The following article provides a thorough chronicle of the microcomputer industry. That industry is a striking case, in which industrial growth took place through the creation of “external” capabilities—that is, capabilities produced by and residing in a specialized market network rather than in large organizations enjoying internal economies of scale and scope. In the microcomputer industry, the most successful products were those that took the greatest advantage—and allowed users to take the greatest advantage—of the market; and the greatest failures occurred when business enterprises bypassed the external network and attempted to rely significantly on internal capabilities.

This article deals with the diffusion and standardization rivalry between two similar but incompatible formats for home videocassette recorders (VCRs): the Betamax, introduced in 1975 by the Sony Corporation, and the VHS (Video Home System), introduced in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan (Japan Victor or JVC). Despite being first to the home market, the Beta format fell behind the VHS in market share during 1978 and declined thereafter. By the end of the 1980s, Sony and its partners had ceased producing Beta models. This study analyzes the history of this rivalry and examines its context—a mass consumer market with a dynamic standardization process subject to “bandwagon” effects that took years to unfold and that were largely shaped by the strategic maneuvering of the VHS producers.

The record of long–term innovation at the American Telegraph and Telephone Company seems to defy conventional economic and social theories of the firm. The following essay, based on extensive research in the AT&T Archives, argues that CEO Theodore Vail made this possible by transforming the Bell System's orientation to innovation, its structure, and its culture. He also gave the System a cadre of leaders who sustained over the long term Vail's strategy of blending adaptive and formative innovations to promote network efficiency.

The capture and protection of returns from research investments have always been issues in business; in the modern era, they have most often been dealt with through copyright and patent registration. In the chicken–breeding industry, however, the laws of nature served to safeguard the hybridization process and to provide a biological “lock” on specific strains. As new techniques of genetic manipulation came into play, chicken breeders, like others in bio–technology industries, had to reassess their use of intellectual property protection. The following article provides a history of the interplay among the tools for such protection, genetic research, and industry structure.