The use of strategies in managing technological innovation

The objective of this paper is to understand innovators' pursuit of strategies in securing the benefits from an innovation. The study develops a methodological framework of platform for analysing three case study innovations – Windows‐operating system for PC, plain paper copier and video cassette recorder. This paper examines the process of innovators creating platform advantage (the capability to engender an increasing future and continuing success of new innovations or businesses) in order to understand why innovators pursue collaborative or competitive strategies in managing technological innovations. It is argued that collaboration is motivated by risk considerations as much as by a search for profit. The results indicate that the use of strategies (whether collaborative or competitive strategy) depends on how innovators see the benefits from using particular strategies to exploit the innovation.