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Cited by 2,873

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 4 of the 4 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search

Fleming, Lee·2001·Management Science
DOI 10.1287/mnsc.47.1.117.10671
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Abstract

While the course of technological change is widely accepted to be highly uncertain and unpredictable, little work has identified or studied the ultimate sources and causes of that uncertainty. This paper proposes that purely technological uncertainty derives from inventors' search processes with unfamiliar components and component combinations. Experimentation with new components and new combinations leads to less useful inventions on average, but it also implies an increase in the variability that can result in both failure and breakthrough. Negative binomial count and dispersion models with patent citation data demonstrate that new combinations are indeed more variable. In contrast to predictions, however, the reuse of components has a nonmonotonic and eventually positive effect on variability.

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Research works printed but not linked: 61

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Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Fleming, L.
Venue
Management Science
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Published
2001-01
Volume
47
Issue
1
Pages
117-132
ISSN
  • 0025-1909 (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-5501
DOI
10.1287/mnsc.47.1.117.10671
OpenAlex
W2100390860
Cited by
2,873
References
4
FWCI
25.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.