ICC Advance Access originally published online on March 1, 2008
Industrial and Corporate Change 2008 17(2):335-392; doi:10.1093/icc/dtn005
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Technological capabilities and late shakeouts: industrial dynamics in the advanced gas turbine industry, 1987–2002
Correspondence: Anna Bergek, KITE research group, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. e-mail: anna.bergek{at}liu.se
Correspondence: Fredrik Tell, KITE research group, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. e-mail: fredrik.tell{at}liu.se
Correspondence: Christian Berggren, KITE research group, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. e-mail: christian.berggren{at}liu.se
Correspondence: Jim Watson, SPRU, University of Sussex, The Freeman Centre, East Sussex, BN1 9QE, UK. e-mail: w.j.watson{at}sussex.ac.uk
This article focuses on technological discontinuities and late shakeouts in mature industries. The empirical case is combined cycle gas turbine technology in the power generation industry, where two of four main incumbents (GE, ABB, Siemens, and Westinghouse) exited the industry after several years of competition. We show that the vast differences in firm performance are strongly related to variation in technological capabilities, such as sourcing and integration of knowledge from related industries and after-launch problem solving. The findings from this case may also be of general interest for studies of dynamics in other mature, complex industries.