Understanding the effect of exemplars on technological paradigm formation

• Main Author: Karlsen, Matthew R.
• Published: University of Surrey 2014
• Subjects: 004
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.616936

The combination of an exemplar artefact and associated search heuristics constitute a 'technological paradigm'. Such technological paradigms can emerge as industries evolve, altering the nature of innovative search from exploration to incremental improvement along a 'technological trajectory'. Disagreements exist as to the cause of standardisation and the relationship between standardisation and the related shift in innovation emphasis. The number of elements within a technology tends to increase over time. The 'constructional selection' model encapsulating this process partially explains standardisation at the individual level. However, present models of technological paradigm formation that .. feature constructional selection do not consider (1 ) whether artefact structure will induce an alteration of innovation emphasis and (2) how a standard design emerges at the population level and how the interaction of multiple agents affects the constructional selection process. This report focuses on the second point. The new models presented here introduce a heterogeneous population of firms subject to selection. Firms, in the presence of continual innovation, aim to produce superior products to their competitors. The models indicate that a technological paradigm emerges across the population (1) when firms use a range of strategies, (2) when design details of competitors' designs are freely accessible, for all rates of entry and associated competition above a low level, and (3) under conditions of imperfect imitation, provided that competition is sufficiently strong relative to the level of mutation.