The Anticipation of Converging Industries: A Concept Applied to Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods

261 Pages·2013·4.32 MB·English

by  Clive-Steven Curran (auth.)

Clive-Steven Curran
The Anticipation
of Converging
Industries
A Concept Applied to Nutraceuticals and
Functional Foods
The Anticipation of Converging Industries
Clive-Steven Curran
The Anticipation
of Converging Industries
A Concept Applied to Nutraceuticals
and Functional Foods
123
Clive-Steven Curran
Fresenius Medical Care AG&Co. KGaA
BadHomburg
Germany
ISBN 978-1-4471-5169-2 ISBN 978-1-4471-5170-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-5170-8
SpringerLondonHeidelbergNewYorkDordrecht
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013936537
(cid:2)Springer-VerlagLondon2013
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Foreword
Industries are often perceived to be rather ‘monolithic blocks’ characterized by
common value propositions, customer bases, and product offerings. Within these
industries those companies will be most successful, which can work the system
most effectively. In most areas this is particularly dependent on (1) the capability
to manage manufacturing (or service offering) capacities to produce a reliably
goodproduct(orservice)atthelowest possiblecosts.Furthermore,(2)marketing
and sales forces need to be able to convince potential buyers of their need to
purchasethecompany’sofferingatthehighestpossibleprice.Manycompaniesare
lost, however, when they suddenly need to deal with radically changing techno-
logical foci, market dynamics, or regulatory frameworks. These factors are fun-
damental aspects of blurring boundaries between hitherto separate industries.
Thisphenomenoniscalledindustryconvergenceorindustryfusion.Whatused
tobetrueorsmartinacompany’straditionalenvironmentmayprovedetrimental
inanewindustry.Oneprimaryexampleofconvergingindustrieshasbeenthearea
of information technologies, consumer electronics, and telecommunication (ICT).
For a long time, e.g., the telecommunication industry was in most countries
dominatedbyastate-ownedmonopolistthatwouldonlyveryreluctantlyletother
companiestakeovermarketsharesorreactslowlytochangingcustomerneeds.On
the other hand, consumer electronics companies had already experienced the
opportunities and threats of a more competitive environment. While a mere two
decades ago people would have to own half a dozen products to take pictures,
place phone calls, listen to music, or work on electronic documents, today’s
childrenaregrowingupinaworldwherenothingismorenaturaltothemthanthat
all ofthosefunctionalities are incorporated inone deviceweighing around 100 g.
In the same time span a lot of corporate mergers, divestitures, and strategic
maneuvers, especially in ICT, but also in industries such as the food or the
pharmaceutical industry have tried ‘to seize the day’ of convergence. Companies
such as Apple have spent billions of dollars expecting a success in marketing
convergenceproducts.Theirpastfinancialsspeakaclearlanguageinrespecttothe
overall success and importance of these investments—between 2008 and 2012
alone Apple’s total net sales more than quadrupled from $37 billion to $157
billion. More importantly, the contribution of more traditional computer products
v
vi Foreword
haslongbeenoutweighedbysmartphonesandsimilardevicesinApple’srevenue
statistics. On the other hand, many companies have lost billions of dollars when
trying to turn convergence into an opportunity for the firm.
As the correct timing for major maneuvers is difficult to achieve, corporate
foresight activities have gained importance over the more recent past. Clive-
Steven Curran adds to this important field his approach to anticipate converging
industries. Whilst a large part of the literature focuses on the more qualitative
variants of generating intelligence about the future, his research utilizes publicly
available data to identify early patterns of blurring boundaries between scientific,
technological, market, or even industrial areas. He compares keyword-based
analysesofscientificpublicationsandpatentswithclassification-basedanalysesof
patentsintheareaofICTandNutraceuticalsandFunctionalFoods.Thelatterisan
equally active new industry segment involving the pharmaceutical and food
industries. Building on a thorough literature review and deriving comprehensive
andconcisedefinitionsofhithertofuzzyconceptsinthisrathernewresearchfield,
Curran analyzes approximately 1.8 million patents and a few thousand scientific
publications.Identifyingasetoftriggersanddriversforindustryconvergence,he
develops a very convincing method for the anticipation of converging industries.
This work’s impressive theoretical foundation in combination with its clear
practical applicability has proven appealing to academics and practitioners alike.
Parts of it have been presented at international conferences including the Inter-
nationalSocietyforProfessionalInnovationManagement(ISPIM)Conferencesin
Vienna (Austria), Tours (France), Bilbao (Spain), and Hamburg (Germany), the
International Conference on Management of Technology (IAMOT) in Cairo
(Egypt), the R&D Management Conference in Ottawa (Canada), the Portland
International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET)
Conference inPortland (USA), andthe Academy ofManagement (AOM)Annual
Meeting in Chicago (USA). At these conferences he has been nominated for Best
StudentPaperAwardattheXXISPIMConference(Tours2008)andawardedthe
Brad W. Hosler Outstanding Student Paper Award, PICMET’09 (Portland 2009).
In addition, the dissertation on which this book is based has received the ISPIM-
Wiley Innovation Management Dissertation Award (2011). Furthermore, Clive-
Steven Curran’s inspiring work has been published in leading international
journals, such as the International Journal of Innovation Management and
TechnologicalForecastingandSocialChange.Iwouldliketoclosebyexpressing
my conviction that this book will receive its well-deserved broad dissemination
and by wishing you an inspiring time reading it.
Prof. Dr. Jens Leker
Preface
WhenIstartedworkingattheUniversityofMünstermyideaofwhatmyresearch
topicwouldbewasquitedifferentfromwhatispresentedhere.Afterlookinginto
different topics in the broader realm of innovation management two main aspects
have triggered my excitement about the anticipation of converging industries.
First,theresearchdevotedtodifferentformsofforecasting/foresightanddistilling
information from the vast amount of publicly available data, most notably sci-
entificpublicationsandpatentdocuments.Withanaturalsciencesbackgroundthis
quantitative data appealed to me more than the more qualitative, psychological
aspects of innovation management. Second, with a specific interest in the phar-
maceutical industry and its related industries I came across some strategic
maneuvers that did not seem to make sense within the traditional, narrower
boundariesoftheirindustry.AfeasibleexplanationIfoundwasthefewworkson
‘convergence’ and immanent principles that largely concentrated on the ICT
(information technologies, consumer electronics, and telecommunication) indus-
try.Inconsequence,thisyieldedmyhypothesisthatanticipatingsuchconvergence
on the basis of publicly available data would be possible.
Thepresentbookwaswrittenastheresultofmydoctoralresearchprojectatthe
InstituteofBusinessAdministrationattheDepartmentofchemistryandpharmacy,
University of Münster. However important an initial spark may have been, there
wouldbenobookifnotfortheoverwhelmingsupportIhaveexperiencedfromso
many people. Consequently, it is an honor and my great pleasure to extend my
heartfelt thanks to them.
First,IwouldliketoexpressmygratitudetomythesissupervisorProf.Dr.Jens
Leker, who has provided me with one of the most important ingredients in my
endeavor—the freedom to operate—whilst at the same time being supportive of
mystreamofresearchandopentonewapproachesandmethods.Second,Iwould
like to thank Prof. Dr. Hans-Ulrich Humpffor serving as the co-advisor.
Third,IamindebtedtoDr.WalterBuckelandhiscolleaguesatFIZKarlsruhe/
STN International for their support with and access to STN AnaVist and the
respectivedatabases.Fourth,IowespecialthankstoProf.Dr.StefanieBröringfor
infecting me with the ‘convergence virus’ and for several collaborative papers.
Fifth, such a project is always considerably influenced by feedback from editors,
reviewers, and conference participants, even if the individual contribution is
vii
viii Preface
impossibletospecify.Thankyouforyouropen-mindedandyetcriticaldiscussion
of several aspects of my research.
As much as a Doctorate on the one hand needs to be a ‘lonesome, entrepre-
neurial’task,asmuchisitontheotherhand,dependentonone’senvironment.In
my case I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to conduct my
researchat the InstituteofBusinessAdministration. Adiverse team of colleagues
withvariouseducationalbackgroundsinnaturalsciencesaswellaseconomicshas
always led to inspiring discussions and a lot of fun—be it the weekly football
sessionortheoccasionalcampuscoffee.Thankyouall!Specifically,Iamgrateful
to Anne Große Daldrup, who is the heart and soul of the institute. Furthermore,
thanks to Gudrun Maria John and Nina Preschitschek for conducting some of the
patent searches and for co-authoring papers with me. Nina, to you also, special
thanks for some very fruitful last-minute discussions.
Dr.VerenaThiemann(neeHoltorf)andDr.BenjaminNiedergasseldeservemy
thank you for constituting a great team on ‘the third level of the institute’ as well
as on our several conference trips. Additionally, to Ben I want to direct very
special thanks. He was not only a great colleague in many projects, publications,
and teaching assignments, but also a perfect co-inhabitant of our common office
and a very thorough and dedicated proof reader of my manuscript. His input,
thoughts,andourendlesshoursofdiscussion hadamajorimpact onthisresearch
project.Moreover,hewasagreatfriendchallengingmewhenIwastootemptedto
take short-cuts as well as when I was overly skeptic about the meaning of my
results.
Finally, Iam greatly indebted to myfamily and friends who have always been
supportive and provided me with many a much needed distraction from my aca-
demictask.Mostimportantly,thisbookwouldneverhavebeenpossibleifnotfor
the incredible love, patience, encouragement, and unlimited support of my wife
Anna.Toyouandtoourtwowonderfulchildren,LiamJamesandNellBarbara,I
dedicate this book.
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Research Problem and Relevance of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research Questions and Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Outline of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Definition and Delineation of Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.1 Concept of Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.2 Literature Review on Definitions of Convergence. . . . . . 16
2.1.3 Delineating Convergence from Fusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.4 Defining Convergence and Fusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Triggers and Drivers of Convergence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Differentiating Between Triggers and Drivers. . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2 Literature Review on Triggers and Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.3 Classification of Triggers and Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 Examples of Converging Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3.1 The ICT industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3.2 The IT and Electronics Industry with Other Industries. . . 46
2.3.3 The Chemical Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.3.4 The Pharmaceutical Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3.5 Service Sector and Other Industries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.4 Process of Convergence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3 Anticipating Convergence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.1 Anticipating Converging Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.1.1 Goals and Possible Outcomes of Anticipation. . . . . . . . . 63
3.1.2 Predicting the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.1.3 Where to Anticipate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
ix
x Contents
3.2 Scientific Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.1 Particularities of Scientific Publications. . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.2 Bibliometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.2.3 How will Scientific Publications be Used
in Anticipating Converging Industries? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.3 Patent Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.3.1 Particularities of Patent Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.3.2 Patent Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.3.3 How will Patents be Used in Anticipating
Converging Industries? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.4 Indicators for Industry Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4 Conceptual Framework and Research Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.1 Conceptual Framework: The Resource-Based View
in Converging Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.2 Research Questions: The Anticipation of Converging
Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.3 Research Setting: The Area of Nutraceuticals
and Functional Foods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.3.1 Defining and Delineating Functional Foods
and Nutraceuticals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.3.2 Scientific and Technological Background of NFF. . . . . . 138
4.3.3 Phytosterols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
4.3.4 Industry and Regulatory Background of NFF. . . . . . . . . 157
4.3.5 Excursus: Cosmeceuticals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4.3.6 Research Questions: The Areas of NFF
and Cosmeceuticals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5 Analysis and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
5.1 Keyword-Based Analysis: Indications of Convergence
Around Phytosterols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
5.1.1 SciFinder Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
5.1.2 STN AnaVist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.2 Classification-Based Analysis: Indications of Convergence
in NFF and ICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
5.2.1 Searching INPADOCDB with STN Express. . . . . . . . . . 194
5.2.2 Samples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
5.2.3 Analysis of NFF Patents in the USA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5.2.4 Analysis of NFF Patents in the UK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.2.5 Analysis of NFF Patents in Japan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
5.2.6 Analysis of ICT Patents in the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207