8.3 Punctuated Equilibrium & Dominant Designs

Marcos Antonio de Lima Filho, PhD.

Given the predominance of stasis in industrial evolution, it is critical to establish a new concept for it or reintroduce the notion of dominant designs. As mentioned earlier, scholars used to attribute an industry’s stability to the existence of a “dominant design”. These pioneering scholars recognised that industries frequently undergo cycles of relative stability, punctuated by short periods of radical transformation. A period of technical stasis could be disrupted by new technological discontinuities (Tushman & Anderson, 1986), such as the emergence of a new dominant design (Anderson & Tushman, 1990) or an architectural innovation (Henderson & Clark, 1990).

Unfortunately, following the success of The Innovator’s Dilemma, this research tradition fell out of favour (as seen in Figure 6.2.2). Christensen eliminated the concept of dominant designs from his framework of disruption, thereby severing a crucial link between innovation research and evolutionary theory.

The punctuated equilibrium model encouraged technologists to investigate patterns of stability and disruption in the evolution of industries. This intersection gave rise to the concept of “dominant design”, serving as a fundamental link to evolutionary theory. Thus, while evolutionists explained the absence of evolutionary change through stabilising selection, technologists developed the concept of dominant design to explain the punctuated equilibrium of industries.

The influence of this biological analogy on the study of technology and innovation is overwhelming. The pioneers of disruptive innovation developed various concepts and frameworks grounded in a general model of punctuated equilibrium (Utterback & Suárez, 1993). The analogy with punctuated evolution inspired an entire generation of scholars, contributing to the very foundations of their understanding of innovation. This includes seminal theories and concepts such as dominant designs, industrial maturity, technological discontinuities, and architectural innovations.

Abernathy and Utterback, for instance, applied this notion in 1978 in the concept of dominant designs. The dominant design, they argued, emerges after a period of rapid technological innovation (punctuation), leading to a phase of incremental enhancements and refinement (equilibrium). Abernathy further developed the notion of dominant designs by introducing the idea of industrial maturity in conjunction with a punctuated model of industrial evolution (Abernathy et al., 1983). Abernathy observed that industries mature over time, with periods of disruptive innovation interspersed with periods of incremental improvements, reflecting the “punctuated” and “equilibrium” phases respectively (Abernathy & Clark, 1985).

In 1986, Tushman and Anderson proposed the concept of technological discontinuities, with direct references to punctuated equilibrium and dominant designs:

Case studies across a range of industries indicate that technological progress constitutes an evolutionary system punctuated by discontinuous change. Major product breakthroughs (e.g., jets or xerography) or process technological breakthroughs (e.g., float glass) are relatively rare (…) These relatively rare discontinuities trigger a period of technological ferment. As a new product class opens, the rate of product variation is substantial as alternative product forms compete for dominance (Tushman & Anderson, 1986).

Punctuated equilibrium environments are prevalent in industries where radical technological changes are followed by an emerging dominant design. This dominant design or standard creates a period of stability until the next technological revolution, and the cycle repeats itself (Anderson & Tushman, 1990).

Lastly, the concept of architectural innovations, developed by Henderson and Clark (1990), is yet another conceptualisation based on a punctuated model of industrial evolution. This work is not a radical departure from earlier studies. Instead, it complements them by integrating the concept of dominant designs. Clark’s earlier collaborations with Abernathy, who passed away due to cancer in 1983, further underscores the continuity of thought permeating these studies.

Overall, the punctuated equilibrium model reverberates through this generation of scholars, highlighting its enduring significance in the study of disruptive innovations. Interestingly, it was this very model that grounded Christensen’s initial research in the field. His later decision to distance himself from the punctuated equilibrium model and the concept of dominant designs marks a curious departure in the development of disruptive innovation research.

Much like his contemporaries, Christensen's early work embraced the theory of punctuated equilibrium as a fundamental principle shaping the trajectory of technological innovation. This is clearly reflected in his 1992 PhD thesis, where dominant design and architectural innovations figure as core categories, and punctuated equilibrium occupies an even more prominent place. By his own admission, “the proposal upon which this thesis was based cited a paper by the noted sociobiologist Stephen J. Gould”:

These concepts explain how we find, in the geologic record, the sudden appearance of well-developed species, and the sudden disappearance of others, rather than a gradual, ladder-like evolution of species from simple to complex, where species gradually appear and diminish. This process seems remarkably parallel to the processes of technological change observed in the disc drive industry (Christensen, 1992a, p. 260).

The importance of dominant designs and architectural innovations cannot be denied: “this thesis relies extensively upon Henderson and Clark’s definitions, and provides rather unambiguous support for their predictions that established firms will be successful at points of change in component-level technologies” (Christensen, 1992a, p. 19). Citation patterns can testify to their influence. Henderson and Clark are the most cited authors in Christensen’s dissertation, with 38 and 35 citations respectively. This is followed by Stephen Gould, with 10 citations, and William Abernathy, with 8 citations.

However, despite drawing heavily from such contributions, Christensen later departed from this research tradition. In 1997, with the publication of The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen made the notable decision to exclude dominant designs and the punctuated equilibrium model from his framework. With this change, Christensen claims to have evolved from “a technology-change framework — essentially descriptive and relatively limited in scope — to a more broadly explanatory causal theory of innovation and competitive response” (Christensen et al., 2018).

This self-proclaimed advancement, however, invites a critical revision. As seen in this section, punctuated evolution has a well-established validity, applying to a wide range of fields, including palaeontology, evolutionary biology, and the evolution of industries. Thus, the supposition that by discarding the well-grounded punctuated equilibrium model from disruptive innovation theory would lead to a “more broadly explanatory causal theory” seems counter-intuitive.

Indeed, the opposite may well be the case. By divorcing his theory of disruption from this conceptual foundation, Christensen’s framework has become more restrictive, not expansive, in its explanatory power. This loss in explanatory power is evident in the theory’s difficulties in accounting for some historical industrial shifts, such as the rise of smartphones (Section 6.4), the Jet Era (Section 6.6), and even the current transition towards electric vehicles. Given these anomalies, it is reasonable to argue that Christensen’s divergence from the principles of punctuated equilibrium and dominant design has resulted in a less robust disruption theory.