Breakthrough Technologies and Emerging Industries: The Role of Entrepreneurial Firms, Incumbents and Intermediaries in Organic and Printed Electronics

Abstract

Technological breakthroughs are drivers of structural change and of the economic welfare of nations. However, the evolution from breakthrough technologies to an emerging industry is complex and distributed. It involves interactions and collaborations among heterogeneous actors with varying competencies, competing goals and divergent incentives. Understanding the dynamics underlying the emergence of new industries, though critical, is underresearched. This thesis investigates the dynamics of an emerging industry based on a breakthrough technology - Organic and Printed Electronics (OPE). OPE is a multidisciplinary field and requires developing and combining competencies across physics, chemistry, and engineering. It requires the expertise of different industries that need to collaborate for innovation. The technology is currently going through a transition, moving from diverse possible technological and market options to become a clearer, smaller number of mainstream selections. The study aimed at researching this new emerging domain as it emerges, and provides a global overview of the industry, discusses the dynamics at the meso level, investigates the role of intermediaries, and finally focuses on mobilisation of inter-organisational and intra-organisational routines by an entrepreneurial firm as it moves towards commercialisation, discussing in detail how a large incumbent upstream material firm developed the tools and mechanisms to overcome the gale of creative destruction and capture opportunity.Small entrepreneurial firms are considered as initiators and stimulators of widespread interest in the potential of breakthrough technologies. However, they do face considerable commercialisation challenges owing to their small size, limited financial, human and relational resources and the liability of newness. The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurial firms can be market shapers provided they are product oriented, progressively create an innovation ecosystem and articulate a large repertoire of routines at the intra-organisational and inter-organisational level. The emergence of new industries is mostly associated with creative destruction and the decline of incumbents. However, there are outliers-the study provides evidence that holistic mechanisms and routines for reconfiguration of capabilities aimed at transformation rather than evolution or substitution can enable an upstream material firm to innovate and capitalise on rising opportunities.Intermediaries (research and technology organisations (RTO) and industry associations) emerged as enablers for innovation within Organic and Printed Electronics and important loci where inter-organisational routines are developed. RTOs in this fluid phase of technological development provide for the convergence of competing options and are paving the path for commercialisation and scaling up of selected processes. In the case of OPE, the role of the industry association is critical in establishing cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy, creating expectations, demand articulation, and developing infrastructural knowledge and classification that enable the relevant actors to ascertain their position within the future supply chain.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Silvia Massini (Supervisor) & Philip Gamlen (Supervisor)