Review Disruptive Innovations

Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 56 (2020) 101568
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Engineering and

Technology Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jengtecman
A literature review of disruptive innovation: What it is, how it

T
works and where it goes
Steven Sia,b, Hui Chena,*
a
School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
b
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA
ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT
Keywords: The disruptive innovation theory, proposed and developed by Christensen over 20 years ago, has
Disruptive innovation been widely discussed and applied. However, there are still serious misunderstanding and mis-
Basic concept using of the concept and connotation of disruptive innovation. Doubts about its practical sig-
Practical significance nificance and predictability also remain. In this paper, we attempt to further clarify the concept
Predictability
and emphasize its important role in guidance in practices through reviewing relevant literatures
Influence factors
published in SSCI journals. Furthermore, we propose a multilevel theoretical framework to ex-
amine the influence factors of disruptive innovation by integrating various research results. We
also provide suggestions and implications for future research.
1. Introduction
Innovation is widely known to have great effects on developing economy and obtaining sustainable competitive advantage
(Damanpour and Wischnevsky, 2006; Nagano et al., 2014). The disruptive innovation theory, developed by Christensen when he
published the book entitled “The Innovator’s Dilemma” over 20 years ago, has been widely discussed and applied (Christensen et al.,
2018). So far, there exist many different viewpoints and arguments about this research topic. However, a broad consensus about some
important issues has not been reached, which makes the theory seem more confusing rather than concise and accurate. Different
researchers and practitioners usually choose whatever they prefer to believe and apply, which has caused a disturbing crisis in further
developing and applying the theory (Christensen et al., 2015; Lindsay and Hopkins, 2010; Tellis, 2006). For example, the term
“disruptive innovation” is often casually applied to many unrelated situations of innovation (Wilson and Tyfield, 2018). This theory,
or its variants, have been applied to so many irrelevant situations that Christensen himself expressed concerns about some of the ways
in which the theory had been applied (King and Baatartogtokh, 2015). This status quo of chaos and fragmentation has caused
misunderstanding of disruptive innovation, which to a certain extent has hindered the further development and application of the
theory. If the term continues to remain well undefined, it could become just a business buzzword (Nagy et al., 2016). It therefore
becomes necessary to clearly classify both the basic concept of the theory and its real connotations (Danneels, 2004; Markides, 2006),
so that people can correct previous misunderstanding, prevent the misusing, and identify the real implications of the concept of
disruptive innovation.
Moreover, in order to bring the theory out of chaos, and to highlight its legitimacy, it is necessary to respond to the current
disputes surrounding the disruptive innovation theory and to solve the problems remaining. More specifically, the current literature
shows that there is inconsistency between the theory and the real business practice, which has led to doubts about the legitimacy of
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Si), [email protected] (H. Chen).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jengtecman.2020.101568
Received 10 January 2019; Received in revised form 18 November 2019; Accepted 10 March 2020
0923-4748/ Published by Elsevier B.V.
S. Si and H. Chen Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 56 (2020) 101568
the theory and its role in predicting innovations in practice. Although Christensen (2006) and the scholars (e.g., Wan et al., 2015)
have emphasized that the theory can be used to predict disruptive innovation and play a significant role in management, current
evidence has showed that most established firms did not place priority to disruptive innovations because they do not seem to conform
to economic logic. Thus, in real business practices, when presented with other viable alternatives, disruptive innovation does not
appear to be the optimal option of the incumbents (Hang et al., 2015; Wolpert, 2002). Many scholars also suggest that the incumbents
do not necessarily take the initiative to adopt disruptive innovation, which forms a glaring contrast to the important role of disruptive
innovation highlighted by the theory. Furthermore, in spite of the wealth of research to explore the influence factors of disruptive
innovation, there still lacks a systematic theoretical framework that is based on various levels of analysis, which does not make it
possible to fully integrate such research results to further contribute to the development of the theory.
The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic review and analysis of the extant literatures in the disruptive innovation
theory which has been developed for more than 20 years, in order to better clarify the basic concept of disruptive innovation and
address the disputes and questions raised in prior research. In so doing, we hope to maintain the legitimacy, and highlight the
important role of this theory. Moreover, on the basis of the review, we propose a five-level theoretical framework to summarize
important influence factors of disruptive innovation, in order to provide theoretical implications for future research to explore the
influence mechanisms of disruptive innovation, and to offer some important implications in practices.
In this paper, we will review and analyze the disruptive innovation literatures in the following four sections. In the first section,
we will discuss the basic concepts and real connotations of disruptive innovation. Specifically, through sorting out and integrating
various views of different researchers, we intend to propose a comprehensive and less controversial definition of disruptive in-
novation to better cover the fundamental characteristics of this concept. In the second section, based on the various research results,
we attempt to respond to some disputes of the disruptive innovation theory. Despite there is inconsistency between the theory and
practice, various scholars have taken invaluable efforts to examine the theory in different cases and contexts and provided the
fundamental consistency in their study findings to demonstrate the validity of the disruptive innovation theory. We also indicate that
the disruptive innovation theory has predictive validity, and provides important value in guiding innovation practices, based on the
fact that numerous scholars have made much progress, and showed that the disruptive innovation theory is not only a theory with the
post hoc effects but also can be used as the ex ante prediction tools. In the third section, we summarize the key influence factors of
disruptive innovation across different levels. Through summarizing and classifying the research results of disruptive innovation, we
categorize these key influence factors at the levels of individual, firm, industry, nation/economy, and network/system, so as to
integrate different research results and provide implications to guide practice and theory development. In the last section, we propose
new insights for the future research on disruptive innovation and provide implications to guide both theory development and practice
of disruptive innovation.
2. The concept of disruptive innovation
Since we need to trace the origin of the basic connotations of the disruptive innovation theory (Christensen, 1997), we conduct a
literature review of this theory since it was developed more than twenty years ago. Due to that there are too many articles in
disruptive innovation being published in the past two decades, we have selected only the articles published in the SSCI journals for
the sake of choosing high quality research articles.
We mainly searched the target articles from the database of Web of Science. At first, we used the key search words of “disruptive
innovation”, “disruption” and “disruptive” from 1990 to 2019 (until August 2019, when we collected data), and identified 395
relevant articles. Then, we checked the titles, abstracts and keywords for further screening, and excluded those articles that did not
take disruptive innovation as the primary discussion. As a result, 208 articles, including those from three special issues1, were
qualified as the database for our review. The distribution of the articles according to the timeline is shown in Fig. 1.
From Fig. 1, we see that the research on disruptive innovation has begun to gain its popularity since 2013, with the articles
published in SSCI journals beginning to reach more than 10 pieces each and every year. And the number of related articles has peaked
at 45 in 2018. The developing trajectory of the published articles also indicates the upward trend of discussion and development of
this theory.
In general, we found that, like other management theories, the research on disruptive innovation has evolved from more qua-
litative in early days to more empirical in recent years. The research content has also expanded from disruptive technology to the
extensive exploration of business models, products, strategies, internal conditions, and external conditions of firms. In addition, the
development of emerging technologies, including big data and blockchain, and new social and technological scenarios such as
sharing economy, have been increasingly investigated in the more recent research on disruptive innovation. This clearly show that
more researchers have noticed these changes and taken their research efforts in addressing these directions.
1
The three special issues are: “Commercialization of disruptive technologies and discontinuous innovations” in IEEE Transactions on Engineering
Management, Vol. 49, No. 4, November 2002. “Managing in the age of disruptions” in Journal of Management Studies, Vol.55, No.7, November 2018.
“Disruptive Technology and Disruptive Innovation — A Renaissance in this Century” in Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Vol. 30, No.11,
December 2018.
2
Fig. 1. The distribution of disruptive innovation articles according to the timeline.
2.1. What is disruptive innovation
The disruptive innovation theory was originally proposed by Christensen (1997) in his famous book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.
When explaining why dominant incumbents failed in their competitions with new entrants in the industry of hard disk drive, he
initially described a concept of “disruptive technology”, which mainly referred to the kinds of technology inferior in the main
attributes that consumers of mainstream technology valued, but focused on some neglected attributes alternatively. And as the
technologies improved over time, the new technologies came slowly to surpass the dominant technologies in specific markets. The
concept of disruptive technology suggests that the winning technology may not necessarily be radical or cutting-edge one. A
dominant design is generated through a process of social, economic and political negotiations and selections. Those companies who
take first actions to adopt technologies that become dominant later usually survive and prosper, while those refuse to adopt those
technologies would be likely to fail (Nair and Ahlstrom, 2003). Later, the concept of disruptive technology was extended into a
broader concept as disruptive innovation, which not only refers to disruptions in technology, but also involves disruptions in other
aspects such as products and business models (Christensen and Raynor, 2003; Hang et al., 2015; Markides, 2006). But overall, the
variants still follow the original connotation of disruptive technology (Alberti-Alhtaybat et al., 2019).
The disruptive innovation has won increasing recognition and discussion from researchers and practitioners. However, since
Christensen just loosely defined the term (Tellis, 2006; Weeks, 2015), disruptive innovation concept has often been interpreted and
judged subjectively. Therefore, it is not always clear what disruptive innovation exactly means, what will be disrupted, and by whom
(Kuokkanen et al., 2019; Nagy et al., 2016). There have been plenty of articles citing disruptive innovation as proforma references,
i.e., disruptive innovation theory was only cited in the introduction/discussion section of the paper, rather than in the theory building
or hypothesis section (Christensen et al., 2018; Hall and Martin, 2005; Spinks et al., 2017). For example, some research (citation)
focus only on one or two specific aspects of the original research model of Christensen, but ignore the other aspects, which leads to
misunderstanding of and confusion in academic research and practice (Daim et al., 2011). The ambiguous notion of “disruptive” can
also easily make other types of innovation be mis-defined as disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2018; Klenner et al., 2013; Li
et al., 2018 Molina-Morales et al., 2019; Wilson and Tyfield, 2018). For instance, Alberti-Alhtaybat et al. (2019) regarded Apple’s
iPhone as disruptive innovation, but the outstanding performance and high price of iPhone as well as its target market are incon-
sistent with the basic connotation of disruptive innovation. In this case, some scholars indicated that one of the important reasons
that managers doubt disruptive innovation is due to the confusion and chaos around this concept (Dogru et al., 2019; Schmidt and
Druehl, 2008). Hence, the disruptive innovation theory is now facing a dilemma, as the core concept and the basic connotations of the
theory have been widely misunderstood, and the theory has often been misapplied. It is important to clearly identify what disruptive
innovation is, because if this basic problem is neglected and the term is still indulged to be interpreted and applied cursorily, the
theory may easily develop in a wrong direction; managers may use the theory in a wrong way to misjudge situations that they are
facing, leading to the reduction of their chances of success (Christensen et al., 2018). As a result, the validity of the disruptive
innovation theory would be gradually come to be depreciated (Christensen et al., 2015). The lack of clarity underlying the concept of
disruptive innovation has hindered the development of this theory to some extent (Cozzolino et al., 2018; Danneels, 2004;
Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006a, b; King & Baatartogtokh, 2015).
2.2. Different perspectives of the definition of disruptive innovation
At first we have therefore to identify what exactly the term “disruptive innovation” stands for. In this paper we have tried to make
a more accurate and comprehensive definition of disruptive innovation by systematically integrating ideas from different scholars.
According to our summary and analysis of all the related articles in SSCI journals, the extant definitions of disruptive innovation can
be categorized from four perspectives (Some of the definitions as examples are shown in Table 1).
The first perspective to define disruptive innovation is based on four main specific types of innovation activities. The first type is
the disruptive business model innovation (Gilbert and Bower, 2002; Markides, 2006), which focuses on building a new activity
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Table 1
Definitions and perspectives of disruptive innovation.
Paper Definition of Disruptive Innovation Perspectives
Nagy et al. (2016) “An innovation that changes the performance metrics, or consumer expectations, of a market Characteristics
by providing radically new functionality, discontinuous technical standards, or new forms of
ownership.”
Hajhashem and Khorasani “Technology disruption takes place when the performance of a new technology dominates the Specific domain and Effects
(2015) current mainstream technology. In other words, technology disruption occurs when the
performance of new technology surpasses the performance of the dominant one”. Firm
disruption means “the market share of a firm whose products benefit from a new technology
exceeds the market share of the largest firms in the mainstream market”.
Reinhardt and Gurtner (2015) “This study defines potentially disruptive innovations as innovations that (1) initially Characteristics
underperform with regard to the dominant performance dimension that mainstream
customers have historically valued, (2) add an additional performance dimension, which
existing products do not possess, and (3) either address the low end of an established market
or are commercialized in emerging or niche markets. The new and additional performance
dimension is typically related to a product's size, mobility, convenience, usability or price
(Adner, 2002; Anthony et al., 2008; Christensen, 1997; Tellis, 2006). The additional
performance dimension must fulfill one of these criteria but can violate other criteria.”
Levina (2017) “Disruptive innovation reinterprets creative destruction to describe a process through which a Process
product or a service takes root in simpler, often poorer quality, application at the bottom of
the market and then aggressively moves up the market, eventually displacing existing
competition.”
Lui et al. (2016) “Disruptive information technology (IT) innovation is defined as an architectural innovation Specific domain and Effects
originating in the IT based that has subsequent pervasive and radical impacts on development
processes and their outcome.”
Suseno (2018) “Disruptive innovation often uses new technologies and/or business models and replaces Effects
archaic ways of doing business, creating new demands, new competitors and new ways of
doing business.”
system in which new partners and activities are configured in an unprecedented way compared to existing business models (Snihur
et al., 2018). It disrupts established models or redefines the meaning of value creation and acquisition (Cozzolino et al., 2018). The
second type of activity is termed as disruptive technology innovation (Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen, 1997;
Carayannopoulos, 2009; Danneels, 2004, 2006). This focuses on developing a more concise and convenient technology that the
mainstream markets do not value to enter a niche market or new market, and then the technology is gradually improved to flow into
the mainstream market from niche market or new market. The third type is disruptive product innovation (Christensen and Raynor,
2003; Gilbert and Bower, 2002; Govindarajan et al., 2011), focusing on developing simpler, less functional, cheaper but “enough
good” products to serve the market which is overlooked by mainstream products. Last but not least, there is a focus on disruptive
strategic innovation (Charitou and Markides, 2002), which stands for a strategic model aiming at inferior products and niche market
that is totally different from or even in conflict with the traditional strategy of innovation.
The second perspective to define disruptive innovation is based on the evolving process. It emphasizes that disruptive innovation
is not merely an outcome, but a complete and progressive process (Ansari et al., 2016; Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen,
2006; Christensen and Raynor, 2003; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006a, b; Guttentag, 2015; Guttentag and Smith, 2017; Hang et al.,
2011; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008). Any missing or fault of the elements of the process would deny the status to an innovation as
disruptive. The central view of this perspective is that the products or services which disruptive innovation creates are initially
inferior in performance attributes valued by the current mainstream customers, so they are often underestimated and neglected by
the incumbents. However, such products or services have better performance in other dimensions which are ignored by the main-
stream customers and established incumbent firms but valued by other customer groups. Therefore, these products or services would
attract these new customer groups. Then, as the attributes of disruptive products or services are gradually improved to a certain
extent over time, they would ultimately come to appeal to mainstream customers, and thus would gradually take over the market
share of mainstream market from, or even replace the dominant positions of the incumbents (Guttentag, 2015; Guttentag and Smith,
2017; Lindsay and Hopkins, 2010; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008).
The third perspective of the definition of disruptive innovation is based on its effect. The definitions generated from this per-
spective are usually scattered and cannot be systematically categorized or integrated. For example, according to Christensen and
Bower (1996) and Ruan et al. (2014), disruptive innovation is an innovation disrupting an established trajectory of performance
improvement in an industry or reshaping the meaning of performance. Baden-Fuller et al. (2006) suggest that disruptive innovation is
a subset of new business that directly threatens the established incumbents, which enables new entrants to provide products or
services at a lower cost than the existing ones. Afterwards, they even further extend this definition to include all innovations that
could change the stock prices of existing companies. Ramani and Mukherjee (2014) regard disruptive innovation as a new design of
product, process or business model, which can greatly change the whole industry. Wan et al. (2015) contend that innovations which
challenge the existing value propositions or business models in the market may be disruptive. Kostoff et al. (2004) regard disruptive
innovation as an innovation that leads to significant improvement and more effectively achieves superior unit performance.
Orlikowski (1993) and Sherif et al. (2006) indicate that disruptive innovation is a new idea or behavior. When introduced into
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organization settings, it will greatly change the workflow structure. Snihur et al. (2018) define disruptive innovation as a process in
which a start-up with few resources can effectively challenge an established business. Padgett and Mulvey (2007) suggest that an
innovation is disruptive if it changes the products that mainstream customers use. The examples above demonstrate that these
definitions are built based on specific outcomes, and usually refer to something “innovative” or “new”. However, this kind of de-
finitions of disruptive innovation vary from each other and cannot achieve systematic consistency.
The last type of definition is based on the basic key characteristics of disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2015; Pandit et al.,
2018; Yu and Hang, 2010). For example, Christensen et al. (2000) point out that the key features of disruptive innovation are: (1)
locking customers in a new way; (2) usually lowering gross profit; (3) usually not following the traditional trajectory2 of improving
the performance valued by mainstream consumers; (4) introducing new trajectory of performance and improving performance along
parameters different from the traditional ones. Christensen and Raynor (2003) propose standards to help identify potential disruptive
innovations. They suggest that if the product of an innovation is inferior in the attributes valued by mainstream customers when
introduced, but has new features that are appreciated by the low-end or new market customers (such as being cheaper, smaller or
easier to use), this innovation can be considered as disruptive. In addition, its business model should be disruptive (for example, low
margin, niche market, and small scale), which makes the incumbents do not feel concerned and fight back, so that companies which
introduce disruptive innovation have time and space to grow without being perceived as a threat. Govindarajan and Kopalle (2006b)
also indicate four standards of disruptive innovation: (1) inferior performance in attributes that mainstream consumers value; (2)
providing a new value proposition to attract new customer segments or customers who are more sensitive to price; (3) selling at lower
prices; and (4) penetrating from a niche market into the mainstream market. In addition, King and Baatartogtokh (2015) conclude
four key elements of the disruptive innovation theory are: (1) the existing market incumbents are improving along the trajectory of
sustaining innovation; (2) the incumbents overshoot customers’ needs; (3) the incumbents feel that they have the ability to deal with
the disruptive threat; and (4) the result is that the incumbents would face a struggle eventually. Husig, Hipp, and Dowling (2005)
extract some of the most important features, which are believed to indicate the threat of disruption: (1) cheap, simple, initially lower
performing and then fast improving; (2) performance oversupply; (3) leading to customer rejection; (4) lowering margins and profits;
(5) emerging market success; (6) asymmetrical preference overlapping; and (7) intersecting trajectories. Grounded on the three
characteristics which may potentially change the market (i.e. functionality, technical standards, and ownership), Nagy et al. (2016)
define disruptive innovation as “an innovation that changes the performance metrics, or consumer expectations, of a market by
providing radically new functionality, discontinuous technical standards, or new forms of ownership”.
From the above discussion, we can see that the definitions of disruptive innovation are various due to different perspectives taken.
The perspective based on process, and the perspective based on the main characteristics of disruptive innovation are the most
popular, and usually with less controversy as well. The first perspective of definition based on the specific activity of disruptive
innovation is a subdivided definition used by many scholars to initiate an in-depth discussion according to their specific research
objectives and processes. Nevertheless, no matter how specific objectives change, the definitions have all retained the fundamental
features of disruptive innovation. So, we suggest that these three perspectives of definition can be adopted in the research on
disruptive innovation. However, we believe that the main reason that causes the confusion in the concept of disruptive innovation lies
in the third perspective (i.e., based on its effect) to define disruptive innovation. Merely based on their effects, disruptive innovations
may not necessarily be disruptive, and innovations that do not conform to the characteristics of disruptive innovations may still
disrupt incumbents and markets (Reinhardt and Gurtner, 2015). This would easily cause confusion. And we can see that quite a few
definitions of disruptive innovation based on the perspective of effects are too indiscreet and loose, and most may not contain the
basic characteristics of disruptive innovation originally proposed at the time when the theory was built. Rather, these definitions take
some of the other features as alternative standards and curtly identify an innovation as disruptive. Although the call for loosening the
concept of disruptive innovation has always existed (Kamolsook et al., 2019), it does not mean that this loosening can be divorced
from the fundamental basis of the theory originally proposed. Any expansion of a basic concept is not easy and must be accomplished
through a strict process of logical reasoning, induction, and verification. However, we believe that the accuracy and applicability of
these definitions of disruptive innovation based on its effect are still open for discussion.
In sum, despite the confusion caused by the perspective based on the effects of disruptive innovation, we believe that the other
three different perspectives to define disruptive innovation have the consistency of containing many or most of the basic char-
acteristics of disruptive innovation. What is more, we regard the first perspective to define disruptive innovation is only a more
detailed and specific description of disruptive innovation activities following the idea of the other two perspectives. As Alberti-
Alhtaybat et al. (2019) indicate, although the disruptive innovation theory has various explanation and application, it remains stable
in terms of its core characteristics. And Nagy et al. (2016) believe that the definition of disruptive innovation must be based on the
inherent characteristics of innovation. Therefore, we believe that defining disruptive innovation based on its indispensable char-
acteristics and process would be the most accurate way to grasp the real connotations and implications of the theory.
Through integrating different approaches to define disruptive innovation, we propose that the main characteristics of disruptive
innovation satisfy: (1) it is a process rather than some specific outcomes (Ansari et al., 2016; Christensen, 2006; Christensen and
Raynor, 2003; Lindsay and Hopkins, 2010; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008); (2) the initial objective is to focus on the low end markets or
new markets (Christensen et al., 2004, 2015; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006a, b); (3) its products or services are usually inferior to
existing ones in performance attributes that consumers in the mainstream market are more interested in and value, but they can meet
2
Performance trajectory refers to the speed of a product’s performance improvement, and the expected improvement over time. Almost every
industry has a key performance trajectory.
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the needs of consumers in their target markets in the attributes that these consumers value (that is, “good enough”, such as cheaper,
simpler, smaller and usually more convenient) (Adner, 2002; Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen, 1997; Christensen and
Raynor, 2003; Christensen et al., 2015; Corsi and Di Minin, 2014; Crockett et al., 2013; Danneels, 2004; Govindarajan and Kopalle,
2006a, b; Govindarajan et al., 2011; Hang et al., 2010; Huesig et al., 2014); (4) it does not develop along existing technological
trajectories (Bergek et al., 2013; Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen and Rosenbloom, 1995; Christensen et al., 2004, 2000;
Christensen and Overdorf, 2000; Dosi, 1982; König et al., 2012); (5) the attributes of products or services provided will continue to
improve until they meet the needs of consumers in the mainstream market and gradually penetrate into the mainstream market
(Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen et al., 2015; Crockett et al., 2013; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006a).
Therefore, we define disruptive innovation as: An innovation process in which technologies, products or services are initially
inferior than those provided by incumbents in the attributes that mainstream consumers value, but these technologies, products or
services can attract and satisfy the consumers in low-end or new markets with advantages in performance attributes (such as being
cheap, simple, or convenient) that these consumers value but which at the same time are neglected by mainstream markets. Over
time, through incremental improvement of technology or process, a disruptive innovation gradually satisfies the needs of mainstream
consumers, so as to attain certain market share from or even replace incumbents in mainstream markets.
We believe that this definition is quite an ideal one for the research on disruptive innovation due to two reasons. First, it
emphasizes that disruptive innovation is a process rather than a mere outcome. The disruptive innovation theory does not assume
that innovation is inherently disruptive; Rather, what is disruptive is its process of changing the market (Dogru et al., 2019). The
process perspective also emphasizes the two phases involved in the process of disruptive innovation (Cozzolino et al., 2018). The first
phase is an entry phase in which disruptive innovation establishes a position in a low-end market or new untapped market neglected
by the incumbents in the mainstream market to attract consumers underserved by incumbents, so as to win certain market share
(Hajhashem and Khorasani, 2015). The second phase is a transformation phase in which disruptive innovation gradually improves
the performance attributes through continuous technology or process improvement and commercialize through effective business
model so that it can attract the mainstream consumers and ultimately win a certain market share in the mainstream market. Dis-
ruption occurs when a product’s performance on mainstream attributes has been improved to an acceptable level to mainstream
customers while at the same time these customers begin to value new attributes (Bohnsack and Pinkse, 2017; Kamolsook et al., 2019).
Both phases are important to the development of disruptive innovation. In the first phase, disruptive innovation builds its competitive
advantage through its unique advantages in secondary attributes and finds its foothold for survival and development in the target
markets (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Cozzolino et al., 2018). In the second phase, whether a disruptive innovation can
realize the incremental improvement of the mainstream attributes, win its own advantage, and establish a flexible and dynamic
business model to successfully commercialize the innovation outcomes will play a decisive role in the sustainable success of the
disruptive innovation (Cozzolino et al., 2018; Snihur et al., 2018). A wealth of literature in strategic management show that failure to
adapt business models to commercialize after disruption often leads to the failure of disruptive innovation projects (Cozzolino et al.,
2018; DaSilva et al., 2013; Groen et al., 2008; Hwang and Christensen, 2008). Flexible and dynamic business models will greatly
contribute to the creation of value and sustainable competitive advantage, thereby allowing for disruption to be managed (Alberti-
Alhtaybat et al., 2019; Bohnsack and Pinkse, 2017). However, it should be noted that disruptive innovation usually adopts a com-
pletely different business model that must not only be sustainable from an economic perspective, but also be consistent with existing
market realities, customer expectations, and competitive pressures (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Christensen, 2006;
Cozzolino et al., 2018; DaSilva et al., 2013; Markides, 2006). This requires a new approach to convert value into profits, especially in
terms of revenue and pricing structure (Kammerlander et al., 2018). Both of these two phases must be satisfied, otherwise, an
innovation cannot be identified as disruptive. Second, this new definition highlights low-end and new markets as the two footholds of
disruptive innovation (Christensen and Raynor, 2003). Third, this newly introduced definition emphasizes the essential character-
istics of disruptive innovation which can help distinguish from other types of innovation. In the process of summarizing and analyzing
the literature, we find that disruptive innovation is very easy to confuse with other concepts of innovation. As Linton (2009) points
out, there are serious competition, overlap and inconsistency problems in terminologies and categorizations of innovation, which
could often cause more confusion rather than more accurate understanding of innovation (Garcia and Calantone, 2002; Linton,
2009). It therefore becomes necessary to distinguish disruptive innovation from other types of innovation. An effective way to
understand and grasp the basic characteristics of disruptive innovation is to compare it with other types of innovation (Edelstein,
2011; Hüsig et al., 2005; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008). However, there is no clear guidance as to which characteristics are necessary to
define disruptive innovation before (Guttentag and Smith, 2017). Therefore, the way we define the disruptive innovation with its
essential characteristics and processes can not only accurately describe the basic connotation of disruptive innovation, but can also
help scholars and practitioners distinguish disruptive innovation from other types of innovation, so as to solve the problem of concept
confusion and misuse, and to remove the obstacles to the development of the disruptive innovation theory.
3. Disputes around the disruptive innovation theory
3.1. Gaps between the disruptive innovation theory and practice
Beyond the problems of definition, disruptive innovation theory is also mired in some disputes among scholars and practitioners.
The first dispute is about whether disruptive innovation is meaningful to companies, especially to those incumbents. For this issue, a
common question is whether the incumbents should proactively respond to or adopt disruptive innovation (Charitou and Markides,
2002). Although the advocates of disruptive innovation theory argue that disruptive innovation is an important innovation strategy
6
for companies, which can bring incredible growth and success (Christensen et al., 2002), quite a few studies have shown that most of
the incumbents would not give priority to the disruptive innovation projects in practice, because these projects do not seem to be
consistent with the economic logic. That is, most of the incumbents have their existing business models as well as customers, in the
case of possessing limited resources and alternative investment options, investing in disruptive innovations may not be their preferred
scheme (Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen and Bower, 1996; Christensen et al., 2006; Epicoco, 2016; Hang et al., 2015;
Hüsig et al., 2005; King and Baatartogtokh, 2015; Tellis, 2006; Wolpert, 2002). This can be explained by several reasons. First,
disruptive innovation is not financially attractive to the incumbents. Since the potential gains of a disruptive innovation from existing
markets are very limited, it is usually difficult to predict how large the potential market will be in the future. In addition, emerging
markets are usually too small to meet the development costs of new products in the early days (Corsi and Di Minin, 2014). And it
could be a lengthy process for new disruptive innovation projects to gain certain market share and profit (Bohnsack and Pinkse, 2017;
Laurell and Sandström, 2018; Lui et al., 2016). Second, the inertias of both the companies and managers make it more difficult to
initiate a disruptive innovation project (Lucas Jr and Goh, 2009). The incumbents who have invested largely in their existing projects
are usually unwilling or unable to adjust their resource portfolios or develop new capabilities and/or new procedures to catch up with
external changes (Ansari et al., 2016; Kostoff et al., 2004). Due to the uncertain profit potential, managers usually come to the
conclusion that disruptive innovation cannot make a meaningful contribution to the growth of their companies, and then they can
consider its development as not worth the bother (Bower and Christensen, 1995; Henderson, 2006). They will be more inclined to
select schemes with flexible outcomes, because it would be relatively easier to restore the old status quo if the initial results of the
change are not good. In contrast, the new and disruptive approach may require difficult choices with inevitable outcomes, such as a
larger investment in great changes in the organizational structure or development of new capabilities, which are usually quite
inflexible and not easy to recover from (Huff et al., 1992; Osiyevskyy and Dewald, 2015). Making big changes increases the risks and
challenges a company is facing. In particular, the incumbents face a trade-off between serving existing customers and cannibalizing
present products (Bohnsack and Pinkse, 2017; Padgett and Mulvey, 2007). In addition, senior managers may not understand the
prospect of disruptive innovation, because their views on the world are deep-rooted and largely determined by their prior and current
experiences (Vecchiato, 2017). They tend to focus on their current customers, thus do not see any other opportunities. From this point
of view, it seems relatively more reasonable for a senior team of the incumbents to determine not to invest in a disruptive innovation.
The literature show that numerous researchers have contributed to helping solve this dispute. One of the most popular solutions is
that large incumbents can set up separate business units to work on some potentially profitable disruptive innovation projects
(Christensen, 1997; Crockett et al., 2013; Damanpour and Wischnevsky, 2006; Gilbert and Bower, 2002; Markides and Oyon, 2010;
Osiyevskyy and Dewald, 2015; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008; Wan et al., 2015), so that they can reduce the threat of potential disruptive
innovation projects and even proactively participate in the disruptive change. Although there are still doubts about the effectiveness
of this solution, it is one of the most recognized. This is because more and more cases have shown that the incumbents cannot ignore
the impact of disruptive innovation no matter they want to or not. To pursue sustainable development, the incumbents must take
actions to balance the relationship between exploiting their core businesses which produce reliable short-term outcomes and ex-
ploring new areas with uncertain results (O’Reilly and Binns, 2019; Paap and Katz, 2004). This approach allows the incumbents to
maintain strategic relationships with different customers and to achieve strategic flexibility (Khanagha et al., 2018). On the other
hand, Marx et al. (2014) suggest a two-stage commercialization strategy in which disruptors initially compete to establish the value of
their disruptive innovation projects, following by cooperating with the incumbents to commercialize these projects. In doing so, the
incumbents’ existing market leadership is likely to remain.
Besides, many researchers also provide their opinions and points of views from different perspectives and angles. Some try to
explore the underlying mechanisms regarding how the incumbents can effectively respond to disruptive innovations. For example,
Lettice and Thomond (2008) indicate seven common factors that can influence the resource allocation process to support sustainable
innovation rather than disruptive innovation include: senior executive and senior management values, prevailing cost structures,
opportunity size threshold, management development systems, incentive and compensation schemes, customers’ actions and com-
petitors’ actions. O’reilly and Binns (2019) suggest that, in order to promote disruptive innovation in large companies, three different
innovation disciplines to be managed include: idea generation or ideation, or idea discovery and development for potential new
business; Incubation, in which new ideas can be verified in the market; Scale, the reallocation of existing assets and capabilities to
help new businesses grow. They also emphasize that the success of disruptive innovation needs all these three disciplines.
Kammerlander et al. (2018) find that organizational members’ understanding of role identity will be affected – members will perceive
that one of the two aspects of identity will be enhanced and the other will be challenged. When members try to adjust to coincide with
their perceived organizational identity, the various cognitive combinations would lead to different responses to disruptive innova-
tions. In the specific cases they studied, these types of responses included a highly flexible, and innovative adoption; Flexible non-
adoptive responses, or “bold retreats”; A highly hesitant, and rigid adoption; And an aggressive, but somewhat “routine rigid”
adoption.
On the other hand, some scholars focus on exploring the interaction between the incumbents and external factors in dealing with
disruptive innovations. For example, Kumaraswamy et al. (2018) contend that, in an ecosystem, different members (including the
incumbents) may be influenced differently, resulting in heterogeneity of responses. This heterogeneity within an ecosystem provides
the “disruptor” with an opportunity to construct an innovation framework that attracts at least some of its members. Zietsma et al.
(2018) explore the avoidance of a disruption in a particularly challenging situation, that is, how the incumbents avoid a disruptive
innovation to maintain the status quo when this disruptive innovation meets emerging social needs, which shows that open resistance
might not be a legitimate response. They argue that the incumbents and other actors in the regime (politicians and other actors in
government) should use positive rhetoric and make (symbolic) resource commitments to show that they accept the disruptive
7
innovation and are working on gaining legitimacy. At the same time, the legitimate stabilizing mechanisms of existing institutional
infrastructures enable them to absorb a disruptive innovation and its associated resources, thereby weakening potential disruptors. In
the end, the unobtrusive maintenance of the incumbents makes the social technology system basically unchanged, with only some
moderate improvements of existing technology system.
Therefore, many research results confirmed the legitimacy of disruptive innovation. Moreover, with deeper research into in-
vestigating disruptive innovation, the theory of disruptive innovation would be further modified and improved, which in turn, thus,
provide more effective guidance for innovation practices. In this case, we highlight that when we consider disruptive innovation as
one of the most important theories of management, it emerges not as something which “has to be done”, but rather as something
“inspiring”. Just like many other management theories, it is not a transcendent theory that can be used in any situation; instead, it
ultimately depends on the context in which it has emerged and into which it is applied. We suggest that if companies which have not
established market dominance intend to break through the status quo in a different way, disruptive innovation could be one of the
strategies that might be effective. On the other hand, established firms should be more proactive to respond to or even adopt
disruptive innovation in case they would be disrupted. They should at least keep an eye on any potential disruptive innovation
projects, in case such projects would pose threats. Or further, some aggressive incumbents should get involved into the actively
developing disruptive innovation. However, there is doubt about the effectiveness of disruptive innovation regarding its predict-
ability; this uncertainty becomes yet another reason that managers would not prefer to choose disruptive innovation as their pre-
ferred strategy.
3.2. The predicative validity of the disruptive innovation theory
Extant research on disruptive innovation mainly unfolds from two perspectives, i.e. the post hoc, and the ex ante analyses (Guo
et al., 2016). Predicting the disruptiveness of an innovation is important for the incumbents, so that they can avoid the harmful
consequences of ignoring a disruptive innovation. If managers can identify disruptive innovations before these technologies disrupt
the market, they can take action to turn potential market disruption into new opportunities – or at least, prevent organizational
failure (Nagy et al., 2016). However, many scholars and practitioners doubt whether the disruptive innovation theory can be used in
various situations since it is mainly based on analyzing the post hoc empirical evidence of successful cases in their early developments
(Daim et al., 2011; Hang et al., 2011, 2015; Klenner et al., 2013; Yu and Hang, 2010). Hitherto, the problem of whether the disruptive
innovation theory can be used for the ex ante prediction has not been adequately addressed in the literature (Christensen et al., 2018;
Hüsig et al., 2005; Klenner et al., 2013). Practitioners also face problems in identifying disruptive technical threats in advance so that
they can develop and implement timely strategies (Hüsig et al., 2005). Therefore, Tellis (2006) raises a question: How can we
acknowledge the predictive value of the disruptive innovation theory if it is only after the occurrence of a successful disruptive
innovation that can be analyzed?
But more researchers have noticed this problem and contributed to a better understanding of the predictive validity of the
disruptive innovation theory. Some scholars focus on the predictive effects of characteristics or relevant influencing factors on
disruptive innovation, as they would play the role as indicators of potential disruptive innovations (Huesig et al., 2014). For example,
Paap and Katz (2004) identified drivers to predict future disruptions. Husig et al. (2005) extracted a number of consistent features
that are generally considered to indicate the threat of a disruption. More research concerning this aspect can be found in Table 2.
Table 2
Research on the characteristics or relevant influencing factors of the ex ante prediction of disruptive innovation.
Paper Main points
Sainio and Puumalainen (2007) They used a propositional framework containing two middle variables, namely, the disruptive potential of new technologies
and their strategic importance to the company, to help firms evaluate the ex ante disruptive potential of new technologies in
their own business context.
Lettice and Thomond (2008) They designed and formulated a dimension ranking checklist in the form of questionnaire, and combined with a set of new
qualitative and quantitative measures focusing on the characteristics of disruptive innovation, so as to evaluate the
disruptive impact of the plans under consideration and the different maturity stages of individual innovation initiatives.
Keller and Hüsig (2009) They put forward a new method to analyze the disruptive potential of new technologies based on a list of criteria that
indicate disruptive innovation and trajectory maps of the technologies’ performance attributes.
Ganguly et al. (2010) They predicted the types of disruptive innovations which are most suitable for the development of incumbents by
measuring the degree of disruption.
Daim et al. (2011) They developed a systematic and simple framework to evaluate the success factors of disruptive innovation based on
Christensen’s original theory. The framework included three main components: market positioning, technology and other
drivers, which can be used to guide detailed data collection and analysis to answer the key questions which comprise the
assessment framework.
Osiyevskyy and Dewald (2015) They explored managers’ intentions and the decision-making processes of disruptive business models through a mix of two
contextual factors (perception of threats and opportunities) and internal factors (attitudes toward risk, industry experience).
Hannibal and Knight (2018) They proposed a series of variables in which disruptive technologies may affect localized production in international
business.
Kuokkanen et al. (2019) They put forward the concept of disruptive sustainable innovation based on practice. The framework explored the
disruption of existing functions or which attributes would be transformed by more sustainable ones. They indicated that
innovation could be disruptive by replacing existing practices with new ones, or by redefining attributes associated with
existing practices.
8
Table 3
Research on the underlying mechanisms or processes of the ex ante prediction of disruptive innovation.
Paper Main points
Rafii and Kampas (2002) They presented a scorecard for companies to assess disruptive threats, including rating the quality, cost, and ease of use
of an innovation.
Kostoff et al. (2004) They proposed an approach that combines literature with workshops and roadmapping with experts participating in to
systematically identify potentially disruptive technology alternatives.
Govindarajan and Kopalle (2006b) They developed a scale to measure the disruptiveness of innovation, to establish the reliability and discriminated validity
of the construct, and to improve the theoretical validity of disruptive characteristics, so as to build up its predictive
validity.
Keller and Hüsig (2009) They used a scorecard to evaluate the disruptive potential of Google web-based office applications.
Kim and Lee (2016) They tried to analyze and predict disruptive innovation from the perspective of technology based on the characteristics
of Mark I/ Mark II phase proposed by Schumpeter.
Kim et al. (2016) They proposed a technology roadmap using futuristic data to help predict disruptive innovations and developed a
support system. The system explored key tendency using a keyword-based visual analysis approach involving three
keyword maps, used in succession: keyword cluster map, keyword intensity map, and keyword relationship map.
Guo et al. (2016) They proposed a systematic method to generate the design scheme of disruptive products in the new market. This
method realized the differentiated design of functions compared with the existing mainstream products through the
construction of function layer structure and the creation of performance layer. Through the process of component
configuration and system optimization, two quantitative evaluation formulas are developed to determine which system
needs second disruption and how to optimize the system.
Nagy et al. (2016) They proposed a three-step method based on managers’ understanding of their own and potentially disruptive
innovation contexts to help predict how innovation will disrupt an organization.
Cheng et al. (2017) They proposed a framework of application areas forecasting process for disruptive technology based on patent data.
They analogically introduced the SIRS epidemic model, using a variety of data sets, including interdisciplinary co-
existent patents, interdisciplinary citation patents, and inner-disciplinary citation patents, to calculate the potential for
industrial and technological disruption in the short term, and to stochastically predict major outbreak of disruptive
technologies in candidate applications in the long run. Their research provides a feasible framework for enterprises to
better predict the future trend of disruptive technologies and a practical tool for other stakeholders to evaluate the
potential of disruptive technologies.
Momeni and Rost (2016) This study proposes a method based on patent development paths, k-core analysis and topic modeling of past and current
technology trends to identify technologies that are likely to become disruptive technologies.
Other scholars have studied the mechanisms and processes of the ex ante prediction of disruptive innovation (see Table 3 for more
details). For example, some scholars have developed scorecards or scales to assess disruptive innovation (Govindarajan and Kopalle,
2006b; Keller and Hüsig, 2009; Rafii and Kampas, 2002). Some have drawn on established tools or framework from other disciplines
to help make predictions (Kim and Lee, 2016; Kostoff et al., 2004). Moreover, some scholars develop systematic procedures and/or
frameworks to predict the disruptiveness of an innovation (Guo et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2016; Nagy et al., 2016).
Moreover, the contexts where disruptive innovations emerge and are applied should be also considered when studying the
predictability of disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2015; Christensen and Overdorf, 2000). According to this review, we sum
up that the contexts in which disruptive innovation theory is applied can be divided into three aspects. First, there is overshooting in
the existing mainstream market wherein the incumbents seek excessively to satisfy mainstream customers at higher levels, while the
basic needs of the consumers in the low-end or new markets are not satisfied (Bergek et al., 2013; Christensen, 1997; Daim et al.,
2011; King and Baatartogtokh, 2015). Second, disruptive innovation must initially target a low-end market, or new market, and the
target consumers should not at first include those in the mainstream markets (Christensen et al., 2002, 2015; Hang et al., 2011).
Distinguishing between these two types of initial markets is important for establishing a disruptive foothold, as this would to varying
degrees warn the incumbents of potential disruptive threats and the uncertainty created by the market would be different (Daim
et al., 2011). Third, there must be space for disruptive innovation to start and grow within the existing market or business model
(Christensen et al., 2002; Hang et al., 2011; Hill and Rothaermel, 2003; Uzunca, 2017). For example, there are asymmetric incentives
between the incumbents and disruptors so that it must appear insufficient to cause the vigilance and resistance of the incumbents at
the infancy of a disruptive innovation. In addition, growing evidence shows that emerging economies have become an important
place of disruptive innovations (Hart and Christensen, 2002; Wan et al., 2015; Ray and Ray, 2011). The market environment of
emerging economies can stimulate disruptive innovation because the initial consumers’ preferences and expectations are low, and
there are fewer regulations and legacy assets, which means that it would be faster and cheaper to launch, test, and improve disruptive
innovations in these markets than in developed markets (Hang et al., 2010; Wan et al., 2015).
We therefore suggest that the disruptive innovation theory can provide a useful reminder to people regarding the importance of
testing hypotheses and finding external information and other ways to reduce shortsighted thinking. Although the disruptive in-
novation theory, like many other management theories, might not be able to predict specifically what companies should do, it can be
a good reminder of potential risks. Christensen and Raynor (2003) are also concerned, according to the survey data shown in his
research, about that, in spite of the present developments of knowledge and technology, private and public participants, networks
and institutions tend to promote the sustaining innovations, thus many disruptive innovation initiatives cannot obtain necessary
resources or even get listened (Sapsed et al., 2007). Therefore, we cannot over-criticize the disruptive innovation theory; Instead, we
should acknowledge its great value in guiding practices for managers and companies. The theory is getting closer to prescribing
practice because it is gradually getting improved through continuous self-exploration and development. But it still has a long way to
9
go. Below, we have tried to make a little step forward by proposing a multilevel framework of influence factors of disruptive
innovation based on this literature review.
4. A multilevel theoretical framework of key influence factors of disruptive innovation
To further understand disruptive innovation, it is very important to uncover what factors can influence disruptive innovation.
Some researchers simply divide the influence factors into two dimensions, i.e. external and internal (Damanpour and Wischnevsky,
2006; Nagano et al., 2014), but we suggest a more subtle division would have more implications and important values for research
and practice. In addition, after analyzing the literature, we found that some researchers and practitioners have considered different
levels when they study and apply the disruptive innovation theory. Linton (2009) suggests that it is of vital importance for re-
searchers and practitioners to make sure which perspective is being taken, and to clarify the level and unit of the analysis. This is
because the essential connotations and implications of disruptive innovation at different levels may be different. And we also found
that scores of researchers have explored factors which can influence disruptive innovation, but these factors have been separately
discussed and scattered rather than bound at different levels of theoretical analysis. Therefore, in order to make the research on
disruptive innovation more comprehensive, based on the work of Crossan and Apaydin (2010), we have integrated and built the
connections of research on disruptive innovations across different levels, and built up a multilevel theoretical framework of influence
factors for disruptive innovation. Crossan and Apaydin (2010) identified the determinants of general organizational innovation at the
levels of the individual/group, the organization and the environment. Based on the influence factors of disruptive innovation found in
extant literature, we proposed the level of analysis of disruptive innovation into five levels including the individual, firm, industry,
nation/economy, and network/system levels. This theoretical framework could contribute to further systematic analyses and research
of disruptive innovation in the future and can provide reference for people to successfully predict disruptive innovation.
4.1. Individual level
The individual level is mainly about the personal characteristics of company managers. Many scholars, including Christensen, first
considered the characteristics of managers as key factors that influence how companies respond to disruptive innovation. We suggest
that these factors can be divided into 5 categories (see Table 4).
The first important factor is a manager’s perception of disruptive innovation as a risk or an opportunity. In general, if managers
consider disruptive innovation as a threat, they will resist it; if they regard it as an opportunity, they will support it. Their perception
would also affect how they would describe the disruptive innovation to other people in the organization, and how they would
organize responses and allocate resources to deal with disruptive innovation (BolíVar-Ramos et al., 2012). The second key influence
factor is managers’ psychological, cultural or management inertias, which would incline them toward resisting changes and main-
taining the status quo intuitively, so as to continue to serve existing customers with extant business models. The third influence factor
is the mental models of senior managers. A lack of flexibility in mental models is often an important reason that businesses fail to
effectively respond to disruptive innovation. Furthermore, the experience of managers is another important factor, including ex-
periences in their own industry and/or in other industries, as well as previous successes or failures. Specifically, managers’ experience
of working in other industries can improve their ideological flexibility and ability to design innovative strategies (Harris and Helfat,
1997; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992). Working experience confined entirely to one industry is likely to lead to rigid thinking, com-
mitments to the status quo, and unwillingness to make strategic changes (Finkelstein et al., 1996; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992). On the
other hand, managers’ previous successful experience of taking risks may enhance their tolerance of risk, and increase their self-
efficacy, making it easier for managers to recognize opportunities (Roy and Cohen, 2015). The fifth type of individual factors
pertaining to the abilities of managers, such as adaptive ability (Dewald and Bowen, 2010), managerial ability (Parry and Kawakami,
2017), leadership (Parry and Kawakami, 2017), and the ability to abandon the past (Assink, 2006; Wan et al., 2015).
4.2. Firm level
Firm level is usually the primary level of discussion in disruptive innovation research. Roy and Cohen (2015) believe that whether
an established firm can become the leader in disruptive innovation depends on various factors at the firm level. Through the literature
review, we conclude that the main factors at the firm level influencing disruptive innovation include four aspects: strategy, orga-
nization, marketing, and resources (see Table 5).
Organizational factors related to strategy include business models, product innovation, innovation boundaries, conflicts, strategy
patterns, technology and parent company’s impact on subsidiaries. There is no doubt that innovation-related factors are critical for a
firm to respond to or adopt a disruptive innovation. On the other hand, as discussed in the previous section, business models play an
important role in the sustainability of disruptive innovation projects since whether the innovation outcome can be successfully
commercialized is critical (Alberti-Alhtaybat et al., 2019; Cozzolino et al., 2018; Snihur et al., 2018). What is more, the patterns and
routines in which disruptive innovations develop would directly influence the emergence and evolution of disruptive innovations.
Among the factors related to the organization, the inertia of the organization in facing a disruption, especially those of the
incumbents, are most discussed and analyzed. Some scholars have analyzed the causes of inertia, such as dependence on the
10
Table 4
Individual-level influence factors of disruptive innovation.
Individual level factors Aspects Sample articles Main points
Manager’s perception of •Risk Gilbert and Bower, How managers respond depends on their perception of disruptive
disruptive innovation •opportunity 2002; innovation. If they see disruptive innovation as a threat, they will
resist it. If they regard it as an opportunity, they will support it.
Moreover, their perceptions would affect how they describe to
others in the organization, how they organize responses, and how
they allocate resources. In other words, their perception of
disruptive innovation determines the strategy they adopt.
Dewald and Bowen, Managers of small incumbent firms show cognitive resilience when
2010; they form intentions based on their ability to notice, interpret,
analyze, and formulate responses to simultaneously high threat and
high opportunity situations. Managers separately align their
internal and external perceptions. Looking internally, the real
estate brokers evaluate their firm’s capabilities and opportunities
through the lens of their own risk experience. Looking externally,
they evaluate the threat of discount models through their
perception of urgency.
Osiyevskyy and Their research revealed the perception to the threats and
Dewald, 2015; opportunities is the drivers of change. Specifically, the mix of both
situational (e.g., perception of threat and opportunity) and
dispositional factors (risk attitudes, industry experience)
determines an incumbent’s final strategy to change its business
model as a response to disruptive innovation.
Manager’s inertia •psychological Bergek et al., 2013 Inertia explains the disruptor’s advantage: Incumbents are unable
•cultural or unwilling to respond to disruptive innovation because of
•management organizational, technical and strategic inertias, and therefore
allocate insufficient resources in response to threats.
Henderson, 2006 Senior managers fail to understand the prospects for disruptive
innovation because their view of the world is deeply rooted and
largely dependent on their current experience. Focusing on their
current customers keeps them from seeing other opportunities.
Lucas Jr and Goh Bureaucratic structure leads to organizational inertia. As a result,
(2009) an organizational culture that promotes hierarchy and maintains
the status quo will resist disruptive technologies.
Wan et al., 2015 Cultural inertia is an important reason that managers often fail to
introduce change and innovation, even though they know it is
necessary.
Manager’s experience •experience in their own Dewald and Bowen, They use literature on cognitive framing to show the importance of
industry or in other industries 2010 risk experience and urgency as moderators in managers’ intentions
•previous successful or failure to adopt disruptive business models.
experience Osiyevskyy and Managers’ different experiences can lead to different modes of
Dewald, 2015 response to disruptive innovations. Prior risk experience, prior
experience in a specific industry, and exposure to other industries
are important dispositional determinants.
Ferràs-Hernández Disruption is led by outsiders with entrepreneurial experience and
et al., 2017 deep knowledge of digital technology.
Manager’s mental models •flexible Lettice and Resource and path dependence restrict freedom of action and lead
•rigid Thomond, 2008 managers to adopt restrictive mental models that lead them to
reject radical and disruptive innovations.
Osiyevskyy and Both managerial cognition and decision-making process play a
Dewald, 2015 major role when analyzing the determinants of the incumbents’
responses to emerging disruptive innovations.
Manager’s ability •adaptive ability; Assink, 2006 The ability to unlearn is one of the most critical abilities people
•managerial ability; need to overcome prejudgments and obsolete mental models,
•leadership; which are key obstacles to disruptive innovation.
•ability of abandoning the past Wan et al., 2015 It is important for the incumbents to prepare and start organizing
•knowledge change and to abandon entrenched values when facing potential
disruptive innovations.
Kim et al., 2016 Knowledge of experts (or managers) often plays a decisive role in
data-driven technology road mapping.
mainstream customer resources (Christensen and Bower, 1996), rigidity of the existing routines and abilities (Gilbert, 2005), the
uncertainty of demand (Gilbert, 2005), system pressure in managing disruptive innovation in different groups within a firm
(Markides, 2006), as well as dependence on the economic stipulation and the existing value network (Hill and Rothaermel, 2003).
11
Table 5
Firm-level influence factors of disruptive innovation.
Firm level factors Aspects Sample articles Main points
Strategy • business models Chesbrough, 2007 New technology can be commercialized in different ways through
• management choice different business models with different outcomes.
• conflicts Chesbrough, 2010 The economic value of any invention (including new technology)
• parent company’s impact on
subsidiaries Wu et al., 2010
can only be realized through commercializing by business models.
Although latecomer firms have disadvantage in technological
• articulation of disruptive vision capability and market resources, they can successfully introduce
• strategic roadmapping disruptive technologies from the advanced economies into
emerging economies through secondary business model
innovation. Specifically, they can create and capture value from
disruptive technologies in emerging economies by changing the
existing competition basis, adjusting the original business model,
and adapting to the mass of price-sensitive customers. Therefore,
articulating a value proposition that is attractive to local customers
and suitable for local infrastructure is important for latecomers to
leverage their latecomer advantages.
Sandström, 2011 For the success of implementing disruptive technologies,
companies need to experiment with new business models because
they bring new value propositions to the market. Finding a
business model that aligns various incentives in the customer
organization seems to be a key success factor.
Simmons et al., 2013 Value inscriptions are combination of marketing activities,
interactions, and negotiations among multiple project members
across companies and functions to counter the destabilizing forces
and tensions created by the commercialization of disruptive digital
innovations.
Kim and Min, 2015 What is critical to changes in the performance of an incumbent is
not only the resources per se, but also is management choices (i.e.
how the incumbent mobilizes and deploys these resources). The
key is to ensure consistency between the asset and management
choices of the incumbents.
Markides, 2006 There are three scenarios in which the incumbents may view a
disruptive innovative business model as beneficial: 1) When they
enter a new market with entrenched competitors who have first-
mover advantages; 2) When it is obvious that their existing
strategy or business model is inappropriate and their companies
are facing crisis; 3) When they want to promote new products to
the mass market.
Sherif et al., 2006 One of the main sources of goal conflict in the process of adopting
disruptive innovations is process conflict, which includes
disagreements over responsibilities and the allocation of resources.
Such a goal conflict is likely to result in a lack of commitment from
the asset creators and asset users to reuse the program.
Lange et al. (2009) In an industry based on disruptive innovation, the inertia of
corporate parents limits their corporate children, making them
weaker than independent start-ups catering to disruptive
technology needs.
van Balen et al. (2019) Articulation of disruptive vision increases the likelihood of a
company receiving funds, but at the same time reduces the amount
of capital it will get.
Petrick and Martinelli Strategic roadmapping provides an approach for companies to
(2012) scan their external environment, identify trends, and then envision
future problem states from the perspective of end uses or
customers in new ways.
Midler, 2013 Based on an in-depth longitudinal analysis of the Logan case in
Renault, they study the sequence from formulation of an
innovative strategy to initiation of the pilot project. The success of
the X90 project in this case seems to demonstrate the importance
of heavyweight project management in the implementation of
disruptive strategies in established enterprises.
Organization • organizational structure Wan et al., 2015 The industrialization of R&D processes, the extended use of
• organizational routine parallel processing in more development stages with greater
• organizational competence timing overlaps, the design of modular product development
• internal politics and power processes, and the adoption of pragmatic and rapid processes for
• organizational culture R&D decisions, did appear to underpin and facilitate disruptive
• organizational inertia innovation.
• organizational pressure Henderson, 2006 The organizational competences of the company, in the traditional
• organizational myopia sense of the embedded organizational routines of the existing
• incentive mechanism
(continued on next page)
12
Table 5 (continued)
• experience company, may be more critical to the failure of the incumbents

• common
efficiency
vision and collective
Ho and Chen, 2018
facing disruptive innovation than is generally recognized.
In order to make and implement strategic decisions to successfully
• motivation and ability respond to disruptive innovations, incumbents need the following
• dynamic capabilities critical capabilities: 1) Predict disruptive innovations and assess
• adoption time their impact on the industry. 2) Make critical self-cannibalization
• innovation type decisions in a timely manner. 3) Diversify by developing
disruptive, sustaining, and newly developed technological
capabilities. 4) Transform the organization to adapt to new
business conditions created by disruptive innovation while
maintaining organizational continuity.
Bower and Christensen, A company’s revenue and cost structure play a critical role in
1995 evaluating proposed technical innovations. Successful, and well-
managed companies have developed resource allocation routines
that often prevent them from allocating resources to projects that
their current customers explicitly do not want, thereby
discouraging the adoption of disruptive innovations.
Christensen and Three factors affect what an organization can and cannot do:
Overdorf, 2000 resources, processes, and values. These three factors will be
evolving over time, starting with resources, and then slowly
moving to the visible, clear processes and values, and then
eventually evolving into cultures. Based on the resources-
processes-values framework, it is suggested that the large
incumbents have the resources required, but lack the latter two
conditions which are necessary for disruptive innovation.
Therefore, it is often not easy for the large incumbents to adopt
disruptive innovations.
Wessel and Christensen, Five kinds of barriers to disruption are put forward:1) The
2012 momentum barrier (customers are used to the status quo); 2) The
tech-implementation barrier (which could be overcome using
existing technology); 3) The ecosystem barrier (which would
require a change in the business environment to overcome); 4) The
new-technologies barrier (the technology needed to change the
competitive landscape does not yet exist); 5) The business model
barrier (the disrupter would have to adopt your cost structure).
Charitou and Markides, The selection of the incumbents’ response to disruptive innovation
2002 is mainly based on the company’s position in the industry, the
company’s ability, the growth rate of disruptive innovation, and
the nature of innovators who introduce disruptive innovation.
There are two factors that influence how companies should
respond to disruptive innovation: the motivation, and the ability to
respond.
Roy and Cohen, 2015 Differences among the incumbents affect their responses to
disruptive changes. Research results indicate that those
incumbents who use internal knowledge to help them understand
“what to develop and design” and “how to do it” are more likely to
be market leaders that match the performance characteristics of
disruptive products.
Khanagha et al., 2018 The importance of ability to innovate flexibly and to deal with
inconsistencies is emphasized to the successful response to
disruption of the incumbents.
Pandit et al., 2018 In emerging economies, dynamic capabilities are important for
exploiting potentially disruptive technologies, and they drive the
performance of disruptive innovations through operational
capabilities.
Molina-Morales et al., The exploitation dimension of the absorptive capacity (ACAP)
2019 model is relevant to the likelihood that clustered firms will become
early adopters of disruptive technologies.
Lucas Jr and Goh (2009) The decision-making and resource allocation processes that make
established companies successful make it difficult for them to
invest in disruptive technologies.
Carlo et al., 2014 A re-analysis of cross-sectional studies of 121 software
development organizations using Internet computing shows that
among early and late adopters, the adoption rate of radical IT
innovations, the strong order effects on downstream innovations
related to the amount of innovation, perceived radicalness of
innovations, and the strong order effects on downstream
innovations related to the amount of perceived radicalness of
innovation differ between early and late adopters. It is also
(continued on next page)
13
Table 5 (continued)
important to consider the type of innovation, because the three

significant effects are in the opposite direction for process
innovations. These findings suggest that IT innovators and
practitioners should carefully consider the timing and type of
innovation when studying or managing radical IT innovations.
Marketing • market position Lindsay and Hopkins, The disruptive nature of an innovation usually has more to do with
• customer 2010 its position in the market than with the technology itself.
• emerging customer orientation Govindarajan et al., 2011 Mainstream consumer orientation has positive effects on the
• demand introduction of radical innovation but has negative effects on
disruptive innovation. While emerging consumer orientation has a
positive effect on disruptive innovation, it is unrelated to radical
innovation.
Slater and Mohr, 2006 They studied how a company’s strategy (i.e., positioning itself as
an explorer, analyst, or defender) could be addressed in terms of :
(1) the customer group the company is targeting; (2) market-
oriented approach of the company, to explain the success of
commercialization of technological innovation.
Combining market strategy with the idea of innovation
management may explain why some companies have succeeded in
adopting disruptive innovations while others have not.
Uzunca, 2017 Two types of competences together determine the success of a
company: Technological and customer competences of submarkets
within the same industry.
Roy, 2013 When large companies have the relevant existing competences and
the expected demand for products developed through sustaining
technologies is uncertain, they are likely to introduce new
products using disruptive new technologies.
Reinhardt and Gurtner, Early adopters of disruptive innovations have better knowledge
2011 about the product domain. By contrast, consumers who buy
products of sustaining innovation early are more involved in the
product domain and do not appear to have more knowledge than
late adopters. Therefore, managers must differentiate between
early adopters and their product development and marketing
strategies based on the type of innovation.
Resource • resource allocation Christensen et al., 2002 Once a viable disruptive growth strategy is defined, it needs
• resource commitment replenishment to survive in the enterprise environment. There are
• resource dependence three factors that affect opportunity – its resources, processes, and
• conflicts between new resources
and existing ones Wan et al., 2015
values – that need to be carefully managed.
Resource allocation has been shown to affect a company’s ability
• complementary assets of disruptive innovation. Due to resource dependence, the
• knowledge
specificity
embeddedness and
Rothaermel, 2001
incumbents tend not to embrace disruptive innovations.
Start-ups are often regarded as pioneers of disruptive innovation,
• intellectual assets but often lack the complementary assets that are critical to the
development of potentially disruptive innovations, which are
monopolized by existing industry leaders.
Teece, 1986 Companies offering disruptive innovations must acquire
complementary assets in case their innovations remain confined to
niche markets.
Lin et al., 2018 Knowledge embeddedness not only has a positive effect on
knowledge specificity, but also has a positive effect on outward-
oriented disruptive innovation. Moreover, knowledge specificity
has a significant positive impact on outward-oriented disruptive
innovation, and a significant negative impact on internal-oriented
disruptive innovation. Besides, knowledge specificity moderates
the relationship between knowledge embeddedness and outward-
oriented (internal-oriented) disruptive innovation.
Lindsay and Hopkins, Intellectual assets can help deal with external disruptive threats or
2010 help overcome internal barriers to adopting disruptive innovation.
Other scholars have comprehensively analyzed the factors influencing disruptive innovation at the firm level. For example, Das
et al. (2018) found six key barriers to disruptive innovation, including a restrictive mindset (overzealous risk management), an
unsupportive organizational structure, an inertia caused by local systems architecture, a lack of exploiting new ideas by the firm, a
not-invented-here syndrome, and a lack of fundamental internal R&D.
4.3. Industry level
The review also shows that the industry level factors have been the least discussed, but there are still some scholars have devoted
14
Fig. 2. Multi-level influence factors of disruptive innovation.
valuable efforts into this issue. The factors such as market demand (Hang et al., 2015); innovative contexts (Christensen, 1997;
Christensen and Raynor, 2003); periodic variation of innovation in the industry3 (Wolpert, 2002); industry structure (Droege &
Johnson, 2010); network externalities; and economies of scale (Christensen et al., 2004; Huesig et al., 2014); externalities
(Chevalier‐Roignant et al., 2019) and the technological and customer capabilities of sub-markets in the same industry (Uzunca,
2017). All of these factors form the external environment for companies in any given industry and have impacts on the companies’
behaviors and strategies. Our understanding is that the industry-level factors have not fully been discovered, but they are critical for
understanding disruptive innovation at the meso-level.
4.4. Nation/Economy level
Factors at the nation/economy level are mainly discussed in the topics of institution and emerging/mature economies. It is
generally believed that emerging economies vs. mature economies are more fertile grounds for the start and development of dis-
ruptive innovation, because they stimulate better exploitation and examination of those innovations that are good enough to meet the
basic need of consumers with affordable prices (Hang et al., 2011; Hart and Christensen, 2002; Wan et al., 2015; Yu and Hang, 2010).
In addition, government and policy makers (regulators) are also important factors at this level (Christensen et al., 2000; Gui et al.,
2018; Pinkse et al., 2014; Ruan et al., 2014). If policy makers are to foster disruptive innovations, they should consider promoting
regional clusters, establishing national standards, encouraging knowledge interaction to develop technology upgrades, and enabling
industry participants to be involved in making supporting laws and regulations. Also, policies and institutions (Huesig et al., 2014)
have impacts on the adoption of disruptive innovation because policies that match the characteristics of innovation can accelerate the
development of technology and the emergence of new industries. Public policy tools can also play a role as trust-enabling me-
chanisms when actors are dealing with uncertainty (Delemarle, 2014). Moreover, legislation (Hang et al., 2011; van den Broek and
van Veenstra, 2018), political resistance (König et al., 2012), tax preferences (Havighurst, 2008; Pinkse et al., 2014) and embedded
social impacts (Pinkse et al., 2014) can also have great influences.
4.5. Network/Ecosystem level
An increasing number of studies have emphasized the importance of the influence factors of disruptive innovation at the network
level, since virtually every company has become embedded in a value network of suppliers, customers, investors, providers of
complementary products, and communities (Hall and Martin, 2005; Hill and Rothaermel, 2003). The innovation is based on a system
level that involves the network of suppliers, partners, and companies which distribute knowledge and other resources to create new
3
That is, the boom-bust cycle. For example, the focus on the innovation was at a low level at the beginning of the 80s and 90s, but rose to the
boom in the late 90s, while it declined in the early 21st century, when the argument of management shifted from "create the future" to "protect the
core competitiveness".
15
products in this network. Changes in technological innovation and new business model influence not just individual companies, but
the entire industries and ecosystems. Other participants, including regulators, evaluators, outsiders, and other stakeholders, all play
an important role in the ecosystem dynamics (Ferràs-Hernández et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2016; Kumaraswamy et al., 2018). The
network requires not only to develop new capabilities within a company, but also to solve problems of innovation at the network/
ecosystem level. For example, Ozalp et al. (2018) studied intergenerational technology platform change as an example of potentially
disruptive innovation at the ecosystem level. Preventing disruptive innovation requires coordination between the incumbents and
political and regulatory personnel in different industries and jurisdictions (Zietsma et al., 2018). Pinkse et al. (2014) argue that
disruptive innovation can be divided into three types, which are based on autonomic, systemic, or social embeddness. For an au-
tonomic innovation, companies can independently make the disruptive innovation. In contrast, in the case of a systemic and socially
embedded innovation, companies have to coordinate with others, such as suppliers, customers, complementors, and the government.
Bessant et al. (2005) also emphasize that the interaction with other companies is becoming a new key focus. A key element of the
emerging innovation management challenge is how to develop capabilities at the network/system level. In a given value network, the
decision of a company to develop products based on new technologies is ultimately based on the behaviors of other members of the
network (Parry and Kawakami, 2017), and knowledge flows among all the participants (Pandža and Holt, 2007). According to our
review, the key influence factors of disruptive innovation at the network level mainly include venture capitalists (Markides, 2006;
Pinkse et al., 2014); the entire network of suppliers, customers, complementors and other stakeholders (Afuah, 2000; Conrad et al.,
2014; Garud and Kumaraswamy, 1995; Ozalp et al., 2018; Pinkse et al., 2014); formal strategic alliance (Markides, 2006); merger and
acquisition (Gilbert and Bower, 2002; Wagner, 2016); cooperation with schools or other institutions (Gilbert and Bower, 2002),
cooperation between vertically independent companies, such as competitors (Laurell and Sandström, 2018; Marx et al., 2014; Pinkse
et al., 2014); agency network (Wolpert, 2002); disruptive susceptibility (Klenner et al., 2013); framing and adaptation of business
model (Snihur et al., 2018) (Fig. 2).
It is important to note that current research on the influence factors of disruptive innovation are mostly discussed from the
perspectives of either the incumbents or disruptors. In this case, some factors may be considered as obstacles for the incumbents to
respond to or adopt disruptive innovation, such as companies’ inertia and managers’ resistance to change, but such factors would be
favorable conditions and opportunities for the disruptors to invade the market through disruptive innovation (Daim et al., 2011). On
the other hand, disruptors, especially for those new entrants of an industry, are constrained by factors such as a lack of resources and
networks. Therefore, these factors can cause disadvantages for the disruptors to promote disruptive innovation, but in turn they
become advantages for the incumbents. Anyhow, all of these factors are important ones that have guiding value for both the in-
cumbents and disruptors, which can help them to better identify their resources and understand their situations, so as to determine
whether they should respond to or adopt an disruptive innovation strategy and how to work with this strategy. In addition, the dual
character of these factors can enhance the universal applicability of the disruptive innovation theory. What is more, some scholars
have noticed the dynamics of disruptive innovation, suggesting that either the incumbents or disruptors should pay attention to
staying flexible and dynamic if they want to achieve long-term sustainability. For example, Habtay (2012) emphasize the importance
of contextualization in analyzing the disruptive innovation of new companies. He points out that the favorable conditions for dis-
ruptive innovation in the short term may possibly inhibit the potential of disruptive innovation in the long term. Alberti-alhtaybat
et al. (2019) suggest that flexible and dynamic business models which integrate different knowledge can help manage a disruption.
5. Discussion and implications
From the establishment which was marked by the publishing of the book The Innovator’s Dilemma in 1997 to nowadays,
Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory has developed for over 20 years and become one of the most important theories in the field
of entrepreneurship and innovation, as it has engendered a significant impact on entrepreneurship and innovation practices.
Christensen et al. (2002) argue that in almost every industry, the most dramatic growth and successful stories are created by dis-
ruptive innovation. Therefore, it has great significance. However, there are still some problems emerged around the disruptive
innovation theory, which not only hinder the development of theory, but also detract people’s evaluation of the theory. The first
problem is about the confusion of its basic definition. The core concept of this theory has been widely misunderstood in that
numerous other types of innovation have been included under the name of disruptive innovation while they are not. Therefore, it can
easily cause confusion and misuse of the theory and practical implications. The second problem lies in the doubts about the effec-
tiveness of disruptive innovation in practice and the predictability of a successful disruptive innovation. There are gaps between this
theory and practice, which makes the theory seem not able to play its role in guiding practice. On the other hand, many scholars and
practitioners have argued that disruptive innovation theory is more likely to be considered as post hoc analyses of successful cases
rather than making predictions. Therefore, the influence of the theory has been weakened and devalued, which hinders the further
development and application of the theory. Hence, it is necessary to clarify what exactly disruptive innovation is and solve the
disputes about its legitimacy and significance if the theory hopes to better and further develop. To this end, this paper has tried to
make a systematic review of the literature of the disruptive innovation theory in hopes of solving these problems and promoting the
further development of the theory.
The main contributions of this paper can be divided into two aspects: theory and practice. In terms of the theoretical aspect, we
have solved two main problems that may hinder the development of the disruptive innovation theory. We provide a new and clear
definition for disruptive innovation based on its characteristics and processes through summarizing various points of view, so that we
can clarify the fuzzy ideas and correct misinterpretations and misapplications of the disruptive innovation theory. Only by under-
standing the basic connotations and implications of the theory can researchers ensure the theory to be discussed and developed in
16
appropriate directions and useful practical implications.

In terms of the relationship between the theory and practice of disruptive innovation, we have tried to respond to the controversy
of whether the theory can be meaningful to innovation practice and whether it can be used for predicting management practice
through a systematic summary of different points of view. The reason that the incumbents are not always inclined to adopt the
disruptive innovation strategy is that it does not seem to be the wisest choice in terms of benefits. But it is reasonable for the
incumbents to set up separate business units to experiment potential disruptive innovation projects and distribute specialized but also
limited resources to these projects so as to prevent potential large losses. Disruptive innovation is more appealing to those start-ups
which do not have many resources to compete with the incumbents. It is also a meaningful reminder for the incumbents to become
vigilant to potential threats from disruptive innovation. We also believe that the disruptive innovation theory can not only have the
functions of analysis, but also provide predictive guidance for the recognition, strategy, and timing of disruptive innovation like other
management theories do for management practices.
Moreover, we have tried to make some contributions to both theory development and practice by proposing a multilevel fra-
mework of influence factors for disruptive innovation, which include the individual level, firm level, industry level, nation/economy
level and network/system level. We further divided influence factors at each level into more detailed categories, so that these factors
would be more systematically organized. This framework could be a valuable basis for future research and provide practical im-
plications for managers.
However, through analyzing the literature, we think that there still is plenty of room for improvement in the research on dis-
ruptive innovation. According to our literature review, we suggest that future research can focus on the followings.
First, a problem in the current disruptive innovation research is that there are no widely accepted effective scales or models.
Although the disruptive innovation theory is now widely discussed and applied, its basic validity and universality has rarely if ever
been examined in the academic literature; and such articles as have been currently published have provided no confirmatory evi-
dence for this theory (King and Baatartogtokh, 2015). Although some scholars have started to expand their efforts on quantitative
studies, on the whole, the studies on disruptive innovation have so far been mainly case analyses and qualitative studies. Moreover, it
still has not established systematic quantitative research paradigms or frameworks. Therefore, future research should attempt to
develop general scales or models of disruptive innovation to enable quantitative study, to enhance the predictability of the theory and
make it as an effective way for innovation study and management.
Second, Christensen (2006) suggested that the influence of this theory extended far beyond the scope of the business world, so it is
proposed to take the “disruption” as a framework in the face of disturbing social problems such as poverty, medical care shortages,
illiteracy and unemployment (King and Baatartogtokh, 2015). Some scholars have noticed this aspect and contributed to the research
stream. Evidence shows that over the past few decades, social welfare has been improved through disruptive innovations, which has
created millions of jobs, generated hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue, and increased total market capital by providing af-
fordable, high quality products to improving living standards (Hart and Christensen, 2002; Suseno, 2018). Therefore, Hart and
Christensen (2002) suggested that the developing countries might be ideal target markets for disruptive innovations. The rapid
economic growth, coupled with the fact that most of the population cannot afford products designed for the developed world, make
these emerging countries fertile grounds for developing and examining disruptive innovations (Hang et al., 2010). Some scholars
have also begun to explore the unique role of disruptive innovation in reducing poverty, combining the disruptive innovation theory
with the BoP theory, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable entrepreneurship (Christensen et al., 2006; Corsi and Di Minin, 2014;
Hang et al., 2010; Ray and Ray, 2011; Ramani and Mukherjee, 2014; Si et al., 2015). Thus, this can also be the direction of future
research.
Third, there are still quite a lot of disputes to Christensen’s view of disruptive innovation that have not been completely clarified
(e.g., Chase, 2016; Schmidt, 2009; Tellis, 2006; Uzunca, 2017). For example, the “rules” which Christensen calls the “principle of
disruptive innovation” (Christensen, 1997, p. xviii) are believed to applicable to all types of companies, technologies, and industries.
However, this general assertion was criticized by Chesbrough, who pointed out that Christensen’s analysis of the hard disk drive
industry was limited to American companies, because the same technology changes did not show the same disruption in Japanese
companies in the same industry (e.g., Chesbrough, 1999, 2003). Further, Hüsig et al. (2005) also pointed out that for certain in-
dustries or products, the disruptive power may be weakened. Moreover, some scholars have argued that Christensen’s original
definition is too narrow and needs to be expanded because it considers only cheaper, and simpler products with inferior initial
performance (Kamolsook et al., 2019). Therefore, it is also indicated that some high-end disruptive innovations may break the low-
end constraints proposed by the traditional theory of disruptive innovation (Christensen and Raynor, 2003; Dedehayir et al., 2014;
Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2006a; Reinhardt and Gurtner, 2015; Schmidt and Druehl, 2008). Danneels (2004) challenged the notion
of market penetration from the low-end market and argued that market penetration can start from the mainstream market rather than
from the low-end market (or BoP market). Therefore, it is very important to explore whether we can loosen the terms or adjust some
relative conditions of the definition and connotation of the disruptive innovation theory, or whether we can even change our in-
terpretation of disruptive innovation from as a kind of innovation mode into as a kind innovative consciousness so as to expand the
theoretical framework. This may help the disruptive innovation theory achieving new development.
In addition, disruptive innovation should be embedded in new contexts as the world changes. For example, the context of sharing
economy such as the effects of disruptive innovation on Airbnb (Dogru et al., 2019; Guttentag, 2015; Guttentag and Smith, 2017;
Lorde and Joseph, 2019) is highly related with disruptive innovation (e.g., Widtfeldt Meged and Zillinger, 2018). Other research
focuses on investigating disruptive innovation in other new contexts. For example, Wilson and Tyfield (2018) pointed out that
exploring the application of disruptive innovation in energy transformation is relevant, timely, important while controversial.
Therefore, Energy Research & Social Science published a special issue called “Disruptive Innovation and Energy Transformation” in
17
2018 to extensively discuss relevant issues. Thus, closely integrating with more new conditions and contexts presents a novel con-
tingency to the disruptive innovation theory to play a new and larger role and to achieve sustainable development and growth.
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Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 56 (2020) 101568

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Engineering and

A literature review of disruptive innovation: What it is, how it

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

2. The concept of disruptive innovation

Fig. 1. The distribution of disruptive innovation articles according to the timeline.

2.1. What is disruptive innovation

2.2. Different perspectives of the definition of disruptive innovation

3. Disputes around the disruptive innovation theory

3.1. Gaps between the disruptive innovation theory and practice

3.2. The predicative validity of the disruptive innovation theory

4. A multilevel theoretical framework of key influence factors of disruptive innovation

4.1. Individual level

4.2. Firm level

Firm level factors Aspects Sample articles Main points

• experience company, may be more critical to the failure of the incumbents

Firm level factors Aspects Sample articles Main points

important to consider the type of innovation, because the three

4.3. Industry level

Fig. 2. Multi-level influence factors of disruptive innovation.

4.4. Nation/Economy level

4.5. Network/Ecosystem level

5. Discussion and implications

appropriate directions and useful practical implications.

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