Müller, David, Dr. sc. ETH / lic. oec. HSG

Research Interests | Curriculum Vitae

 

David Müller worked as scientific collaborator at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). He belonged to the research group of Prof. Dr. Roman Boutellier, who chairs the fields of Technology and Innovation Management at the Department «Management, Technology, and Economics» (D-MTEC).

Curriculum Vitae

Abstract PhD Thesis

To explain how innovations in sports develop, different types of sports have to be distinguished from each other. The proposed typology: trial, technology, brand and hybrid distinguishes accordingly between regulations of mass market sports and rules for the elite sport. Sports have a specific innovative behavior: on the one hand, for trial and brand sports revolutionary innovations are characteristic; on the other hand, technology and hybrid sports change primarily through evolutionary innovation.

The following work focuses on brand and hybrid sports. The research question concentrates on how sport innovations enter the mass market. On the contrary to the general expectation the performance of the athletes in these sports in relation to the timelines shows that the performance does not change. In contrast to the types technology and trial where performance graphs are not predictable, a large number of sports in the mass market have consistent performance graphs. There are two essential reasons for that fact: either sports have already reached natural or technical limits or artificial limits of regulation constrict performance.

Many mass sports are based on Abernathy’s and Utterback’s model of product and process innovation in the phase after the dominant design, where, according to the authors, the innovation intensity is small. However, the example of the sports industry shows that the innovation is shifting:
The fact that the performance is no longer the basis for differentiation, the industry is shifting its efforts to differentiate itself to three other types of innovation.
1. Create innovative business models.
2. Change the environment and performance indicators.
3. Increase the number of variants and segments.

The three new kinds of innovation can be discovered in other industries as well. After product innovation, with the aim of gaining market share and the process innovation, with the intention to save costs, the new focus is to increase customer loyalty. As a result the developed findings can be applied to mature industries.