Why do motives matter? A demand-based view of the dynamics of a complex products and systems (CoPS) industry.

Based on a historical case study, this contribution develops a framework for studying the industrial dynamics of complex products and systems (CoPS). The case study focuses on the spacecraft industry from 1957 to 2011. It is suggested that the main drivers of the dynamics of this typical CoPS industry are changes in long-term demand behavior. The main hypothesis formulated in this contribution states that customers' purchasing policies are underpinned by a set of heterogeneous motives (i.e., defense and security, political prestige, science and technology, macroeconomic benefits and profit-seeking) that evolve over time in response to changes in contextual variables. Within this framework, the paper examines the long-term relationships between customer motives on the one hand and the size (i.e., number of spacecraft launched) and segmentation (i.e., application domains of space technology) of the spacecraft market on the other hand. It shows that the dynamics of spacecraft industry resides on changes affecting customers' motives, the latter behaving as lead users of a particular type. Indeed, customers are organizations and institutions which contribution to technological development goes far beyond bringing technical and non-technical, market-oriented, knowledge and competencies through collaboration with firms. In doing so, the paper proposes a conceptual framework based on the characterization of customer motives to study how demand behaviors affect the dynamics of CoPS industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]