Knowledge in Practice

Tuck professor Ron Adner explores the ecosystem of new products and services.

Like many of us, Ron Adner, the David T. McLaughlin D’54, T’55 Professor at Tuck, is a product of his environment. He came of age in the 1980s, when personal computers were making their way into homes and businesses. He convinced his parents to buy him one, and he found that he couldn’t just use it—he also had to figure out how it worked. That same curiosity drives his research and teaching today in strategy and innovation, where he has pioneered a new way of understanding how innovation happens among the complicated ecosystem of firms, partners, and customers.

Adner’s early interest in technology led him to acquire his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Cooper Union. For his master’s thesis, he examined how the introduction of surgical lasers for tracheal surgeries gave rise to the risk of fire inside a patient’s airway. In the process, he discovered that he was more intrigued by the commercial use of medical devices than the pure science behind their functioning. So, for his Ph.D., he changed direction, away from engineering and towards business. In his doctoral dissertation at Wharton, he studied the role of demand heterogeneity and showed how the extent of differences among consumers in a market shapes technology evolution and competition. In building these theories, he noted that consumers had different needs for complementary innovations—for example, some users could derive value from a personal computer on its own, while others needed the addition of pre-packaged software. “That simple insight was the entry point into my thinking about ecosystems: what other things need to be brought together with your core innovation for it to create its value,” Adner says.