Formation mechanism simulation of high-tech industry’s dominant technology: a niche overlap perspective

ABSTRACT

Dominant technology in high-tech industries refers to the technology that can break the stability and balance of the original technology system within a certain period and is widely adopted under the interaction of technological possibility and market choice. It is of theoretical and practical necessity to explore dominant technology’s formation under overlapping niche. Thus, based on niche theory and competitive game theory, we established a competitive game model of dominant technology formation, and dynamically simulated the shape of dominant technology. This paper uses ‘the proportion of user adoption’ to measure dominant technology market share in high-tech industry and maintains that obtaining over 50% confers an obvious competitive advantage. Therefore, we draw three main conclusions: (1) Dominant technology formation in high-tech industry is influenced by R&D input, adopter preferences, adoption returns and the decision-making cost; (2) dominant technology formation under niche overlap can be described as a continuous accumulation and complex dynamic process; and (3) The main goal in the new technology competitive game is to obtain a larger market share, and the interaction in this game, which has two possible results, is complex, dynamic, diverse, and nonlinear.

KEYWORDS:

• Dominant technology
• niche overlap
• competitive game
• high-tech industry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Shanghai (CN) under grant number (2022ECK004).

Notes on contributors

Ruihan Zhang

Ruihan Zhang (Corresponding Author) is currently a lecturer at the Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University (Shanghai, China). She received a Ph.D. degree from the School of Economics and Management, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China, in 2021. She was also a visiting student at the Institute for Business Innovation at the Haas School of Business, the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, USA), supervised by Prof. David J Teece (2018–2019). Her fields of interest include innovation management, technology management, dynamic capabilities, coopetition, and technology evolution in high-technology industries. During her studies, she has participated in research work with National Natural Science Fund Projects and the Provincial Social Science Fund Project of China and given international conference presentations in China and the US. E-mail: [email protected].

Haiyan Li

Haiyan Li, PhD, is Lecture of Business School at the Shantou University. She received her doctoral degree from Harbin Engineering University. Her research area is mainly focused on the innovation and entrepreneurship management. Her research work has been published in Journal of International Management, Networks and Spatial Economics and Entrepreneurship Research Journal.