The origins of “Toward a Systematic Framework for Research on Dominant Designs, Technological Innovations, and Industrial Change” date back to the early 1990s. Koen and I independently worked on the dynamics of design variation and standardization as young doctoral students on different sides of the Atlantic. At Columbia University, Michael Tushman invited me to join him in sorting out a few remaining issues in the theory of dominant designs. This proved quite a daunting task. We took a step towards solving some of the puzzles in a joint paper published a few years later (Tushman & Murmann, 1998).

The present paper takes another big step in this direction and should make it easier to collect sophisticated data on the connection between technological and industrial change. Koen and I wanted to write a paper that is useful both to the person who is just beginning to study the relationship between technological and industrial change and to the expert who is very familiar with the literature. For this reason we have pulled together what we regard to be the essential analytical tools and worked diligently to articulate a model of dominant designs that agrees with the empirical facts as we know them today. 

We are very interested to hear your views on the paper and particularly eager for you to present more empirical evidence that either supports or contradicts our model.