Programme

Jena, Germany, October 18-19, 2007

Standard economic analysis claims that demand provides incentives to innovation during industry evolution. However, not only does the size and growth rate of demand matter, but also its qualitative nature: its structure and composition, which can measured in terms of product differentiation and markets segmentation, affect innovation in various ways across different stages of industry evolution.

For this reason, special attention ought to be paid to demand heterogeneity in terms of segments, types of firms (public vs. private) as well as over time ( due to the adaptation and learning patterns of user firms and final consumers). Here data on product characteristics can be used to perform different types of research directly linked to the interpretation of the dynamics of the demand. For instance, products are not purchased for their physical value but because they supply services. Typically, a complex and differentiated product (as most product today are) provides a various range of different services reflecting the heterogeneous nature of demand firms are facing. For this reason, important trends in demand can be followed adequately not only by counting the number of product units of each type sold, but also by analysing observed trend in product characteristic to grasp the evolving heterogeneity of the consumers: the emergence of new characteristics and the changing composition of characteristics packages are equally important aspects of both the evolution of demand and the product technology.

Thus, controlling for firms´strategies and technological conditions, the analysis over time of the almost infinite range of combinations of characteristics for a single product is an observable proxy to track the co-evolution of demand composition and product design. A theory of demand should have some explanatory power with respect to observed trends in product characteristics.

This conference aims at analysing the importance of looking at product characteristics when analysing the relationships between demand and innovation. The conference will emphasize how indicators based on product characteristics can be used to measure the degree of substitutability of different products, the degree of discontinuity involved in the emergence of particular innovations, the pattern of generation of variety, and, as a result, the intensity of competition. Moreover, the conference will highlight the implications that the construction of such indicators for studying the role of demand in influencing product and industry life cycles, the emergence of a dominant design as well as to for giving a more precise empirical meaning to concepts such as technological paradigms and technological trajectories.

Target:

Empirical papers based on datasets of product characteristics are sought on the following topics:

1. Indicators and measurement of technical change (including hedonic prices approach)
2. Radical vs. incremental innovation
3. Dominant designs and market niches
4. Technological trajectories
5. Diversity and product variety
6. Consumer learning patterns
7. Co-evolution of service characteristics and the demand environment

Date and location:

• The DIME conference will be held in Jena on Thursday and Friday, October 18-19, 2007.

Timetable:

• Call for abstract issued: May 25, 2007
• Deadline for abstracts submission: July 31, 2007
• Decision of paper acceptance: September 15, 2007
• Submission ofull papers: October 12, 2007

Emails marked ‘DIME-Char’ with a one-page abstract & contact details should be sent in an attached file to Alessandro Nuvolari AND to Roberto Fontana.

You may also apply for funding to cover travel and accommodation expenses, which will be available to DIME members (one author per selected paper). Please specify that you are DIME member, as well as the budget.

Conference scientific commitee:

• Paolo Saviotti, GREDEG, Sophia Antipolis, France
• Franco Malerba, CESPRI, Bocconi University, Italy
• Arnulf Grupp, ISI-Fraunhofer, Germany
• Uwe Cantner, Schiller Universität, Germany
• Koen Frenken, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
• Alessandro Nuvolari, ECIS, Eindhoven University, The Netherlands
• Roberto Fontana, University of Pavia and CESPRI, Bocconi University, Italy

Local conference organiser:

• Marco Guerzoni, Jena Graduate Academy, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Germany.