The point of departure is a competence-destroying technological discontinuity. We posit that the type of complementary assets (generic vs. specialized) needed to commercialize the new technology is critical in determining the industry- and firm-level performance in the post-discontinuity time...

A persistent theme in the academic literature on technological innovation is that incumbent enterprises have great difficulty crossing the abyss created by a radical technological innovation. It is argued that incumbents go into decline, while new entrants rise to market dominance by exploiting...