Incumbents ignore nascent markets created by disruptive product innovations when previous industry and market experiences, ingrained in technology frames, leads them to characterize these innovations as unattractive to important customers and undervalue the growth opportunity. Competitors made salient through multimarket contact (MMC) may attenuate this incumbent dilemma if they enter the new market thereby signalling its value, or if an incumbent’s experience with MMC rivals augments its capacities to anticipate the potential value of a disruptive innovation. Building on prior work, we theorize MMC with competitors from the same industry as the incumbent (Insider MMC) encourages information-based entry into a new market created by a disruptive product innovation – incumbents follow the choices of similar MMC rivals. We further theorize MMC with competitors from a different industry as the incumbent (Outsider MMC) broadens incumbent technology frames, reducing the tendency to discount disruptive innovation and increasing the likelihood an incumbent enters the new market – irrespective of whether the Outsider MMC rivals enter. Using data from the telecommunications industry from 1991 through 2005, we investigated relationships between MMC and incumbent entry into a new disruptive market, packet-based networking switches. We found MMC linearly increased the likelihood of incumbent entry and that observable entry patterns are consistent with Insider and Outsider MMC affecting entry through distinctive mechanisms. We suggest disruptive innovation theory could be usefully extended through further consideration of how competitive experiences, particularly MMC, affect incumbent responses.

中文翻译：

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克服现有困境：多市场联系在中断期间的双重作用

现有企业忽视了由颠覆性产品创新创造的新生市场，因为之前的行业和市场经验根深蒂固于技术框架中，导致他们将这些创新描述为对重要客户没有吸引力并低估了增长机会。通过多市场接触 (MMC) 脱颖而出的竞争对手如果进入新市场从而表明其价值，或者如果现有企业与 MMC 竞争对手的经验增强了其预测颠覆性创新潜在价值的能力，则可能会减轻这种现有困境。在先前工作的基础上，我们将 MMC 与来自同一行业的竞争对手进行理论化，因为现有企业 (Insider MMC) 鼓励基于信息的进入由颠覆性产品创新创造的新市场——现有企业遵循类似 MMC 竞争对手的选择。我们进一步将 MMC 与来自不同行业的竞争对手进行理论化，因为现有企业（外部 MMC）拓宽了现有技术框架，减少了打折破坏性创新的趋势，并增加了现有企业进入新市场的可能性——无论外部 MMC 竞争对手是否进入。利用 1991 年至 2005 年电信行业的数据，我们调查了 MMC 与现有进入新的颠覆性市场（基于数据包的网络交换机）之间的关系。我们发现 MMC 线性增加了现有进入的可能性，并且可观察到的进入模式与内部和外部 MMC 通过独特的机制影响进入一致。我们建议通过进一步考虑竞争经验，特别是 MMC，如何有效地扩展破坏性创新理论，