Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • March 2021
  • Article
  • Strategy Science

Increasing the Level of Abstraction as a Strategy for Accelerating the Adoption of Complex Technologies

By: Willy C. Shih
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Many new technologies are complex and embody high levels of technical sophistication, and applying them should require significant knowledge and experience. Yet, the rapid adoption and incorporation of these technologies into other innovations seems inconsistent with the expertise needed to make them work. In this paper, we propose increasing levels of abstraction as a strategy for speeding the adoption of new technologies. Higher-level abstractions package complexity in ways that makes them easier to understand and recombine, and they decrease the resources needed by firms to deploy sophisticated technical know-how. Increasing the level of abstraction is a way to push forward the innovative frontier by making such difficult-to-use technologies readily accessible to other innovators. Although this framing has been used in engineering and software development to describe modular encapsulation and cumulative innovation, we propose its use in the management literature to describe more broadly the uptake of new technologies and their facile recombination. This framing casts a different light on cumulative innovation and exposes new managerial questions to explore.

Keywords

Abstraction; Technological And Scientific Innovation; Technological Progress; Diffusion Of Innovation; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Complexity; Technology; Strategy

Citation

Shih, Willy C. "Increasing the Level of Abstraction as a Strategy for Accelerating the Adoption of Complex Technologies." Strategy Science 6, no. 1 (March 2021): 54–61. (ISSN 2333-2050 (print), ISSN 2333-2077 (online))
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now
  • Purchase

About The Author

Willy C. Shih

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • January 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

    By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin
    • August 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (A) and (B)

    By: Willy Shih
    • August 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (B)

    By: Willy Shih
More from the Author
  • Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin
  • Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (A) and (B) By: Willy Shih
  • Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (B) By: Willy Shih
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College