Demystifying Disruptive Innovation Phenomenon: Economic and Societal Impacts

Abstract

This research aims to demystify disruptive innovation phenomena and its economic and societal impacts. The study is investigative in nature and highlights the gap between the current endorsed disruptive innovation theory and the actual impacts of the phenomena as evident in markets, industries, and societies. The study adopts a positivism philosophical approach and deductive reasoning that builds on secondary data from literature across multiple disciplines that have a strong correlation with the research topic and case study analysis of five market-leading organizations that have significantly impacted their respective industries. The paper presents a comprehensive definition and a conceptual framework that provides an appropriate illustration of the term disruptive innovation based on the conceptual findings. The findings reveal that despite challenging mainstream incumbents, disruptive innovation yields positive impacts on economies, consumers and societies. The research concludes by advocating further research to empirically test the conceptual framework and validate it through primary data and assess its generalizability.