecca M., and Kim B. Clark. "Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms." Administrative Science Quarterly 35, no. 1 (March 1990): 9–30. (Reprinted in The Management of Innovation, edited by John Storey, London: Elgar, 2004; Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, edited by M.Tushman and P. Anderson, Oxford University Press, 2004; and in Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, edited by Robert Burgelman, Clayton Christensen and Steven Wheelwright. Oxford University Press, 2004. Translated into Chinese for inclusion in an ASQ sponsored collection of "best papers" in 2005.)

For over half a century, most of the world's economies have enjoyed steady growth and prosperity. While this economic growth has reduced the number of people living in poverty, it has come with an increase in economic inequality. The gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in developed countries has widened, with a small proportion of the population reaping an increasingly larger share of a country's economic rewards. This growing economic inequality has been particularly pronounced in the United States, but the phenomenon has also occurred in many nations. This note provides background on aspects of economic inequality. It begins by describing both income inequality and wealth inequality, providing an explanation of two widely used metrics and data that show increasing inequalities over time. It then moves to the factors that might contribute to this inequality, as well to propositions of economic and social consequences that might result from the widening gap. Finally, it addresses the issue of "equality of opportunity" or social mobility. This is an update to the Note on Economic Inequality (2015). It provides additional information on economic inequality, including union membership and inequality and political polarization.

Article | Management Science | March 2018

Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

Hazhir Rahmandad, Rebecca Henderson and Nelson P. Repenning

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"—delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer-term investments—makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive advantage. "Short termism" has been blamed for everything from the decline of the U.S. automobile industry to the low penetration of techniques such as TQM and continuous improvement. Yet a vigorous tradition in the accounting literature establishes that firms routinely sacrifice long-term investment to manage earnings and are rewarded for doing so. This paper presents a model that reconciles these apparently contradictory perspectives. We show that if the source of long-term advantage is modeled as a stock of capability that accumulates over time, a firm's proclivity to manage short-term earnings at the expense of long-term investment can have very different consequences depending on whether the firm's capability is close to a critical "tipping threshold." When the firm operates above this threshold, managing earnings smoothes revenue and cash flow with few long-term consequences. Below it, managing earnings can tip the firm into a vicious cycle of accelerating decline. Our results have important implications for understanding managerial incentives and the internal processes that create sustained advantage.

Keywords: capability; Short-termism; system dynamics; tipping point; resource allocation; Business or Company Management; Earnings Management; Resource Allocation;

Citation:

Rahmandad, Hazhir, Rebecca Henderson, and Nelson P. Repenning. "Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster." Management Science 64, no. 3 (March 2018): 1328–1347. View Details

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