Disruptive Technology Reconsidered: A Critique and Research Agenda

Abstract

The popular work by Clayton Christensen and colleagues on disruptive technology serves as a springboard to examine five key issues concerning the effect of technological change on firms and industries. This article challenges and integrates current theory in this domain, and raises questions to initiate new work. The discussion is organized around the following themes: the definition of disruptive technology, the predictive use of the theory of technological disruption, explaining the success of incumbents, the implications of the theory for the merits of being customer-oriented, and the merits of creating a spin-off to commercialize the disruptive technology. Examination of these themes shows the relationship of the disruptive technology work with research in a variety of related areas. Many of these links have not been made explicit before, and several of them have been misunderstood. This article is intended to encourage further research on disruptive technology and spur debate by practitioners and scholars alike.

Antecedents and implications of disruptive innovation: Evidence from China

“…Empirical research also suggests that resource allocation processes using strategic buckets to manage sustaining versus disruptive projects independently are more effective in allowing disruptive innovation to flourish (Chao & Kavadias, 2007;Hogan, 2005). Companies should allocate financial and human resources to identify new potential customers, construct relationships with these customers, and develop knowledge about them (Danneels, 2002(Danneels, , 2003(Danneels, , 2004, because it is the emerging segments that value disruptive innovations at the time of their introduction (Govindarajan, Kopalle, & Danneels, 2011).…”

“…Disruptive innovation theory has long been studied in the innovation management literature (Abernathy & Clark, 1985;Adner, 2002Adner, , 2006Calia, Guerrini, & Moura, 2007;Christensen, 2006;Christensen & Bower, 1996;Christensen & Raynor, 2003;Danneels, 2004;Govindarajan & Kopalle, 2006;Hall, Matos, & Martin, 2014;Kassicieh, Kirchhoff, Walsh, & McWhorter, 2002;Linton, 2002Linton, , 2004Linton, , 2009). The concept goes back at least to the seminal work by Abernathy and Clark (1985), who suggested that disruptive innovations often destroyed the value of existing technical competencies.…”

Adaptive Port Planning under Disruptive Trends with focus on the case of The Port of Kuala Tanjung, Indonesia

“…Daneels wrote: "Disruptive technology can be thought of as a technology that changes the essence of competition among firms by transforming the performance metrics" [11]. Based on this explanation and the uncertainty topology of Walker, we would like to propose a more elaborate definition of disruptive trends.…”

Innovation & Market Consolidation Among Electronic Health Record Vendors: An Acute Need for Regulation

“…We envision, by contrast, sustaining innovation, whereby existing markets evolve to allow competition between firms that create better value [26,27]. Billions of dollars have already been spent creating Fig.…”