De-escalation Pathways and Disruptive Technology

Christensen’s (1997) original theory focused on disruptive technologies. Over time, the same theory has been used to explain all kinds of disruptive innovations. This is a mistake. Different kinds of innovations have different competitive effects and produce different kinds of markets. They should be treated as distinct phenomena. This article summarizes what the academic literature has to say about two specific types of disruptive innovations—namely, business-model innovations and radical (new-to-theworld) product innovations. It argues that even though they share many similarities to what Christensen calls disruptive innovations, they are still different phenomena: they create different kinds of markets, pose radically different challenges for established firms, and have radically different implications for managers. It is only when the topic of disruptive innovation is broken down into these finer categories that progress can be made. In a recent survey of the literature, Danneels (2004) examined the theory behind disruptive technological innovation and identified a number of issues that require further and deeper exploration. One of these issues is the actual definition of disruptive innovation. It appears that despite the widespread use of the term by both managers and academics, there is still a rather unclear understanding of what constitutes disruptive innovation. In its original formulation, Christensen (1997) focused primarily on technological innovation and explored how new technologies came to surpass seemingly superior technologies in a market. Over time, Christensen widened the application of the term to include not only technologies but also products and business models. For example, Christensen and Raynor (2003) list as disruptive innovations such disparate things as discount department stores; lowprice, point-to-point airlines; cheap, mass-market products such as power tools, copiers, and motorcycles; and online businesses such as bookselling, education, brokerage, and travel agents. Although I agree that all of these innovations are disruptive to incumbents, treating them all as one and the same has actually confused matters considerably. A disruptive technological innovation is a fundamentally different phenomenon from a disruptive business-model innovation as well as a disruptive product innovation: These innovations arise in different ways, have different competitive effects, and require different responses from incumbents. Lumping all types of disruptive innovations into one category simply mixes apples with oranges, which has serious implications on how we study disruptive innovations in the future (Henderson and Clark, 1990). To appreciate this point, this article summarizes what the academic literature has to say about two specific types of disruptive innovations—namely, business-model innovations and radical product innovations—and then demonstrates that even though both are disruptive innovations, they nevertheless pose radically different challenges for established firms and have radically different implications for managers.

This paper builds on existing knowledge of diffusion forecasting and integrates it with the disruptive and discontinuous innovation literature. Thus, a model is developed for forecasting discontinuous and disruptive innovations. This model takes into account the multiple markets served by discontinuous and disruptive innovation. The role of learning curve effects is also considered. Guidelines, based on the existing literature, are offered for the application of this methodology to forecasting the market diffusion of discontinuous and disruptive innovation. The ability to better forecast the market diffusion of disruptive and discontinuous innovation is especially important now since the convergence of many fields and advances in other areas are creating unprecedented amounts of disruptive and discontinuous innovation.

Leading for constructive innovation: Preliminary evidence from China

Disruptive innovation is regarded as the most influential innovation theory in business theory in the early 21st century. Clayton Christensen, the founder of the theory, has attracted extensive attention both in theory and practice since the theory was founded more than 20 years ago. This concept was elaborated and developed in Christensen’s 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, and in subsequent articles and monographs. Specifically, although disruptive innovation involves a lot of content, its core content needs to meet four basic criteria: (1) locking customers in a new way; (2) usually lowering gross profit; (3) usually not following the traditional trajectory of improving the performance valued by mainstream consumers; (4) introducing new trajectory of performance and improving performance along parameters different from the traditional ones. In addition, the disruptive innovation theory has been also described as the game between two types of enterprises with asymmetric capacity resources. Usually it describes the game between new entrants and incumbents. The weak side must rely on innovation to subvert their strong competitors. The crux of the problem is what the strategies are taken by the weak side. Christensen argues that new entrants must choose a customer base that differs from incumbents and they need new technologies to produce better qualified and lower priced products. If low-end customers are selected, it is the low-end customer disruptive innovation strategy; if potential consumers are selected, it is the new market disruptive innovation strategy, and a disruptive innovation strategy is an effective way to defeat strong competitors. This paper reviews the theory of disruptive innovation, classifies and analyzes the research and practice of disruptive innovation theory in the past more than two decades by means of literature review, and objectively comments on the misunderstanding, modification and development of disruptive innovation. In addition to The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen’s other books and papers are also reviewed. The main contributions of this paper can be divided into three aspects: (1) It systematically reviews and analyzes the literature of disruptive innovation in the past more than 20 years, which is of great significance to the theoretical researchers and practitioners of disruptive innovation, particularly in China. (2) It proposes the MSE innovation model and the future direction of disruptive innovation in the digital economy. As for the MSE innovation model, since 2014, Christensen has continually proposed three different theoretical explanations based on disruptive innovation, which are market creating innovation, sustaining innovation and efficiency innovation. (3) It elaborates the problems and prospects of disruptive innovation theory in the context of digital economy. The authors identify four potential directions for disruptive innovation in the digital economy. First, we propose that as digital transformation becoming more important in both developed and emerging economies, the future development of disruptive innovation will be linked to the integration of digital technologies and promote the development of the digital economy. Second, in the digital economy, entrepreneurs do not have enough time to learn new knowledge. In this unstable environment, the ability to make relevant immediate decisions becomes a competitive force, providing new entrants with the opportunity to compete in the market. Third, since both disruptive and breakthrough innovations can be explained by asymmetric theories/models and are developed based on the discontinuous technologies, as a result, they are all facing competition from mainstream markets. In addition, the theory and practice of disruptive innovation are dynamic processes. Fourth, while we cannot deny the value of disruptive innovation, we cannot ignore that it may not have a positive impact on society when it is implemented. Therefore, researchers should increasingly focus on the “positive side” of technology, including disruptive technology, because it is highly correlated with people’s desire for a better society. The future development of this theory can expand its application scope and strengthen its positive role in social economy. Finally, the authors recognize that gaps between the disruptive innovation theory and practice need to be filled by researchers in the future.

The merits of being customer-oriented for firm innovation have long been debated. Firms focused on their existing customers have been argued to be less innovative. This paper distinguishes between mainstream and emerging customer orientations and examines their effects on the introduction of disruptive and radical product innovations. Radical product innovations draw on a substantially new technology and could initially be targeted at a mainstream or an emerging market. In contrast, disruptive innovations are initially targeted at an emerging market, and may not involve the newest technology. This paper hypothesizes that mainstream customer orientation is negatively related to disruptive innovation and positively related to radical innovation, and that emerging customer orientation is positively related to disruptive innovation. To test these hypotheses, longitudinal and multiple informant data from senior executives in 128 SBUs of 19 Fortune 200 corporations are analyzed, with technology scanning and willingness to cannibalize as key control variables. The results support the hypotheses, providing evidence for contrasting effects of being oriented to mainstream customers and/or emerging customers on radical and disruptive innovations. Mainstream customer orientation has a positive impact on the introduction of radical innovations but a negative impact on disruptive innovation, while emerging customer orientation has a positive effect on disruptive innovation and is unrelated to radical innovations. Technology scanning is positively related to radical innovation but not to disruptive innovation, supporting the idea that disruptive innovation may not require new technology. In contrast, willingness to cannibalize is positively related to disruptive innovation but not to radical innovation, supporting the idea that radical innovation does not require cannibalization of existing investments. Additionally, mainstream customer orientation is found to have a near-zero correlation with emerging customer orientation, indicating that the two can coexist and can be pursued simultaneously.

This article aims to show how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can recognise and best respond to a disruptive innovation. A disruptive innovation creates a new business model using a new process and usually a new technology to offer a product or service with new features and/or lower cost and initially addresses a group of people who are either unserved or overserved by existing offerings. By contrast, a sustaining innovation may use the same technology, but enhance an existing business model. To illustrate this, we set out two case studies that each implement the same innovative model of work-focussed learning differently: one in an autonomous sub-unit of an HEI, while the other sought to embed the same model in existing faculty activities in another HEI. The theory of disruptive innovation (Bower and Christensen 1995) is set out and used to understand types of innovation, from sustaining to disruptive, and to identify the model of work-focussed learning as a disruptive innovation. We then used this to analyse the subsequent trajectories and different outcomes of the two case studies. Our aims then were (1) to show how disruptive innovation theory can be used to recognise different types of innovation and (2) to suggest the appropriate way to organisationally structure disruptive educational innovations as semi-autonomous enterprises. We also note potential constraints that government policy may place on HEIs attempting to respond to disruptive innovations.Keywords: disruptive innovation; business model; online distance education; organisational change; higher education(Published: 24 July 2015)Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2015, 23: 22494 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v23.22494

This paper reviews the information available on specifics of the design decision-making process for the case of disruptive technological innovations associated with new products and systems. It defines the term “disruptive technological innovation,” provides with the explanation of decision-making methodology peculiarities for this type of innovation, and describes currently existing techniques and tools to support design decision making in case of disruptive technological innovations. The current paper relates to decision making in systems engineering and design, and therefore deals with the design decision making. The terms “disruptive technologies” and “disruptive innovations” appeared at the end of the 1990s. Researchers frequently mention disruptive innovations and technologies in the description of technical products for different industries: aircraft, automotive, food, petroleum, etc. A disruptive technological innovation is defined as a combination of disruptive technology and disruptive innovation. A new product can be relatively a simple device like an unmanned aerial vehicle and a smartphone, or a complex system like a modern aerospace vehicle or a space information network. Being an innovative developed product, it possesses peculiarities influencing the product development phase of the product lifecycle design decision-making process and accompanying supporting techniques and tools. This review investigates the specifics of design decision making of disruptive technologically innovative products that influence different stages of the product development phase in their product lifecycles. The paper combines aspects of systems engineering with innovation theory, key elements of the design of complex systems, and highlights the product development phase of the product lifecycle design decision-making process.

<p class="norm">The aim of this article is to shed some light on patterns of and major motives for the adoption of different types of disruptive learning innovations by Unisa academics. To realise the aim of the study, the following questions were addressed: What are the reasons for adopting disruptive learning innovations? What is the level of interaction with disruptive innovations? What training do Unisa academics require on disruptive innovations? A qualitative approach was adopted by conducting focus group interviews with 76 Unisa academics. The data was analysed using open and axial coding, where dominant themes from the discussions were identified and discussed in detail. The findings show that the interaction of Unisa lecturers with different technologies varied from technology to technology. The study also found that disruptive innovations play a pivotal role in opening avenues and collapsing the transactional distance in an ODL institution. Some lecturers lack skill in using some technology, which is a cause for concern. Therefore, lecturers need to be trained in using technology and develop a good understanding of it to improve teaching and learning.</p>

Disruptive low-carbon innovations

237 ISSN 1741-0541 10.2217/PME.12.5 © 2012 Future Medicine Ltd Personalized Medicine (2012) 9(3), 237–239 “...genomic pathology [is] founded on the premise that sequencing the human genome is rapidly becoming so routine and inexpensive that it will inevitably find its way into fundamental aspects of healthcare – not only in disease diagnosis and management, but also disease prevention, risk mitigation and health maintenance.”

This study investigates the sources of disruptive innovation. The disruptive innovation literature suggests that these do not originate from existing customers, in contrast to what is predicted by the user innovation literature. We compile a unique content‐analytical dataset based on 60 innovations identified as disruptive by the disruptive innovation literature. Using multinomial and binomial regression, we find that 43% of the sample disruptive innovations were originally developed by users. Disruptive innovations are more likely to originate from users (producers) if the environment has high turbulence in customer preferences (technology). Disruptive innovations that involve high functional (technological) novelty tend to be developed by users (producers). Users are also more likely to be the source of disruptive process innovations and to innovate in environments with weaker appropriability. Our article forges new links between the disruptive and the user innovation literatures, and offers guidance to managers on the likely source of disruptive threats.

Abstract. Information system (IS) innovation can be defined as a novel organizational application of digital computer and information communication technologies (ICT). This paper discusses how modalities of applying ICT technologies in their form and scope exhibit radical breaks, which are introduced herein as ‘disruptive IS innovations’. This notion of disruptive IS innovation is developed by drawing upon and extending Swanson's (1994) theory of IS innovation as well as the concept of radical innovation. Disruptive innovations strongly influence the future trajectory of the adoption and use of ICT in organizational contexts and make the trajectory deviate from its expected course. In doing so, these disruptive innovations distinctly define what an IS is and how it is deployed in order to address current and future organizational and managerial prerogatives. Such changes are triggered breakthroughs in the capability of ICT that lead to the revision and expansion of associated cognitive models (frames) of computing. Disruptive IS innovations are those that lead to changes in the application of ICT that are both pervasive and radical. The pervasive nature implies that innovative activity spans all innovation subsets of the quad‐core model of IS innovation introduced herein. Innovation types include: IS use and development processes; application architecture and capability; and base technologies. Radical in nature, disruptive is innovations depart in significant ways from existing alternatives and lead to deviation from expected use and diffusion trajectory. This paper demonstrates the importance of a concept of disruptive IS innovation by investigating how changes triggered by internet computing (Lyytinen et al., 1998) meet the conditions of a disruptive IS innovation defined herein. The analysis also affirms both the pervasive and radical nature of internet computing and explains how internet computing has fundamentally transformed the application portfolio, development practices and IS services over time. The analysis demonstrates that, with the concept of disruptive IS innovation, we can fruitfully analyse ‘long’ waves of ICT evolution – an issue that has largely been overlooked in the IS community. On a theoretical plane, the paper advocates the view that we need to look beyond linear, unidirectional, and atomistic concepts of the diffusion of IS innovations where innovative activity takes places in a linear fashion by oscillating between small technological innovations and small organizational innovations. In contrast, IS innovation can exhibit fundamental discontinuity; we need to theoretically grasp such disruptive moments. The recent influx of innovation, spurred by internet‐based technology, offers one such moment.

Market-oriented green innovation is receiving increasing attention. However, due to the dominance of traditional technologies and the underdevelopment of green technology capabilities, the speed at which green innovation enters the market is slow. Overcoming competitive disadvantages for latecomer green innovations has become a key issue to be solved. Disruptive innovation theory provides latecomers with opportunities for leapfrog development. Combined with the theory of disruptive innovation and green innovation, this study proposes a new model for market-oriented green innovation – disruptive green innovation. This study then attempts to develop a scale of disruptive green innovation. Through qualitative methods such as literature deduction, interview induction and expert screening, the initial items of disruptive green innovation are set up. Through quantitative methods such as pretests and large sample tests, the initial items are refined and analyzed. Finally, the scale of disruptive green innovation composed of seven items is developed. This study not only provides important theoretical guidance for the market strategy deployment of green innovation in China and clear measurement tools for follow-up research but also provides important practical enlightenment for green innovation to catch up in the fierce market competition.

Bolstering creativity willingness through digital task interdependence, disruptive and smart HRM technologies

This paper describes the maturity of tertiary education institutions (HEIs) in integrating practice-based e-learning with disruptive technologies (DT). It identifies gaps that hinder the transition to DT facilitated practice-based elearning. Within the scope of the project e-DIPLOMA, a self-evaluation questionnaire was developed and an online survey was carried out in the project partner countries. Collected dataset incorporated responses from 87 technical and didactic support personnel, 327 educators and 433 students from 92 tertiary education institutions. To describe the current state of maturity of HEIs to facilitate practical elearning with DT, mean values of the key components were calculated. A t-test was used to identify statistically significant differences in responses between groups of respondents. The use of DT in practice based elearning is hindered by the lack of sufficient infrastructure in HEIs, with further constraints arising from limited lecturer involvement in training, communities of practice, and in external collaborations. The findings reveal that educators have limited experience with teaching using DT. A rather positive attitude from all participant groups towards the positive impact of engaging DT both learning and sustainability perspectives..