Education on standardization as an input to research on standardization: A success story

At the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, education about standardization focuses on market based standardization and particularly onfactors for standards battles. We have developed a general (award winning) course on technology and strategy in the first year of the M.Sc. Management of Technology and we have developed a specific course on standards battles in the specialization stage of the master program that builds upon and extents the knowledge taught in the general course. We provide students with a detailed understanding of the specifics of market based standardization. An important part of the course on technology and strategy focuses on identifying the reasons why most industries adopt a dominant standard and why a particular firms’ technology is adopted as the dominant standard. Furthermore, different factors that affect the outcome of technology battles are examined. At the end of the first year of the M.Sc. Management of Technology, students will choose a specialization. Students that choose to specialize in innovation management will follow the basic course on standards battles, technology patterns and business ecosystems. In this course, students study how the network of stakeholders supporting the competing standards changes over time during the technology life cycle and how this impacts dominance of the competing standards. What makes education on standardization at Delft University of Technology so innovative? First, in our courses we apply state of the art research on standardization and we constantly update the teaching material. So our education is strongly research driven. Second, our education results in novel input for research through empirical material gathered in the courses and in the master theses. In this paper we will explain each course in detail providing information on course objectives, format, organization, and grading. We will provide students evaluations where possible. We will conclude with a discussion on how education on standardization provides valuable input to our research on standardization