Theoretical and Empirical Evidence of Timing-to-Market and Lead Market Strategies for Successful Environmental Innovation

Thomas Cleff () and Klaus Rennings
Additional contact information
Thomas Cleff: Pforzheim University, http://www.hs-pforzheim.de/de-de/wirtschaft-und-recht/bachelor/international-Marketing/Professoren/Cleff/Seiten/Home.aspx

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: In environmental policy first mover advantages for environmental technologies are often taken for granted. It is a popular view to see the state as a political entrepreneur who introduces a certain environmental policy instrument, e.g. feedin tariffs for renewable energies, and thus becomes the world market leader or the lead market for the respective technology. Against this background, this paper wants to find out if the idea of first mover advantages can be justified by theories and empirical evidence from industrial organization and business management studies. After a review of theoretical and empirical papers we see that first mover advantages are not confirmed by empirical evidence. Thereby the successful innovator is not necessarily the first but very often one of the early movers within the competition of different innovation designs. We show that the success of a timing strategy depends on country-specific lead market potentials, on market and technology characteristics and on the regime of the country-specific regulation. On this basis we derive options for environmental innovation strategies for firms under different circumstances of markets, technologies and regulations. We will see different implications for practical innovation management and innovation policy.

Keywords: Lead markets; environmental innovation; first mover advantages; innovation strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L60 O33 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hme and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sfu.ca/repec-econ/sfu/sfudps/dp11-01.pdf (application/pdf)

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:sfu:sfudps:dp11-01

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Working Paper Coordinator ().