Para categorizar as inovações tecnológicas na rádio

Ala-Fossi recorre às categorias criadas por Henderson and Clark  (incremental, modular, architectural and radical innovations) para descrever o que está a acontecer à rádio [«Architectural Innovation: the reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms», Administrative Science Quarterly 1990]

«Despite its obvious limitations, technology assessment approach offers us some very useful conceptual tools. Because all innovations resulting technological development are not similar, technology assessment categorizes them according to two main dimensions. First, how much the technologies in the new innovation differ from the existing technologies and second, how much the configuration of the technologies in the new innovation differs from the present configurations. In this way, all the innovations can be categorized in to four types. Incremental innovations are for example small improvements of the existing products, while modular innovation will mean that the innovation will totally change certain parts, but they can still be integrated to the original product. Architectural innovations are mostly about combining already existing elements in a new way, while radical innovation means simultaneous development of new technologies and creating new configurations or combinations of these technologies. (Mäkinen & Nokelainen 2003, 25-27) With a similar categorization it is possible to evaluate also the new technologies for digital audio delivery in relation to the traditional radio broadcasting and to each other.» (ALa-Fossi, 2005:3)

A autora espanhola Montse Bonet, a partir das notas de Ala Fossi, criou o seguinte quadro: