Lead Markets: Country-Specific Success Factors of the Global Diffusion of Innovations

The book answers three questions. First: what is a lead market? Second: what constitutes a lead market? and third: how can companies harness lead markets to generate global innovations? Considering the international, cross-border diffusion of innovations one can observe that a particular technological design such as the facsimile machine, the personal computer or the mobile cellular telephone is often adopted by one country or region ("lead market") much earlier than by other countries. The study suggests a theoretical explanation for the phenomena of lead markets and collects empirical evidence from a detailed case study of the cellular mobile telephone industry. A new innovation development and market entry concept is presented.