Relationship between delayed technology utilization and product success: An empirical study of personal computers and gaming

Organizations seek opportunities to innovate when technological asymmetries between sub-systems emerge in evolving technological systems. Consequently, competition among organizations to close technological disparities should lead to the development of products with higher performance. However, currently little is known about the dynamic relationship between the time lag in technology utilization and product success. In this paper we firstly develop a time gap measure of technological disparity between sub-systems within a technological system and apply the developed measure in an empirical study of the personal computer (PC) system´s GPU (graphics processing unit) and PC game sub-systems including 1300 product launches. Our findings show that the PC game sub-system trails the GPU sub-system in the level of technological performance throughout the years 1996 to 2007, inclusively, with varying size of time gap. Secondly, we explore the relationship the technological disparity, as measured by the time gap, with the product performance of PC games, as measured by game ratings. Our results interestingly do not indicate a relationship between the time gap and the success of PC games. We elaborate on managerial implications of these findings and provide theoretical generalizations on technology systems and their evolution inside the technology and innovation management arena.