Abernathy and Utterback, 1978
From Innovation
Abernathy W. J. and Utterback, James M. 1978. Patterns of industrial innovation. Technology Review, Vol. 80 (June-July).
They defined dominant design here.
In a new product category, after a period of ferment when various designs are tried out, there may be standardization on a dominant design for the product category (or class of artifacts if it is not a product). This is a set of design attributes shared by most of the products or artifacts (Abernathy and Utterback, 1978). After the dominant design appears, there is a tendancy for further innovations change the production process more than the product design. (near-quoting from Meyer, 2001)
