Date：
April 9（Wednesday), 2025
from 17:30 to 19:00
Topic:
“Unlocking Generality: Resurfacing Uncertainty Across Applications of the Lithium-ion Battery”
Speaker:
David A. Kirsch
(Associate Professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business and the College of Information Studies (by courtesy) at the University of Maryland)
Abstract:
Studies of industry emergence have often generated insights from empirical contexts with a one-to-one correspondence between a technology and its application. In parallel, studies of general-purpose technologies (GPTs) have documented the economic impact and versatility of technologies with broad downstream applications, although these studies often abstract away from the endogenous and gradual process through which a single technology underpins multiple downstream markets, in practice assuming that “generality” is an intrinsic, ex ante observable attribute of a given technology. To address the research gap at this intersection, this study leverages the applicability of lithium-ion batteries in multiple applications: consumer electronics, electric vehicles, space missions, and utility grids. Using a longitudinal, multi-level, single-case analysis, this study proposes a conceptual framework about the impediments to the diffusion of a single technology to multiple applications, including application-specific uncertainties that resurface in each application, and their system-wide implications for commercial viability at each technology-application nexus. The conclusion considers the circumstances under which these impediments and associated investments may generalize to other “potential” GPTs.
Venue:
onsite
IIR Laboratory 2 (Room#219) of the second floor of the IIR building
Organizer:
Masaru Karube
This forum is jointly organized by MIC (Management Innovation Research Center), Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study.
Deadline:
9:00, April 9, 2025
For registration, please click on “Innovation Forum” below.