Key Innovations
Organizational key innovations include technological breakthroughs that open new markets.
Key innovations create ecological opportunity by evolving traits that unlock access to previously unavailable resources - not through geographic movement but through adaptive breakthroughs. Examples include: flight in insects (unlocking aerial niches), amniotic egg in reptiles (enabling terrestrial reproduction), jaws in early fish (enabling predation on large prey), and pharyngeal jaws in cichlids (allowing independent specialization of oral and pharyngeal jaw functions).
Business Application of Key Innovations
Organizational key innovations include technological breakthroughs that open new markets. Amazon's 2002 API Mandate created the modularity that enabled AWS's radiation - a structural innovation rather than product innovation.