ITPEC FE Subject A April 2024 Question 52

Technology advances slowly, then rapidly, then stagnates — the S curve plots a technology's performance against the time or effort invested in it.

• •Early stage: the technology is immature and effort yields little progress
• •Growth stage: breakthroughs make performance rise rapidly
• •Maturity: physical or economic limits approach and progress stagnates

When one technology flattens out, a new one often starts its own S curve, so firms watch for the moment to switch.

Answer (c)

Why not others:

• •(a) — the spread of a product through the market shown as a frequency distribution of adopters is the innovation diffusion model, about adoption rather than technical progress
• •(b) — how attention to a new technology changes over time until it actually spreads is the hype cycle
• •(d) — unit cost falling as cumulative production grows is the experience curve

Key rule: S curve: performance over time; hype cycle: expectations over time; diffusion curve: adopters over time; experience curve: unit cost against cumulative volume.

Technological Strategy Management · AI-written, may contain errors