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Most academics and practitioners highlight the advantages enjoyed by new entrants ( Foster, 1986 ; Christensen, 1997 ). New entrants are often viewed as initiating a Schumpeterian process of creative destruction ( see creative destruction ), frequently replacing industry incumbents and rising to dominance. Yet there are many examples of incumbents who successfully weather waves of radical change in a wide range of industries, including computing and the life sciences ( Hill and Rothaermel, 2003 ). Thus, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship scholars need to be aware of the advantages enjoyed by incumbents that may retard entrepreneurial success. The pioneering work of Schumpeter (1934, 1942) is not clear on whether incumbents or new entrants are likely to succeed in commercializing innovation, because it suggests that both – new entrants and incumbents – can have the upper hand when innovation occurs. Schumpeter attributed the incumbents' advantage to monopoly power that allows for limited competition and scale advantages in access to capital and R&D funding, among other advantages. Later work in industrial organization economics, emphasizing differential economic incentives, clarified that incumbents are likely to be successful when an innovation is incremental , while new entrants are favored when an innovation is radical ( Tirole, 1998 ) ( see radical innovations ). ... log in or subscribe to read full text