Abstract
This chapter attempts to explain how a leading firm contributes to diffusing technologies for implementation by developing and disclosing the technologies of standard-essential patents (SEPs) through system development. Technology diffusion plays a critical role in creating demand. Disclosure of technologies to the public through standardization is reported to accelerate the process of demand creation. However, it is still hard for firms to learn and maintain the knowledge and relevant technologies to develop complex systems: system knowledge. By analyzing a key case in the telecommunications industry, this chapter suggests that demand creation is encouraged by the technological foundations (i.e., system knowledge and relevant technologies) residing in the leading firms’ system integration capabilities to implement technology specifications. Such technological foundations are shaped by the strategic decision to provide technologies for implementation rather than total solution systems.
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- 1.
The issues of the industry were discussed by the MIT Communications Future Program (CFP) in year 2005. Compared to other ICT industries, the telecommunications industry is still in flux. This is partly because it represents a point of convergence for firms from the telephony, computing, and Internet industries, all trying to position themselves in a complex multilayered technology space with different platform strategies (Pon et al. 2014).
- 2.
For example, ETSI, formed by the European Commission in 1987, aimed to help the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) accelerate the technology standardization of 2G GSM from 1988 to 1991. Since 1998, 3GPP, as the central standardization body, has been in charge of coordinating other standard bodies for 3G WCDMA (UMTS) standardization.
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Huang, W., Yasumoto, M., Shiu, JM. (2018). Investigating the Creation and Diffusion of Knowledge for Demand Creation: The Case of the Telecommunications Industry. In: Fujimoto, T., Ikuine, F. (eds) Industrial Competitiveness and Design Evolution. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 12. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55145-4_13
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