The product cycle revisited: Knowledge intensity and firm internationalization

Abstract and Key Results

–	▪ This paper presents an expanded version of the product cycle framework, which illustrates how the role of R&D, production and marketing activities, as a salient determinant of competitive advantage, evolves along the product cycle. The frame-work considers the implications of these changes for the internationalization of firms marketing products belonging to the different phases of the cycle.
–	▪ The paper shows how changes in “knowledge-intensity” of products along the product cycle are interrelated with changes in “service-intensity” and “distance premium” and thus enable to predict the sequence in which low knowledge intensive and high knowledge intensive firms internationalize R&D, production and marketing activities.