Chapter 02: Assignment


Which of the following would NOT qualify as a discontinuous innovation?

  

Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) telephony

  

Gene therapies for cancer treatment

  

Flat bed sleeping in business class airline cabins

  

The Internet



Which of the following is the discontinuous innovation?

  

Moving from four to six cylinder car engines

  

Moving from CD to DVD music and entertainment systems

  

Moving from small shops to self-service supermarkets

  

Moving from sugar to artificial sweeteners in food products



The fluid phase of innovation is a common term used to describe catalytic cracking in the oil industry.

   True
   False


Discontinuous shifts in technology always favour newcomer firms and established firms inevitably fail to take advantage of them.

   True
   False


A dominant design is one imposed by the largest firm in a sector on the rest of that industry.

   True
   False


Which of these innovations would not qualify as a dominant design?

  

The two wheeled diamond frame bicycle

  

Direct online insurance via the Internet

  

The petrol driven internal combustion engine

  

The 5 string bass guitar



Within the transitional phase in Abernathy and Utterback's model, the predominant type of innovation is in major process innovations required by rising volume.

   True
   False


The 'fluid' pattern in Abernathy and Utterback's model is characterised by incremental product and process innovation.

   True
   False


The growing success of low cost airlines in the travel market is an example of disruptive innovation.

   True
   False


Discontinuous innovations are always associated with radical technological breakthroughs.

   True
   False


The use of tungsten filaments instead of carbon was a discontinuous innovation in the lighting industry.

   True
   False


The problem for the firms which found their marketplace disrupted in the computer disk drive industry wasn’t that they didn’t listen to customers but rather that they listened too well - to the wrong customers.

   True
   False


Which of the following are strategies for picking up weak signals about discontinuities? (Several choices may be correct.)

   Diversity – enabling odd connections to be made
   Market research across existing customer groups
   Probe and learn/ prototyping
   Competitor analysis and benchmarking of their products
   Work with the ‘fuzzy front end’
   Use futures techniques - scenarios, forecasting, etc.


Discontinuous innovations always come from outside the firm because of the difficulty of making them fit with the mainstream.

   True
   False


Which of the following statements would you expect to hear people saying in an organization which is well-prepared to deal with discontinuous innovation? (Several choices may be correct.)

   We have alternative and parallel mechanisms for implementing and developing radical innovation projects which sit outside the ‘normal’ rules and procedures
   We have mechanisms to bring in fresh perspectives – for example, recruiting from outside the industry
   We have the largest R&D building in the country
   We always employ graduates from the same set of universities
   We have mechanisms for managing ideas that don’t fit our current business – for example we license them out or spin them off
   We use some form of technology scanning/intelligence gathering - we have well developed technology antennae


Which of the following statements would you expect to hear people saying in an organization which is well-prepared to deal with discontinuous innovation? (Several choices may be correct.)

   Molar mass
   Information about the chemical bonds
   The melting point
   The density
   The correct formula
   A periodic table to find the atomic weight of each element




This is the end of the test. When you have completed all the questions and reviewed your answers, press the button below to grade the test.