The theory of disruptive technologies
Disruptive technologies:
what future universities
and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and
Jenny Edwards
The authors
Susan Lafferty is based at the University of New South Wales,
Sydney, Australia.
Jenny Edwards is based at the University of Technology,
Sydney, Australia.
Keywords
University libraries, Higher education, Publishing, Obsolescence,
Innovation
Abstract
Christensen’s Theory of Disruptive Technologies predicts that
mainstream organisations and industries can be made obsolete
by new technologies that change the whole paradigm of the
industries in which they operate. This paper demonstrates the
relevance of the theory of disruptive technologies to academic
libraries, higher education and the academic publishing industry.
The way universities are organised and how they operate could
change radically; scholarly communication could be transformed,
placing academic publishers at risk; academic libraries may
become irrelevant as new business models emerge. There are
strategies that these organisations might adopt to limit the
effect of such technologies and/or preferably transform them
into sustaining technologies.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
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Library Management
Volume 25 · Number 6-7 · 2004 · pp. 252-258
Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 0143-5124
252
Clayton Christensen first proposed the theory of
Disruptive Technologies in his book The
Innovator’s Dilemma: when new technologies cause
great firms to fail (Christensen, 1997, 2000).
Using a concentrated case study of the complete
history of the disk drive industry, Christensen
developed a theory for why mainstream,
established, well-managed and successful firms fail
when newcomers selling inferior but more modern
and scalable technology enter the market.
The theory can be summarised as follows:
.
Mainstream organisations respond to the
demands of current customers, especially their
top end customers by upgrading their
technology. While this may be required or
desired by top end customers, it is often to a
level considerably above that required by the
average customer.
.
Mainstream organisations manage well. They
listen to their current customers and respond
to their demands and those of the market.
Such organisations carefully monitor market
size and growth rate, investing in areas where
returns are high and markets are large.
.
Disruptive technologies usually start with very
limited functionality and usually appeal only to
a very limited market. They are cheap and not
very profitable (e.g. early personal computers,
desktop copiers). Mainstream companies
ignore them because they are marginal.
. Disruptive technologies, over time, improve
their functionality and eventually appeal to a
broader market – usually a market that is not
served by the mainstream companies.
.
Eventually the disruptive technologies have
enough functionality to be adequate for most
people – including a large part of the market
currently served by the mainstream
organisations. They are also cheaper.
Suddenly the disruptive technology is
acceptable and the mainstream companies
lose their business to the smaller newcomers.
.
Often the newcomers end up with even bigger
markets than the original companies. At this
stage, the newcomers become mainstream
and the cycle starts again.
Christensen (2000) posits five principles to explain
this apparent conundrum:
(1) Companies depend on customers and investors for
resources. Those that do not meet the demands
of current customers and investors do not
Received: 18 February 2004
Accepted: 8 April 2004
# Lafferty and Edwards
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries? Library Management
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards Volume 25 · Number 6-7 · 2004 · 252-258

survive. They are not in a position to allocate Figure 1 The impact of sustaining and disruptive technological change (Christensen,
resources to disruptive technologies. The 2000 p. xix)
ability to stifle ideas, however innovative, that
do not meet the needs of customers and
investors is a successful strategy in successful
companies.
(2) Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of
large companies. Entering an emerging market
can provide first-mover advantage, but returns
are too small to meet the needs of large
organisations. However, waiting for new
markets to be “large enough to be interesting”
is too late if a technology is disruptive.
(3) Markets that don’t exist can’t be analysed.
“Sound market research and planning
followed by good execution according to plan
are hallmarks of good management” (p. xxv).
While this may work in the face of sustaining
technologies where market growth and other
factors are predictable, with disruptive
technologies, it is impossible to predict future
growth or returns.
(4) An organisation’s capabilities define its
disabilities. An organisation’s capabilities
reside in its processes and values. These not
only define what an organisation can do but (1) Type 1: “compete against non-consumption”
also what it cannot do. Because processes rely (p. 46) and establish a completely new market
on the same thing being done the same way for a product or service. This targets
every time, they work against an organisation customers who will welcome a simple product
implementing change. without being demanding. It involves
“Values” are “the criteria. . . used when products or services that help customers do
making prioritisation decisions” (p. xxvii). For more easily and effectively something they are
example, they may set out the minimum profit already trying to do.
margin required or may identify the key (2) Type 2: “compete from the low end” (p. 47) by
stakeholders who can influence decisions. “deploying a business model that profitably
Such values can make it impossible for a serves less-demanding customers that the
company to look at a new, small market. market leaders are actually happy to shed”.
(5) Technology supply may not equal market demand.
Technology improvement often provides Leifer et al. (2001) look at the development of
greater performance than the market can disruptive technologies in terms of radical
absorb or utilise (performance oversupply). innovation within the organisation. They claim that:
Small, disruptive technologies develop to the Radical or breakthrough innovations transform the
point where they have the functionality to relationship between customers and suppliers,
compete with established products (p. xxvii). restructure marketplace economics, displace
current products and create entirely new product
A complementary concept that Christensen categories (p. 102).
introduces is that of sustaining technologies. These
They note that research has shown the radical
technologies may be radical and innovative, but
innovation life cycle to be long term – often ten or
they support the incumbent organisation in its core
more years. It stops and starts and is generally
business – i.e. continuing to do what it currently
unpredictable (p. 103).
does. Disruptive technologies on the other hand
disrupt the market, change the industry paradigm
and create a whole new market for a new product
often driving out the incumbent organisations
(Figure 1). Higher and continuing education
In Disruption in Education Christensen et al.
(2003) expand the theory to include “disruptive Higher and continuing education can be looked at
innovation”. They identify two disruptive growth in terms of Type 1 and Type 2 disruptive
strategies: opportunities (Christensen et al., 2003, pp. 46-52).
253
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards
Regarding Type 1 (competing against
non-consumption) the authors note that there are
at least 2,000 corporate universities in the USA. In
2001, General Motors provided almost 200,000
student days of education. The theory of
disruption indicates that these programs will
continue to improve until they threaten even the
top business schools and the universities market.
Christensen et al. also discuss Type 2 disruption,
where alternatives start at the low end and become
“good enough” to take over the market. An
example cited is the two-year community college
program for registered nurses in the USA, which
provides nurses with the same qualification and skill
level as four-year university trained nurses – but
without the theoretical underpinning. In the USA,
60 per cent of registered nurses now graduate from
the shorter course.
In the move into Distance Education, where so
many profits were to be realised, they argue that
established universities fail because they are still
“competing against consumption” instead of
targeting untapped markets or low-end of market.
In line with the theory of disruption, the
disruptive technology not only replaces a market
but expands it significantly, Gibson (2000)
believes disruptive technologies are:
likely to be increasingly effective in delivering
relevant knowledge to larger audiences than are
reached by current programs (p. 74).
The National Academy of Sciences (2002) is far
more radical in its expectation of disruptive
technologies:
Digital technology will not only transform the
intellectual activities of the research university, but
will also change how the university is organised,
financed and governed. The technology could
drive a convergence of higher education with
IT-intensive sectors such as publishing,
telecommunications and entertainment, creating a
global “knowledge and learning” industry (p. 2).
The Academy considers the end of the university a
distinct possibility unless institutions respond to
disruptive technologies early and identify future or
possible changes and develop appropriate
strategies.
Several alternate models are appearing,
although which disruptive approaches will become
the successful ones is not yet clear.
Some models for the virtual university include
the following:
.
Michigan Virtual University – a broker of
educational products from a variety of
institutions;
. University of Phoenix – offering a complete
array of university offerings, without the
physical overheads; and
.
companies creating online universities and
selectively outsourcing the various components.
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Moore (2002, p. 44) puts forward some current
models of collegiality, the cornerstone of
universities, based on open-source models and a
sharing of knowledge and information:
.
Knowledgeware. MIT/Stanford collaboration on
Open Knowledge initiative (http://web.mit.edu/
oki/) aimed at developing a learning
management system and providing “Web-based
tools for storing, retrieving and disseminating
educational resources and activities”.
.
Courseware. MIT’s OpenCourseWare –
instructional materials available free on the
Web (http://web.mit.edu/ocw/) and
MERLOT (www.merlot.org/home.po) Web
available “knowledge objects” that have been
evaluated for quality.
She suggests that this approach may ensure more
cooperation and quality control, prevent
individual institutions trying to implement
disruptive technologies before their time, and
benefit higher education as a whole.
In the area of research, the National Academy of
Sciences (2002) believes institutions seem more
prepared to take on new technology.
Technology is:
. . . enabling scientists to address previously
unsolvable problems – custom-designing new
organic molecules, analysing the complex
dynamics of the global climate, or simulating the
birth of the universe (p. 30).
Technology has in fact created a fourth modality of
research: in addition to observation, theory and
experimentation, we can now add simulation.
Researchers use virtual reality simulation of
remote archaeological sites and materials,
scientists analyse massive distributed datasets.
New organisations, “collaboratories” (dispersed
networks of researchers and laboratories) have
already been created – supporting the claim that
new organisational structures will develop.
Scholarship in general is moving from the
individual, specialist scholar to multidisciplinary
teams of scholars.
In teaching and learning, learners are driving
change. They do not expect and are not used to
learning sequentially. The traditional model of the
University is threatened by:
.
simulation;
.
games technology;
.
telepresence;
.
teleimmersion (geographically separated sites
collaborating in real time);
. e-mail – this has already altered faculty/
student interactions; and
.
online teaching and learning systems.
The National Academy of Sciences (2002, p. 5)
asserts that technology is fundamentally changing
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards
the relationship between people and knowledge,
but the inertia in “knowledge institutions” such as
universities has meant that change has been
relatively slow.
If knowledge is the core of the university and
technology alters the ability of people to process
information by orders of magnitude, there must be
an impact on how universities fulfil their missions
(Wulf, 2003, p. 15).
Academic libraries
From the above discussion, it should come as no
surprise if at some time in the future, the university
disappears in the face of disruption. However, it
may be that institutions survive and only their
libraries disappear.
Greenstein and Healy (2002) show that 88 per
cent of researchers and 76 per cent of coursework
students already go online as the first option in
their search for information. There is nothing to
stop commercial or other competing organisations
without physical reference resources, setting up an
alternative to library reference services if they can
find and provide them online. Giglio (2003)
reports a company, BrainMass, with tutors in 30
countries available online ready to answer student
study and therefore, reference questions.
The threat does not stop at the reference desk.
Companies, such as Questia (www.questia.com/),
which styles itself “the online library” are
bypassing libraries and setting up
subscription-based library services online, with
access to e-books and e-journals (Cleyle, 2002). In
keeping with the status of a disruptive technology
in its early phase, although Questia has not come
close to reaching its targets (Foster, 2003), it is still
in operation and shows no signs of an early demise.
Another service, eBrary works on a pay per print
model and is trying to partner with libraries by
having them provide links from their sites and
receive a fee in return for connections made
through the library sites (Cleyle, 2002, p. 289).
Cleyle (2002, p. 291) urges libraries to “walk
away from the paper paradigm” and realise that
they are no longer managing assets, but providing
a portal to the world. After 11 September 2001,
Lehman Brothers corporate library established
itself in a hotel ball room. Vendors provided
electronic document delivery. Document
production was arranged with another company
and the library met its user needs without any print
collection (Finnerty, 2002, p. 10).
In Hawkins’ (2001) view, disruption has come
and gone. He suggests that the traditional system
of library collaboration and rigorous selection of
information has been disrupted by the rise of freely
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available information resources on the Internet
and claims:
There is no clear and defined role for libraries with
regard to the digital resources accessible through
the Net (p. 54).
This seems to defy current reality. Much of the
quality information available electronically is very
expensive and information users still want some
assurance that the information they access is
reliable. While academic staff and students find the
Internet more convenient, library-deployed
resources enjoy a greater degree of their trust
(Greenstein and Healy, 2002).
In a future described by the National Academy
of Sciences, information users will “go direct” far
more than they do now, with libraries somehow
still acting as facilitators of information retrieval
and dissemination. However, there will be, and to
many already is, little distinction between the
library and information resources with which it is
associated (National Academy of Sciences, 2002,
p. 33). Wulf (2003, p. 18) sees a future where the
library “collection” is automated: “collecting,
organising . . . and summarising” information.
It is worth looking at alternative future roles for
academic libraries and librarians considering the
views expressed thus far.
Crow and others see a role for academic
libraries in the emergence of institutional
repositories. With the unaffordable increases in the
cost of electronic serials, aggregations and
publisher databases, a movement is afoot to
provide alternative models. One such model is a
global network of interoperable repositories using
Open Archives compliant software (Crow, 2002,
p. 10). This model preserves the intellectual
output of the institution while contributing to a:
. . . fundamental, albeit long term change in the
structure of scholarly publishing (Crow, 2002, p. 5).
Solomon (2002) sees librarians as the logical ones
to implement the archives and new business model
as this is their area of scholarship and research. For
Crow (2002), librarians’ commitment to
preservation is the key driver for having them
involved: an opportunity for libraries to move from
a custodial role “to contribute actively to the
evolution of scholarly communication” (p. 20). Of
course, this may require considerable negotiation
with academic stakeholders who may not see this
as “library turf” at all.
It is also entirely possible that preservation will
be assigned to archivists, while the potential size of
repositories signals a significant role for IT
departments.
It may be that the role of libraries will be to
organise and provide access points, to assist users
to find the information they want, and to
collaborate globally to ensure interoperability.
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards
Australia’s Monash University Library has
pre-empted even the predictions canvassed here. It
has initiated a project to establish an e-press to
“publish journals and other academic resources
online” (Thorp, 2003). It will include peer review
and approval by editorial committee. Monash
University sees the e-press as part of a global
movement to find more cost effective ways of
publishing scholarly output.
The University of Technology, Sydney Library
has recently begun hosting the multilingual
“PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International
Studies” (Allatson, 2004), while many university
libraries are beginning to host and promote
institutional repositories – for example, MIT’s
DSpace project (Swartz, 2003).
In 2003, the Australian Department of
Education, Science and Training also announced
the success of a bid led by Monash University to
“identify and test. . . software. . . solutions to
support best-practice institutional digital
repositories comprising e-prints, digital theses and
electronic publishing” (McGauran, 2003).
Academic publishing
Publishing has been in a state of flux for the last
eight to ten years. Electronic versions of scholarly
journals are increasingly either being published in
tandem with or in place of print. Considerable
energy is spent on intellectual property rights in an
electronic age, where technology can be used to
subvert the intent of copyright law by limiting
legitimate access to material. Solomon quotes
Harnad on the practice of scholars “trading
copyright for managing the publication and
dissemination processes” (Solomon, 2002). He
states publishers’ “fiduciary responsibility is to their
stockholders, not to academia, or for that matter,
the public”. His particular concern is that he sees
current publishers cornering the market on scholarly
knowledge largely funded by public money.
He goes on to note what he considers to be the
three main purposes of scholarly communication:
(1) The dissemination of information.
(2) The facilitation of the exchange of ideas (slow
processes around paper based journals do not
really achieve this).
(3) The formation of a constantly evolving archive
of ideas (the dissemination of hundreds of
copies to hundreds of libraries is an effective
way of doing this and is supported by a
widespread belief that paper will make the
information tinker proof).
McKiernan (2002) comprehensively summarises
the sustaining and disruptive technologies currently
playing a major role in scholarly publishing:
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Sustaining
As follows:
. online submission of manuscripts, e-mailing
to referees, electronic transfer back to the
author, electronic editing and resubmission
and accelerated publication;
.
online registration of potential referees;
.
alerting services when new material is
published in a reader’s area of interest;
.
personalisation of lists of e-journals for
individuals;
.
electronic indexes and electronic searching;
.
provision of referencing capability – e.g.
export into Endnote, Reference Manager,
ProCite and Medlars format;
.
citation indexing;
.
discussion forums and lists linked to
individual journals or articles; and
.
dynamic articles – which authors can augment
rather than submitting letters or new articles.
Disruptive
As follows:
.
Indexing and searching – most indexing and
abstracting services have already gone online,
disrupting the previous business model, but
most players have managed to stay in the game
and thrive. However, linking out to databases
and full text may challenge current publishers
or lead to reorganisation of the publishing
industry to make this possible at all levels.
.
Authors encouraged to submit supplemental
data, including computer codes, with their
manuscripts.
.
Translation services – products which enable
readers to translate articles automatically into
different languages in real time.
.
NetPrintse – a “repository of
non-peer-reviewed original research”.
.
Demonstrations – incorporation of
multimedia components, animations of
complex concepts, video, embedded video
clips, interactive graphs, tables and 3D, 3608
models.
.
Inclusion of output files from programs, data
sets.
.
“links to interactive maps, export of data sets,
including underlying geospatial data, to a local
database or to a geographic information
system” (McKiernan, 2002, p. 315).
The LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)
project (Dobson, 2003) is another example of a
sustaining technology. Based on the print model of
preservation, it attempts to cache “Lots of Copies”
of electronic journals to a multitude of servers, to
ensure ongoing access, should they become
unavailable from the publisher. Whether this is a
sustainable technology is yet to be seen.
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards
Incumbent publishers are already fighting back
on some fronts, although not so much on the
LOCKSS front, resisting disruptive technologies
and fighting to retain their revenue streams.
NetPrintse for example, lists 22 biomedical
journals that will not publish manuscripts that
have appeared on preprint servers. It also lists 29
that will (Netprints, 2003).
More radically, McKeirnan (2002) cites
Bachrach who sees journals becoming object-
oriented – “component features, functionalities,
and content are interconnected and cross-
referenced into an interrelated, dynamic,
interactive experience” (p. 318) – a radical
departure from current publishing, but of great
utility to many readers.
In considering the implications of the journal
Paediatrics moving online, Anderson (2000, p. 237)
predicts the demise of serials vendors, subscription
agents and librarians in the dissemination of
scholarly information. Furthermore, he
acknowledges the pattern of access observed on
the Paediatrics Web site – demand for information
at the article level – also poses a threat to
publishers, as do document delivery companies,
which can provide article delivery without the need
for users to subscribe. Hence, the Internet could
also flag the demise of the subscription business
model for journal publishers.
Anderson also speculates that peer review and
indexing services may be examples of “functional
oversupply” as described by the theory of disruptive
technologies model, making it easier for a new
scholarly communication model to invade the
traditional market. He suggests it is so long since
publishers have faced a disruptive technology, they
would have no awareness of the gap between the
current functional supply and the minimum the
market will accept (Anderson, 2000, p. 244).
Strategies
Christensen (2000) canvasses a number of
strategies for addressing disruptive technologies
that may threaten an organisation:
.
Place responsibility for commercialising
disruptive technologies in separate
organisations, free from the demands of
existing customers and investors, and small
enough that smaller revenues and profits are
acceptable (Christensen, 2000, p. 148).
.
Wait until the market is big enough to be
interesting before entering or try to accelerate
the growth rate of the emerging market so that
it becomes big enough quickly enough to
justify entry (Christensen, 2000, p. 148).
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.
Allow enough in reserve to have a second or
third attempt at the market.
.
Engage in “discovery-driven planning”
(Christensen, 2000, p. 181) – the wait and see
approach.
.
Engage in “agnostic marketing” – “market
under the explicit assumption that no one . . .
can know whether, how or in what quantities a
disruptive product can or will be used before
they have experienced using it” (Christensen,
2000, p. 182).
.
Try to change the processes and values of the
current organisation (Christensen, 2000, p. 197).
.
Analyse trends in how customers use products to
avoid performance oversupply. When functional
requirements have been met, look progressively
to reliability, convenience and price.
Another set of strategies can be developed looking
inward. Birkinshaw (2001) suggests the
establishment of healthy internal competition to
deal with competing technologies. His insights were
into research and development, but can translate to
other methods of product development. Internal
competition, managed well, will create flexibility
and ideas and new products for the future.
Geroski’s (1999, p. 111) strategies revolve around
identifying threats early and being prepared to act:
.
identify a consumer need not currently being
met;
.
look for economic ways to meet the need;
.
iterate the first two steps until a viable activity
to meet the need has been identified; and
.
identify how distinctive and sustainable, this
activity is (e.g. it cannot be easily copied, will
not die soon).
This requires that the organisation look at itself
without any preconceptions or entrenched ideas,
or the feeling that current practices need to be
protected and not cannibalised. All current
activities in the organisation will eventually
disappear. The important thing is knowing when
to discontinue an activity and introduce a new one.
He also suggests that once an organisation
knows what might be the disruption, it can begin
to identify which competitors might have the
capability. Once they have been identified, they
can be monitored to see if their pattern of
investment they suggest are accumulating the
resources to make a move. The organisation must
then try to be first mover or close second mover.
Discussion and conclusions
It is clear that universities, their libraries and
academic publishing together and separately are
 Disruptive technologies: what future universities and their libraries?
Susan Lafferty and Jenny Edwards
susceptible to the effects described by the theory of
disruption.
For-profit, corporate and virtual “universities”
could either radically change how traditional
universities are organised and operate or they
could spell the end of the traditional university.
Technologies which completely change how
research is conducted, for example, simulation, or
its successor, could do the same.
The ways in which scholarly output may be
communicated in the future may provide
opportunities for academic publishing. There is far
greater risk that the industry will be bypassed by the
creation of institutional repositories and the changing
formats in which knowledge will be disseminated.
Academic libraries are facing new business
models in their environment which could make
them irrelevant. For profit competitors have been
around for some time in the form of information
brokers, but the online competitor is new. Tensions
around the traditional model of scholarly
communication may create new roles for libraries,
or sideline them even further.
Some of the strategies proposed by different
writers to meet and survive disruption present
sustaining opportunities for these three industries
to evaluate their position, scan the environment
and put measures in place to become part of the
disruption and thrive into the future. Whether they
take up the challenge is yet to be seen.
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Further reading
Alexander, G.A. (1999), “Disruptive technologies: will you be
ready for the next one?”, Seybold Report on Publishing
Systems, Vol. 28 No. 16.