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College of Business Associate Dean and Professor of Management, International Business, Harm-Jan Steenhuis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics Xin Fang, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor of Management Tolga Ulusemre, Ph.D., received notification that their latest research has been accepted in the journal Technology Analysis & Strategic Management. “High technology, performance and price: the case of additive manufacturing through desktop 3D printers” focuses on consumer-level additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing), where the authors studied the relationship between underlying technology characteristics, the performance of consumer-level 3D printers, and the value attached to the 3D printer proxied by the price.
Interestingly, only 25% of the technology characteristics matter for both performance and price, while 33% of the technology characteristics neither matter for performance nor price. Furthermore, 8% of the technology characteristics only matter for performance, and 33% only matter for price. For high technology such as consumer-level 3D printers, it is challenging to know for manufacturers of these machines which technology system characteristics are important for potential buyers. Also, technology characteristics presented by manufacturers in, for instance, customer-oriented tests may not fully capture them. Furthermore, the performance of the technology may not matter that much for early adopters. Certain hobbyist features may matter for early technology enthusiasts, even if they do not influence performance. . For a manufacturer, what this means is that they need to be aware of the different types of technology characteristics and the roles that these characteristics have for different adopter groups.
The article will soon be available online at
Steenhuis, Fang, and Ulusemre previously received a “Best Paper” award for their paper on the development of industrial additive manufacturing in the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management.
