2022/07/29 by Alexander Brem, Petra Nylund, Petra A. Nylund
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · #Digital Platforms and Economics #Innovation and Knowledge Management #Open Source Software Innovations
paper · doi:10.1109/tem.2022.3192094
openalex publication_date 2022/07/29 · crossref created 2022/07/29 · crossref issued 2024/01/01 · crossref published 2024/01/01 · crossref published-print 2024/01/01 · crossref deposited 2025/02/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01
The dominant design life cycle shows that standardization leads to stability and increased technology development. However, the breakneck speed of innovation means standards now require more frequent renewal. Therefore, this article conceptualizes standard inertia to include the factors impeding the emergence of a new standard. New standards must overcome the standard inertia generated by accumulated investments in knowledge, capabilities, and other resources, including identity and legitimacy. Multinational and small and medium-sized enterprises face complementary obstacles, and standard inertia is, thus, an ecosystem-level mechanism. Dominant designs may embed subsets of underlying dominant designs, meaning the emergence of a new design may overthrow an entire technology ecosystem. Therefore, inertial factors protecting the prior design also emanate from all ecosystem levels. Ecosystem platforms may consequently enable new forms of interaction required to break established patterns.