Unveiling opportunities afforded by emerging technologies: evidences from the drone industry

In recent decades, researchers and practitioners have increasingly focused on how to develop breakthrough technologies. Notwithstanding this, companies still face the problem of understanding the opportunities enabled by technologies from the early stage of development. The technology management literature highlights that development is usually managed by adopting one of two approaches: normative or explorative. However, in using the latter approach focused on developing emerging technologies, unanswered questions remain. In particular, this paper aims to shed light on the strategies that companies adopt to unveil the opportunities enabled by emerging technologies. Analysing the drone industry using an exploratory case study approach, we investigate the strategies that companies implement to guide technology development to address more meaningful application fields. Using the Federal Aviation Administration database, we identify four possible strategies to develop emerging technologies: focus, deep, broad, and holistic.