Research | Prior Art Review
Related works and distinctions.
A four-phase model explaining how value redistributes when capability becomes abundant. Built from historical observation across five centuries, not from first principles.
Ten works reviewed | June 2026 | Pre-publication
on this page
01 Why this Review
02 Methodology
03 Works Reviewed
04 Literature Matrix
05 Redundancy Test
06 Areas of Overlap
07 Areas of Distinction
08 Remaining Questions
09 Final Assessment
01 Why This Review Was Undertaken
The question is not originality. It is defensibility.
Before the Migration of Value framework was published, a systematic prior art review was conducted. The purpose was not to defend the framework against criticism. It was to answer a harder question: does this framework deserve to exist given what already exists?
The most significant trigger was the identification of Adrian Slywotzky’s Value Migration (Harvard Business School Press, 1995), which uses the same two-word phrase as this framework’s title. That discovery required an honest assessment of whether the overlap extends beyond the name to the substance.
A second trigger was intellectual honesty. A framework that asks to be taken seriously should be able to demonstrate that its author actively looked for work that might make it redundant, and found either that no such work exists, or that it exists but is doing something meaningfully different. This document records the search, the literature reviewed, the comparisons made, and the conclusions reached.
Transparency is not a weakness. It is the standard the work holds itself to.
02 Search Methodology
Default assumption: the framework is wrong.
The search was conducted across ten domains: value migration and economic value migration literature; business model innovation and disruption theory; creative destruction and neo-Schumpeterian economics; evolutionary economics and adaptive systems; sociology of technological change and institutional adaptation; scarcity, abundance, and the economics of technology; human adaptation psychology and identity disruption under technological change; technology adoption lifecycle literature; historical economics and long-wave theory; and AI-era commentary using “value migration” terminology.
For each source, six questions were applied: What problem is it trying to solve? What mechanism does it propose? What evidence does it use? Where does it overlap with the Migration of Value? Where does it differ? Does it invalidate any part of the framework?
search limits
This review relied on publicly accessible sources. Paywalled academic databases were not fully accessible. A full database search for specific mechanism terminology remains outstanding and is documented in Section 8.
03 works reviewed
The complete causal chain.
Ten works across five disciplines.
Each work was assessed against the framework’s core claims. Threat Level reflects the degree to which the work risks making the Migration of Value redundant or requires significant repositioning of its claims.
Value Migration: How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition
Harvard Business School Press, 1995
Core idea
Economic and shareholder value moves between business designs when customer priorities shift. Three phases: stability, tension, migration. The driver is superior business design responding to changing customer needs.
Overlap
The phrase "value migration" is shared. Both frameworks observe that value moves from one configuration to another and that the movement follows a pattern that can be anticipated.
Differences
Unit of analysis: Slywotzky's is the business design; ours is the capability. Driver: customer priority shift versus structural abundance from technological change. Scope: corporate strategy guide versus five-century historical framework. The human adaptation dimension, identity disruption, and the unbundling mechanism are absent from Slywotzky entirely.
Invalidates?
No. The overlap is terminological, not substantive.
The most important prior art acknowledgement. The shared phrase requires explicit statement in the Scholarly Context. The frameworks are complementary rather than competing.
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Harper & Brothers, 1942
Core idea
Creative destruction: innovation by entrepreneurs incessantly revolutionises economic structure from within, destroying the old and creating the new.
Overlap
Both frameworks observe that technological change destroys established value positions. Both acknowledge disruption as a recurring structural feature.
Differences
Schumpeter describes what happens to industries and firms. The Migration of Value describes what happens to capabilities and the people who built advantage on them. Schumpeter does not explain where value goes after disruption. That is the Migration of Value's central claim.
Invalidates?
No. Complementary at different levels of analysis. Already cited in Scholarly Context.
The Innovator's Dilemma
Harvard Business School Press, 1997
Core idea
Disruptive innovations start inferior, enter at the low end or non-consumption, improve, and eventually displace incumbents who were too focused on their best customers to respond.
Overlap
Both explain why established organisations fail under technological change. Both acknowledge that the response is often institutionally rational but individually limited.
Differences
Christensen is prescriptive for managers: how to identify and respond to disruption. The Migration of Value is descriptive: what happens to value regardless of firm-level strategy. Christensen's central question ends where ours begins.
Invalidates?
No. Already cited in Scholarly Context.
The Great Transformation
Farrar & Rinehart, 1944
Core idea
The double movement: market expansion generates countermovements of institutional protection. Markets are constructed through political and social processes, not natural or neutral.
Overlap
Both address the social consequences of economic and technological change. The Migration of Value's account of institutional resistance at Stage 4 is structurally Polanyian.
Differences
Polanyi's primary concern is commodification and political economy. The Migration of Value does not engage with state power as a primary variable. Different registers, compatible conclusions.
Invalidates?
No. Added to Scholarly Context engagement in First Edition.
Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy
University of Michigan Press, 1994
Core idea
In knowledge-based economies, technologies and markets are subject to increasing returns. Small historical accidents can lock in specific technological paths. Network effects can create winner-take-most outcomes.
Overlap
Both acknowledge that technology adoption is non-linear and path-dependent. Arthur's increasing returns mechanism is relevant to the research agenda for Cases 04 and 06.
Differences
Arthur's primary concern is technological lock-in. The Migration of Value addresses post-abundance value migration, not which technology will dominate. Different questions.
Invalidates?
No. Relevant to future testing phases, not the current framework.
An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change
Harvard University Press, 1982
Core idea
Economic change is better understood through evolutionary analogy. Firms operate with bounded rationality using routines. Industries evolve through differential survival of firms with more fit routines.
Overlap
The evolutionary framing and use of adaptation as a central concept are shared. Both see economic change as a dynamic process rather than movement between equilibria.
Differences
Unit of analysis is the firm and its routines. The Migration of Value's unit is the capability and the human response to its abundance. The evolutionary analogy in Nelson and Winter is formal and mathematical; ours is descriptive.
Invalidates?
No. Intellectual ancestor; Open Question 1 directly engages this tradition.
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
Edward Elgar, 2002
Core idea
Five great surges of technological development, each following a recurring sequence: irruption, installation period, turning point, and deployment (golden age of productive application).
Overlap
Both are historically based, identify recurring patterns across multiple centuries, and use the industrial revolution as a test case. Perez is the closest to the Migration of Value in historical ambition and scope.
Differences
Perez addresses macro-economic dynamics of financial bubbles and golden ages at civilisational scale. The Migration of Value addresses value movement at the capability and individual level. Different scales, different mechanisms.
Invalidates?
No. Explicit engagement recommended for Version 4 Scholarly Context.
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Macmillan, 1899
Core idea
Conspicuous consumption: goods are acquired as outward symbols of wealth and status, not for functional utility. Scarcity enables status signalling; abundance undermines it by removing the signal function of ownership.
Overlap
Veblen's insight that scarcity enables status signalling and abundance undermines it is foundational to the Migration of Value's mechanism. Directly relevant to the quartz crisis case study.
Differences
Veblen describes a static relationship between scarcity and status. The Migration of Value extends that insight to the dynamic process of technological change and adaptation. Veblen is an incorporated intellectual ancestor, not a competitor.
Invalidates?
No. Incorporated into the three-type differentiation taxonomy.
Crossing the Chasm
HarperBusiness, 1991
Core idea
A structural gap exists between early adopters and the early majority in technology adoption. Successfully crossing this chasm requires a shift from product-centric to market-centric positioning focused on a specific beachhead segment.
Overlap
Both address technology diffusion dynamics. The Migration of Value's Stage 2 (Capability Spreads) corresponds loosely to the chasm dynamic.
Differences
Moore is a marketing strategy guide for technology product managers. The Migration of Value is a historical descriptive framework. Moore's central question ends where ours begins.
Invalidates?
No. Adjacent; different purpose entirely.
Multiple authors across multiple journals
2019 — 2024
Core idea
A cluster of recent academic work addresses the transition from scarcity-based to abundance-based economies, primarily driven by digital technologies, AI, and platform economics. Primarily legal, regulatory, and economic in focus.
Overlap
The scarcity-to-abundance transition is directly described by Stage 3 (Capability Commoditises). Both acknowledge that this transition changes how value is produced and captured.
Differences
The contemporary literature addresses abundance in specific domains without a unified historical mechanism. None proposes the nine-stage sequence or the differentiation collapse and adaptation mechanism. None addresses the human identity dimension.
Invalidates?
No. Confirms the relevance of the framework's central observation.
04 literature matrix
All ten works at a glance.
Threat Level reflects the degree to which the work risks making the Migration of Value redundant or requires significant repositioning of its claims.
| Author / Year | Discipline | Core Idea | Threat | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slywotzky (1995) | Strategy | Value moves between business designs as customer priorities shift | Low | Acknowledged in Scholarly Context — First Edition |
| Schumpeter (1942) | Economics | Creative destruction: innovation destroys old order, creates new | Low | Complementary; already cited |
| Christensen (1997) | Strategy | Disruptive innovation enters from below and displaces incumbents | Low | Complementary; already cited |
| Polanyi (1944) | Political economy | Double movement: marketisation vs social protection | Low | Engaged in First Edition Scholarly Context |
| Arthur (1989–1994) | Economics | Increasing returns create technological lock-in | None | Relevant to Cases 04 and 06 |
| Nelson & Winter (1982) | Evolutionary economics | Firms evolve through routine variation and selection | None | Intellectual ancestor |
| Perez (2002) | Economic history | Five great surges; installation and deployment periods | Low | Add explicit engagement in Version 4 |
| Veblen (1899) | Sociology / Economics | Scarcity enables status signalling; abundance undermines it | None | Intellectual ancestor; incorporated |
| Moore (1991) | Marketing strategy | Chasm between early adopters and mainstream buyers | None | Adjacent; different purpose |
| Abundance literature (2019–24) | Mixed | Scarcity-to-abundance transitions in specific domains | None | Confirms framework's central observation |
05 redundancy test
If this work already exists, why does ours?
The redundancy test asks one question repeatedly across all reviewed works: if this work already exists, why does the Migration of Value framework still need to exist?
Against Slywotzky: Slywotzky describes value moving between business designs when customer priorities shift. The Migration of Value describes value moving from scarce capabilities to new sources of differentiation when technology makes those capabilities structurally abundant. Different questions. Different mechanisms. Different scopes. The phrase is the same. The framework is not redundant.
Against Schumpeter: Schumpeter answers “what is destroyed.” The Migration of Value answers “where does value go afterward and why.” The framework is not redundant.
Against Christensen: Christensen explains why good companies fail to respond to disruption. The Migration of Value explains what happens to value during and after disruption, regardless of whether any specific company responds well or badly. The framework is not redundant.
Against the full literature: No work reviewed proposes the following specific combination: a nine-stage descriptive sequence explaining how value redistributes when a capability becomes structurally abundant through technological change, with a named differentiation collapse mechanism, a three-type differentiation taxonomy, a bifurcated distribution model, and a human adaptation account that includes identity disruption and the unbundling of functional from social value. Within the scope of this review, that combination was not identified in prior work.
06 areas of overlap
Where the overlap is real.
Intellectual honesty requires naming the areas where overlap is real, not just terminological.
The phrase “value migration.” Slywotzky used this phrase thirty years earlier. This requires explicit acknowledgement in the Scholarly Context section, which the First Edition now includes.
Creative destruction at the industry level. At the industry level, Stages 1–4 of the Migration of Value describe a pattern Schumpeter already described. The Migration of Value adds the differentiation mechanism and the post-disruption account. The First Edition addresses this directly.
Evolutionary framing. The language of adaptation, fitness, and selection appears in Nelson and Winter, Perez, and others. The Migration of Value uses this framing. Open Question 1 acknowledges that the relationship between differentiation and fitness is unresolved.
Scarcity and status. Veblen’s insight that scarcity enables status signalling and abundance undermines it is incorporated into the Migration of Value’s mechanism. Veblen is acknowledged as an intellectual ancestor in the Scholarly Context.
07 Areas of Genuine Distinction
What was identified in prior work.
01 - The original sequence
A nine-stage progression from technological perturbation through environmental change, structural abundance, differentiation collapse, individual displacement, adaptive reorganization, value migration, and power redistribution to a new cycle. This specific sequence was not identified in any reviewed prior work.
02 - The original mechanism
Differentiation collapse, unbundling, human adaptation, and redistribution as the specific explanatory engine of value migration. This combination was not identified in any reviewed prior work. The sequence and the mechanism are related but distinct claims.
03 - The unbundling mechanism
Technology separates the bundle of functional, social, and identity value organized around a capability. The components migrate at different rates. The economic component collapses; the identity component may persist or appreciate. This specific mechanism was not identified in any prior work reviewed.
04 - The three-type differentiation taxonomy
Revealed differentiation (pre-existing capabilities made visible), created differentiation (genuinely new capabilities), and socially constructed differentiation (institutional production of new scarcity). This classification was not identified within the scope of this review.
05 - The identity disruption account
The specific claim that people mourn differentiation collapse as an identity loss, not merely an economic one, integrated into a value migration framework. This was not identified in the economic or strategy literature reviewed.
08 Remaining Questions
What this review did not resolve.
Full Database Search
A search of JSTOR, Web of Science, SSRN, and Google Scholar for the following specific term combinations would determine whether the mechanism has been named elsewhere in academic literature: capability commoditisation/commoditization; differentiation collapse; capability abundance AND value; value redistribution AND technological change; human differentiation AND scarcity AND technology; technological abundance AND differentiation; differentiation economics AND technological change; post-scarcity differentiation; adaptive differentiation AND technology. This search requires database access not available in the current review. It is not conducted in expectation of finding invalidating prior work. It is conducted because the methodology demands it.
Non-Western scholarship
The review covered primarily English-language Western scholarship. The Western-centric vulnerability identified in the Research page criticism register applies to the prior art review as well. Japanese, Chinese, and Indian economic history scholarship may contain relevant frameworks not captured here.
Independent expert review
Once the prior art review is complete, a one-page summary should be submitted to at least one economic historian and one innovation scholar with the question: “What have I missed?” That panel review remains to be conducted.
09 Final Assessment
What the review concluded.
The Migration of Value framework is an integrative framework with an original sequence and an original mechanism. These are related but distinct claims.
The original sequence is the nine-stage progression. The original mechanism is differentiation collapse, unbundling, human adaptation, and redistribution. A critic who finds a precursor to the sequence would not thereby invalidate the mechanism, and vice versa.
The individual components have precursors and relatives across multiple disciplines. The framework does not claim to have invented these observations. What was not identified within the scope of this review is the specific combination: this sequence, this mechanism, this scope, tested adversarially across five centuries, with this level of transparency about what remains unresolved.
Outcome Classification
Integrative Framework with Original Sequence and Original Mechanism.
The Migration of Value is not redundant. It is not fully novel — no serious framework built from historical observation could be. It is a synthesis of observations from multiple disciplines, assembled into an original explanatory sequence with a named mechanism, tested adversarially, and honest about what it has not yet resolved. That is a significant intellectual contribution. The framework has earned the right to enter the conversation.
ON INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS
This framework makes no claim to being a complete theory of economic disruption. It is a descriptive model of a specific class of event. It has been tested against three historical cases and found to hold with qualifications. The qualifications are documented. The open questions are named. Where the framework cannot yet answer, it says so. That is the standard it holds itself to.