Handbook of Management Scales/Architectural innovation

Description
A comprehensive set of measures is developed to assess an innovation’s locus, type, and characteristics. The measure described on this page is one of these measures. It is found that the concepts of competence destroying and competence enhancing are composed of two distinct constructs that, although correlated, separately characterize an innovation: new competence acquisition and competence enhancement/destruction. Scales are developed to measure these constructs and show that new competence acquisition and competence enhancing/destroying are different from other innovation characteristics including core/peripheral and incremental/radical, as well as architectural and generational innovation types.

Following the typical process of scale construction, the empirical analysis is divided into four stages:
 * 1) content face validity analysis with expert judges.
 * 2) scale puriﬁcation through exploratory and conﬁrmatory factor analysis.
 * 3) assessment of discriminant and convergent validity through analysis of covariance structures.
 * 4) nomological validity through the analysis of the effect of innovation characteristics on time to introduction and commercial success.

Definition
Architectural innovation involves changes in linkages between existing subsystems.

Items

 * INNOVATION led to signiﬁcant changes in the linkages between SUBSYSTEM and at least one subsystem in PRODUCT other than SUBSYSTEM.
 * INNOVATION led to signiﬁcant changes in the way SUBSYSTEM interacts with other subsystems.
 * INNOVATION led to tighter integration between SUBSYSTEM and at least one other subsystem.
 * INNOVATION made the integration of SUBSYSTEM with at least one other subsystem a more important factor inﬂuencing the overall performance of product.

Source

 * Gatignon et al. (2002): A Structural Approach to Assessing Innovation: Construct Development of Innovation Locus, Type, and Characteristics. Management Science, Vol. 48, No. 9, pp. 1103–1122.