Discuss the main features of the Industry Life Cycle model (Klepper, 1996)

It is difficult to generalize it to all industries. The sequence of product innovations followed by process innovations does not hold in capital-intensive industries such as commodity chemicals, synthetic fibers, plastics and petrochemicals, where innovation is mainly of the process type. Nor it holds in industries where products are customized, where product innovation is mainly type of innovation. An initial major discontinuity (a major product innovation), followed by the emergence and consolidation of a dominant design. This story does not hold in several industries: i.e. semiconductor industries. 1950s: dominant design (planar transistor) -> new discontinuity (integrated circuit) -> new discontinuity (microprocessor). Technological discontinuity is not always associated with the first major innovator