Veröffentlichungen von Lukas Müller

Digital technologies enable vast opportunities for innovation. These innovations, driven by the flexible and modular architecture of digital technologies, blur traditional boundaries and foster the convergence of previously separate technologies and industries. Convergence facilitates new business opportunities and value creation. However, despite the potential of these developments, the extant literature has not fully explored their impact on business value. Our study addresses this gap by analyzing over 3.7 million patent families from 2000 to 2018, using natural language processing and regression analysis. We show that technological convergence is positively linked to patent value and this relationship is enhanced by the integration of digital technologies. Our study provides valuable insights into how technological convergence and the integration of digital technologies are associated with business value, offering new avenues for future research.

Convergence is a frequently discussed phenomenon of digital innovation and is reflected in the merging of previously separate areas. Convergence takes place on various levels, one of them being technological convergence which serves as a main factor for the other levels of convergence, e.g. product or industry convergence. The phenomenon of technological convergence has already been theoretically studied. However, in an increasingly digitized world, we do not understand how and to what extent technological convergence is driven by digitization and how this effect becomes empirically manifest. In our analysis of a longitudinal patent data set consisting of over four million patents, we compare digital vs. non-digital patents and thus are able to show and quantify the impact of digitization on technological convergence. We show that (1) technological convergence is not solely a fundamentally digital phenomenon and (2) boundaries between digital and non-digital patents become blurrier over time. We conclude by indicating future avenues for research on the impact of digitization.

Digital convergence is frequently discussed in research. The concept of convergence describes how formerly separate areas are increasingly merging. So far, however, we have only a rudimentary understanding of digital convergence for several reasons. First, digital convergence is not clearly conceptualized and used differently across contexts. Second, we have little insight into what is converging and at what pace. We conceptualize digital convergence by arguing that its sociotechnical nature requires jointly considering technical and social aspects. Our analysis of a longitudinal patent data set covering 31 years and 677,045 patents from 124 industries shows that (1) industry boundaries defined by the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) are dissolving as companies interact with technological knowledge outside their industrial boundaries. (2) Specific technology classes defined in the International Patent Classification (IPC) increasingly cite - and converge with - other technology classes. We close by highlighting promising avenues for future research on digital convergence.