This article considers an incumbent's product innovation decision within an uncertain framework, where the firm decides whether to continue selling the established product. The model being dynamic allows to analyze the trade-off between an early innovation where the new product only slightly improves the existing one, or innovating late with a much better new product. We find that the effect of uncertainty is that it raises the value of the strategy where the firm keeps on producing the old product after innovating. This results in earlier investment if the firm stays active on the established product market after adopting the new product, and that it keeps on producing the established product for a longer time after the product innovation. Limited uncertainty could lead to a non-monotonicity: with a better new product it is not optimal to innovate, whereas innovating is optimal with a worse one.

本文在不确定的框架内考虑了在位者的产品创新决策，由该公司决定是否继续销售已确定的产品。动态模型可以分析在早期创新（新产品仅对现有产品稍作改进）或后期创新（具有更好的新产品）之间的权衡。我们发现不确定性的影响在于，它提高了企业创新后继续生产旧产品的战略价值。如果公司在采用新产品后保持在既有产品市场上的活跃度，那么这将导致较早的投资，并且在产品创新后，公司将继续生产既有产品更长的时间。有限的不确定性可能导致非单调性：