New learning from old plastics: The effects of value-chain-complexity on adoption time

Industrial innovations such as materials often face significant adoption delay due to downstream obstacles in the value chain. While this delay can come from many sources, this study uses the experience of key innovations in the plastics industry to show that value-chain-complexity is a major contributor: increased value-chain-complexity leads to longer adoption delay. Then, building on the economic principles of transaction cost analysis and switching costs, the effects of value chain inertia are explained. This concept exposes different behaviors that can improve development and commercialization of upstream innovation.