The Product-Cycle Model: A Critique

Abstract

The product-cycle model is an important explanatory device that has been used extensively in geography. However, it is also a model with significant limiting assumptions that have not been adequately taken into account when it has been used. In this paper the problems and limitations imposed on the model by the assumptions it contains are outlined. Six broad aspects of the model are addressed: the ambiguity of the enterprise context implied in the model; its treatment of the processes of invention and innovation; its simplification of the nature of products; assumptions about scale, labour, and relocation to less developed countries; location-specific advantages; and the relationship of the model to other cycles operating within the business environment. The limitations of the product-cycle model, as it is used in geography, are attributed to the inadequate conceptualisation of the firm, that still persists in the discipline.