Convergence of the Unmanned Aerial Industry

Abstract

Industry convergence—the merger of previously unrelated industries—is a model that has had a strong influence on various industries and received substantial attention among practitioners over the past years. Despite this, industry convergence has received little attention in the field of unmanned aircraft. As the unmanned aircraft industry is still in the infancy stage, exploring the industrial status may contribute to the technology’s body of knowledge and may be useful for entrepreneurial decision making. Thus, this research paper investigates the degree to which the unmanned aerial vehicle sector represents an example of industry convergence and predicts the consequences built upon it. The investigation is based on the convergence theory and evidence from the unmanned aerial systems industry is provided to support theoretical foundations. Conclusions show that unmanned aerial technology is converged to an undefined extent and the author calls for further related empirical research.