The evolutionary dynamics of product design during the early phases of a technological change. An explorative research in Italian lighting industry

Product language is the set of stylistic, aesthetic and design traits of a product specifically aimed at conveying users the meaning of that product. Thus when a technology breakthrough occurs firms are faced by the fundamental challenge of developing an appropriate new product language to mark the new technology and highlight its new features and capabilities to create value for user. Nevertheless the dynamics of the product language evolution in the early phases of a technology breakthrough are still poorly understood. The paper analyses the launch and the early years (2007-2011) of the LED-based products in the Italian decorative lamp industry. Using the network graph analysis the paper highlights the product language’s evolutionary dynamics of these products and based on existing theories speculates on the drivers of such dynamics. In particular three main factors seem to affect the early evolution of the product language of a breakthrough technology: (i) the users lock-in created by the early product language experimentations, (ii) the collective mechanisms that firms adopt when they develop new product languages (so called design discourse) and (iii) the influence of past product language solutions on the interplay between problem space and solution space in defining new developments. Implications for mangers of the study’s findings are discussed.