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Whether or not to Learn: Of Cautious Steps and Big Leaps

This paper examines the global handset industry during the feature-phone era, focusing particularly on firms rolled out their feature innovations once these had been developed. The setting affords the unique opportunity to study when and how firms deliberately decide to learn. We find that firms more likely sequence the rollout of their more novel feature innovations, because the greater commercial uncertainty can be reduced through cross-country learning. Underperforming firms appear less sensitive to this rationale, potentially indicating an altered attitude towards launch risk. When going for sequenced launches, firms choose launch markets with greater new-feature competition and consumer sophistication first. This suggests a deliberate strategy to seek out challenging test environments, to generate more informative signals of eventual global success. Our paper thus contributes to the understanding of organizational learning and firm decision-making behavior under uncertainty.