Technology Innovation Paradox: The Causes and Solutions

Taeyeon Kim (), Jinwoo Kim () and Yong Jin Kim ()
Additional contact information
Taeyeon Kim: Sogang University
Jinwoo Kim: Frism Investment Adnisory Inc.
Yong Jin Kim: Sogang University

A chapter in Management Information Systems in a Digitalized AI World, 2025, pp 49-63 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Technology innovation is one of the primary drivers of economic growth and wealth creation and a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Most innovations involve the recombination of existing knowledge. Previous studies on technology innovation have highlighted the importance of cross-industry technology transfer to drive innovation. However, there is lack of research on the situation where innovative technology developed in an industry, fails to significantly impact the industry while having a substantial influence when applied in another industry. This situation is defined in this study as the Technology Innovation Paradox. This study investigates the “Technology Innovation Paradox” by analyzing patent data to identify cases where technologies considered outdated and ineffective in one industry bring forth an extensive growth in other industries when transferred. The root cause of this paradox lies in the tendency of established industries to focus on constrained technology for product differentiation or premium features rather than on marginal technology, while other industries identify and adopt the marginal technologies developed through such investments, integrating them into their products. Since these industries are utilizing already-developed innovations, they can achieve significant growth with relatively low investment. This study contributes to literature by conceptualizing the paradoxical situation for future research.

Keywords: Technology Innovation Paradox; Technology Innovation transfer; Cross-Industry Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-981-96-6526-6_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819665266

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-96-6526-6_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().