TFSC Special Issue: Disruptive Technology and Social Innovation

Guest edited by Carla Millar, Martin Lockett and Ted Ladd

Disruption: technology, innovation and

society
Carla Millar, Martin Lockett and Ted Ladd

Professor Carla Millar, Ashridge Fellow @ Hult International Business School, London,
UK; carla.millar@ashridge.hult.edu and Professor of International Marketing &
Management, NIKOS, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands;
c.millar@utwente.nl

Professor Martin Lockett, Dean, Faculty of Business, Nottingham University Business

School China, Ningbo, China;  martin.lockett@nottingham.edu.cn

Dr Ted Ladd, Associate professor of Entrepreneurship and Global Lead for Research on
Creating Disruption, Hult International Business School, Boston; ted.ladd@faculty.hult.edu

Millar, Carla C.J.M., Martin Lockett and Ted Ladd (2018)

Disruption: technology, innovation and society

In: Disruptive Technology and Innovation in Society, a Special Issue of

Technological Forecasting and Social Change an international journal 129: 254-260

Introduction
Over the past few years, the concept of ‘disruption’ has become more and more popular.
This special issue focuses on
1. the concept and terminology of disruption in relation to technology and
innovation, including how to understand the level of disruption in specific
instances
 2. how disruptive technology diffuses from early leading-edge innovation through to
widespread diffusion
3. the social impact and challenges of disruption, including the role of traditional
and new media as well as the regulatory implications.

Disruption, innovation and technology

In this paper, disruption in the context of technology and innovation is defined as ‘change
that makes previous products, services and/ or processes ineffective’. The implication is
therefore one of discontinuity – previous technologies and/ or ways of working are no
longer viable. As discussed below, this is a wider view than that of Christensen (1997) who
wishes to limit the use of the term ‘disruption’ to a specific mechanism and evolution path
of innovation. It reflects wider definitions such as those in Tushman & Anderson (1986) on
technological discontinuities and Danneels (2004) on disruptive technologies. The view
taken here is that disruption is an outcome that can be measured not just by its process but
by both its results and by its process. Hence a major area of inquiry – represented by many
of the papers below – is the nature of such disruptive outcomes and the processes by which
they occur.

Disruption may be driven by a number of factors, of which five specific dimensions can be
identified:
 cost – new technologies and/ or processes make old ones uncompetitive in terms
of production cost, as the new ones are so cheap that old ones become
unprofitable
 quality – new technologies and/ or processes raise the quality of products or
services to a level that makes the old ones uncompetitive
 customers – significant changes in consumer or business customer preferences
make previous products or services unattractive relative to new ones
 regulation – new laws or regulations no longer permit old ways of working, for
example environmental or labour protection regulations designed to improve
social conditions
 resources – previously important resources are no longer readily available for a
variety of reasons ranging from exhaustion of natural resources to trade
blockades.

In practice, these factors overlap. For example, the combination of changes in cost and
quality may significantly change the value for money of existing products or services relative
to new ones, for example much higher quality at little extra cost or much lower cost with
little perceived reduction in quality.
This can be seen in the changing technologies in the recorded music industry. Initially digital
recording technologies enabled higher quality through CDs relative to vinyl records and
audio cassettes. Quality increased through greater durability relative to vinyl and both
sound quality and durability relative to audio cassette. Then the cost of equipment able to
provide high quality playback reduced as CD technology rapidly reduced in price. Industry
leadership in terms of technology moved from Sony to Philips, as ‘Walkman’ technology was
replaced by ‘Compact CD’. Subsequent development of compression technologies,
especially MP3, enabled further change. Other developments in digital technology and the
internet allowed further miniaturisation of standalone playback devices and close to zero
marginal cost distribution of digital music – further quality and cost changes. In practice
consumers chose lower quality MP3 technology over higher quality CD because of its
convenience and, for most consumers, the lack of perceived difference between the two.
These changes in turn led to further disruption in the recorded music industry.

Disruptive innovation and disruptive technology also need to be differentiated. In line with
widely accepted definitions of innovation, disruptive innovation is defined here as the
commercial introduction of product, service, process and/ or organisational change that
disrupt the activities of existing players in an industry or similar organisational system (e.g. a
part of government). This disruptive innovation can be at a variety of levels:
1. Industry segment, for example in recorded music playback devices, disruption to the
industry segment of cassette tape head production
2. Industry structure, for example record companies owning musical content (with core
activities such as ‘A&R’, the finding and contracting of ‘artists and repertoire’) no
longer controlling distribution as it moved from physical CD to digital download
3. Social system, for example the ability of new artists to make their own commercial
quality recordings at lower cost and distribute them through new digital channels
and social media, thereby changing social relationships in the music industry.

Disruptive technology can be defined as technology with the potential to create disruptive
innovation at any of these levels. As a result, a key question that several of the papers in
this special issue address is whether it is possible to identify in advance whether a
technology is disruptive in the sense that it will in practice be the foundation of disruptive
innovation. In our view, this correctly places the focus on the challenge of predicting with a
high degree of certainty the emergence, level and timing of disruption, seeing the problem
of identifying potentially disruptive technologies as less important. This is for several
reasons:
 First, the future development path of a technology is uncertain, especially in its early
stages or if it hits significant problems in its technological development. A classic
example is commercial nuclear fusion, which has been seen for decades (since the
1950s) as a disruptive technology in electricity generation with the potential to
 produce electricity at low cost and to remove the resource constraints of fossil fuels
as well as the waste associated with nuclear fission power generation. According to
Encyclopaedia Britannica (2017), “Commercial fusion reactors promise an
inexhaustible source of electricity for countries worldwide”. Yet while nuclear fusion
has been a disruptive technology in the military sphere through nuclear weapons,
commercial nuclear fusion has proved hard to develop and hence not yet led to
disruptive innovation.
 Second, beyond the impact on an industry segment, disruptive innovation typically
involves many disruptive technologies which together enable disruption of industry
structure, perhaps accompanied by substantial product, service process and/ or
organisational innovation. Impact at the level of the social system requires both
these and social, political and/ or cultural factors. In the recorded music example, it
was a combination of disruptive technologies in recording, distribution and playback
that created disruption in industry structure. Further, social factors such as relaxed
public attitudes towards copyright and intellectual property enabled free music
sharing sites such as Napster to force much more rapid change on the music industry
than was desired by most industry players.
 Third, as discussed in the papers by Zhukov, Khvatova, Lesko & Zaltcman and
Nieuwenhuis, Ehrenhard & Prause, the diffusion of disruptive innovation is more
complex than is often assumed, especially in retrospect. Early versions of disruptive
technology often have significant flaws that limit their adoption. On the one hand,
there may be regulatory uncertainty or prohibition of disruptive technologies in
some cases, whereas in other cases there are regulatory gaps that enable
accelerated diffusion despite creating social issues which most would see as
requiring regulation. An example is the rapid spread of bike sharing services in
China, such as Mobike and Ofo, enabled by smartphone apps linked to digital cycle
locks, which meant that shared bikes were no longer stored only at fixed docking
stations, but could be reserved, collected and left anywhere in a target city. The
growth of these services was very rapid from 2016 – for example just one leading
operator Ofo is reported to have “6.5 million bikes in 150 cities” (Bloomberg, 2017)
while Shanghai alone has an estimated 450,000 bikes in total. The first government
regulations were introduced in December 2017 in Shenzhen which by then had
120,000 such bikes on the streets under a year after its launch (Hua, 2016). After
many years of declining bike use, the disruptive innovation of new bike rental
services reversed this trend, meeting consumer demand for low cost personal urban
transport. But at the same time, it created issues including uncontrolled bike parking
and consumer protection for the cash deposits taken by the bike sharing companies.

This last example is also an example of how rapid rate the diffusion of disruptive innovation
can be. It has been estimated that these bike-sharing services have doubled the proportion
of urban transport undertaken by bike in under two years (Mobike, 2017). Social and
environmental change includes the following: halving the use of personal and hired cars by
shared bike users; 70% of unlicensed drivers seeking other jobs in an affected
neighbourhood; and a (hypothetical) reduction of carbon emissions by 540,000 tonnes
(Mobike, 2017). Such rapid diffusion is part of a general trend of acceleration in the rate of
new product diffusion (see for example Van Den Bulte 2000 and McGrath, 2013). This poses
the question of how disruptive innovations are diffused.

Mechanisms of disruption
The dominant model of diffusion of innovation assumes a normal curve (Meade & Islam,
2001, 2006) with the rate of adoption following a normal distribution: slow at first, then
accelerating, peaking and declining as the innovation is universally adopted. Typically, it
identifies five groups,
1. innovators
2. early adopters
3. early majority
4. late majority
5. laggards

Rogers (1962a) summarises the origin of the approach which by that date had led to 262
research publications on diffusion of innovation within rural sociology. First, they found that
innovators moved from awareness to interest followed by evaluation, small scale trial and
then full adoption. Second, the rate of adoption was seen to follow a normal distribution
giving remarkably precise, mathematically derived figures of innovators comprising 2.5% of
the relevant population, 13.5% early adopters, 34% each for early and late majority, and
16% for laggards. The approach was popularized in the area of technology-based innovation
starting with Rogers (1962b).

While the overall viewpoint of diffusion theory is widely accepted for innovations which
become dominant, its predictive value can be challenged, especially for disruptive
technology. For example, Moore (1991) identified a ‘chasm’ between the first two groups
and the majority (both early and late) that led to the stalling of innovation adoption. As
argued in the paper by Laurell & Sandström the role of the media is important as well as the
underlying progress of a disruptive technology and associated innovations. A perspective
linked to media coverage that seeks to explain why apparently disruptive technologies do
not have the impact initially foreseen has been termed the ‘hype cycle’ by research
company Gartner (Fenn & Raskino, 2008). This identifies stages in perceptions of
technologies that have the potential to enable disruptive innovation:
1. Innovation Trigger – in which a technological breakthrough enters public
consciousness, creating interest and expectations of its potential
 2. Peak of Inflated Expectations – suppliers launch products for innovators and early
adopters, creating excitement and a feeling that there is a “need to become a part of
it or be left out”
3. Trough of Disillusionment – early successes do not lead to the anticipated benefits,
while media coverage “switches to featuring the challenges rather than the
opportunities of the innovation”
4. Slope of Enlightenment – early adopters start to harvest benefits, knowledge grows
about how to innovate successfully using the technology and best practices emerge
5. Plateau of Productivity – benefits are demonstrated and the risks of innovation
reduce, leading to mainstream adoption with “productive and useful value”

While as a research company, Gartner continues to popularize this approach, publishing

annual surveys with its assessment of emerging technologies, the underlying analytical
questions addressed by several papers in this special issue are not answered: which
technologies actually lead to significant disruptive innovation, what are the modes of
disruption and what determines the rate of diffusion of these innovations.

The starting point for the majority of recent discussions of disruptive innovation has been
Christensen’s pioneering work starting with The Innovator’s Dilemma (Christensen, 1997).
Using the definitions above, it is clear that Christensen identified a specific form of
disruption. Christensen is explicit in defining disruptive innovations as those which “create
an entirely new market through the introduction of a new kind of product or service, one
that’s actually worse, initially, as judged by the performance metrics that mainstream
customers value”. In contrast, “Sustaining technologies are innovations that make a
product or service perform better in ways that customers in the mainstream markets
already value” (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000: p72). These definitions have several
problematic features. One is that they tended to conflate technology and innovation,
though this distinction was refined in Christensen’s later views (Gobble, 2016; see also Yu
and Hang, 2010, p436 for a timeline of the evolution of Christensen’s theory). A second
problem is the assumption that markets are disrupted only by products which are inferior in
the first instance. This could be for two reasons: (i) that disruption is narrowly defined as a
specific type of innovation, starting in low-end or new markets, then improving in quality, or
(ii) that this evolution path is empirically the way in which disruption of existing markets
occurs. Christensen, Raynor & McDonald (2015) argue predominantly for the former, hence
they consider “by definition” Uber is not a disruptive innovator, at least in the taxi market
although it may be in the limousine market.

Unless one is prepared to accept by definition that disruptive innovation has only one
evolution path, beyond a certain point Christensen’s ‘disruption theory’ is limiting rather
than illuminating. It also says little about either the social implications of disruptive
innovation or the business model innovations that may create disruption (see Foss & Saebi,
2017, for a review of research on business model innovation). Markides (2006) called for a
better theory of disruptive innovation and provided an analysis that starts to enable a more
general approach. He differentiated business model and product innovations. He
differentiates business model and technological innovations, with the former not necessarily
coming to dominate the whole market as new and old models may co-exist, for example
internet and branch banking. In particular he emphasises correctly that, “It is only when the
topic of disruptive innovation is broken down into finer categories that progress can be
made” (2006: p24).

Christensen’s work has given some valuable insights into disruptive technologies and
innovations, together with further studies such as Reinhardt and Gurtner (2015) on the
characteristics of early adopters of disruptive consumer products. However such a narrow
definition of disruption is a specific theory that denies the validity of a more general
approach. In addition, it closes off the important empirical question of whether this
evolution path is the most likely to disrupt existing industry segments, industry structures or
social systems. As noted by King and Baatartogtokh (2015), the empirical basis of the theory
has not been well-tested. They argue that taking 77 of Christensen’s own examples, “Many
of the theory’s exemplary cases did not fit four of its key conditions and predictions well”
(King and Baatartogtokh, 2015: p78). Hu and Yang (2010) survey the literature on
alternative pathways to disruption, showing a more complex picture than Christensen’s
theory. Reagan (2015) suggests that quality needs to be seen in a multi-dimensional way in
relation to disruptive innovation. Wan et al. (2015) look further into the different modes of
disruption in an emerging economy, China, arguing that existing companies’ “adoption of
new or somewhat unconventional R&D and innovation processes did seem to facilitate the
realisation of various kinds of disruptive innovation” (p.102).

The social impact of disruption

Both academic and popular literature tends to focus on individual instances of disruptive
innovation and to highlight the salient characteristics of those instances, the trajectory of
adoption or the process generating them. Relatively little attention has been paid to the
wider social impact of disruptive innovation and the inter-relationships of social, technical,
environmental, and economic factors that pave the way for disruptive innovation and lay
the foundations for adoption, success or failure. Relatively little academic research been
published on the impact of disruptive technology on macro-systems such as societies or
ecosystems, or on specific strategies and instruments to leverage, mitigate, or ameliorate
systemic disruption. Also the influences of disruption have rarely been linked to other
destabilising phenomena, which are collectively labelled ‘Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity
and Ambiguity’, known in short as VUCA, which arise more from social and political factors
than from economic and business ones.
Achieving a satisfactory theory of disruption requires that the genesis and nature of the
phenomena given this label should be seen in relation to wider theoretical frameworks. Two
specific dimensions are crucial:
 Context - the positioning of disruptive innovation within a wider picture of how
markets and entrepreneurial activity develop and co-evolve with the societies in
which they exist – including constraints such as regulation and standard setting,
and the level of development of the original host economy
 Prediction - identification of the essential characteristics of situations in which an
innovation could be expected to be successfully disruptive – including both the
intellectual and scientific context, emerging technology and social
developments/networking

Christensen’s theory is based on assumptions about managerial behaviour: a perception of

markets in which existing organisations, when left to their own devices, only engage in
“sustaining” innovation. It also assumes that customers accept this because they do not
conceive of more radical innovations. In this context, King and Baatartogtokh (2015)
concluded that “the theory of disruptive innovation should be considered a warning rather
than a prediction… of managerial myopia” (p. 86). This evokes the concept of “attentional
space” originating with the work of Broadbent (1958) and adopted in business theory for
example by Prahalad (2004, p.172) who argues that in such areas as assumptions about
value creation, ‘the blinders of dominant logic make it hard to recognise new threats and
opportunities’.

This can be seen both in past examples as well as in emergent disruptive innovation today.
For a number of years, strategy professors taught the case study of how Microsoft’s Encarta
replaced Encyclopaedia Britannica as the dominant general purpose reference source of
knowledge. This was based primarily on technological innovation with the data CD replacing
the printed book, enabling miniaturisation and enhanced search capability while leaving the
social process of constructing an encyclopaedia from expert contributions more or less
unchanged since major encyclopaedias of the 18th century such as the French Encyclopédie,
ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers of 1751–66 and the Siku
Quanshu completed in China in 1782. In contrast Wikipedia, which wiped out Encarta,
involved social innovation in which expert contributors were replaced by volunteers, and
editorial specialists by ‘crowdsourcing’. This was enabled by the internet, a disruptive
technology in this context, in both enabling distributed contributions and allowing instant
updates in contrast to the ‘edition’ basis of both printed books and data CDs. Hence the
disruptive innovation of Wikipedia both used and reinforced social change in which user
generated content is seen as legitimate, while expert generated content is less privileged
than in the past.
To explore briefly one example, today a combination of disruptive technologies, social
change and regulatory pressures are creating disruptive innovation for urban transport at all
three levels identified above: industry segments, industry structure and social networks.
Among the technological changes are:
 electric cars – which reduce emissions but have historically been both limited in
performance (especially range without recharging) and more expensive than
mainstream equivalents (not disruptive in Christensen’s definition but definitely so in
that adopted here)
 driverless vehicles – the commercial introduction of vehicles without human drivers
based on AI technology and advanced control systems with the potential to improve
traffic flows and reduce the need for a private car in cities
 smart city management – systems that can optimise traffic flows in real time,
monitoring a wide range of inputs as well as using ‘big data analytics’
 mobile technologies – smartphone based applications that enable viewing and
booking of vehicles in real time, as in the bike sharing services analysed above

Complementing these technologies are several social factors that include:

 concern with pollution and congestion – rising public concern in emerging economies
such as China where economic growth has led to high pollution levels, as well as
ongoing concern in advanced countries with congestion, for example leading to road
use charging
 greater self-employment – as lifelong careers with large organisations continue to
decrease, more economic pressure and willingness to undertake self-employment,
for example as an Uber driver
 aging populations – in the next few decades, the proportion of the population with
special mobility needs will rise in almost every country as may the number who are
no longer fully fit to drive
 regulation of motor manufacturers – driven by climate change agreements and
pressure for environmental sustainability, manufacturers are under strong pressure
to improve fuel economy and emissions with mainstream technologies based on
carbon fuels (petrol, diesel) likely to be more or less prohibited.

The innovations in urban transport are already taking shape. Existing industry segments
such as taxis have been disrupted through new smartphone-enabled services like Uber. And
while Uber has become a dominant player in many countries, it failed in China with the local
Didi service winning out. Taxi licences in many cities are no longer such valuable tradable
assets. Potential industry structure changes include a shift from car ownership to payment
for use, potentially shifting power from manufacturers to car service companies; the
development of an electric car charging infrastructure replacing filling stations; changed
economics and business models for parking. Social network change so far includes the rise
in self-employment noted above. Ironically a change towards driverless cars would reverse
this trend with Uber no longer requiring drivers to operate. Other changes which could
emerge include the reduction in the value of car parking spaces in urban apartment blocks
or change of use to shared car parking. Also, the social value of a driving licence could
reduce and become more of a lifestyle choice that close to a practical necessity in countries
like the USA. In summary therefore, transport is just one area in which further disruptive
innovation is likely or even certain, and one in which this disruption will be at multiple
levels.

Further papers in the special issue

The papers in this special issue reflect the themes identified above and explore both the
theory and the reality of disruptive technology and disruptive innovation. As indicated
above, the papers are divided into three sections:
1. Conceptual models and terminology of disruption
2. How disruption spreads – concepts and case studies
3. Societal aspects of disruption

1. Conceptual models and terminology of disruption

In ‘A Model for Understanding the Orders of Magnitude of Disruptive Technologies’ Beth-

Anne Schuelke-Leech proposes a model of different orders of magnitude of disruptive
technologies, occurring at the intersection of several highly-complex interactive systems.
The first order of disruptive technologies disturbs local commercial markets. It is a localized
change, within a market or industry. A second order disruption has much larger influences,
affecting many industries and substantially changing societal norms and institutions. This
paper presents an analysis of these two types of disruptions, synthesizes the literature on
disruptive technologies and Kondratieff’s long waves, and takes note that previous
definitions of disruptive technologies have focused on the first order only and neglected to
pay attention to the second order disruptions that ripple through society, disturbing social
interactions and relationships, organizational structures, institutions and public policies. The
paper urges design and engineering of technologies to consider these larger potential
disruptions, taking a holistic perspective of the socio-technical innovation ecosystem.

The second paper, ‘A Disruption Framework’ by Kalevi Kilkki, Martti Mäntylä, Kimmo
Karhu, Heikki Hämmäinen & Heikki Ailisto, covers both the firm level and the level of an
entire industry or society. The authors provide a six-layer framework aiding understanding
and assessment of such disruptions. A layered model has been constructed running from
science to society and enabling a systematic analysis of different types of disruption. It
moves a little further than the previous paper by analysing the spread of innovations both
vertically between layers and horizontally between industries and in introducing three main
threats that may lead to a disruption as well as four basic strategies that would be
applicable when a disruption occurs. Finally, the framework is used to study four cases:
GSM, GPS, the digitalization of photography, and 3D printing. A major contribution of this
paper is the expressive model that spans analysis from firm to society and between
industries, and its application to four cases.

The third paper in this section by Munan Li, Alan L. Porter & Arho Suominen, entitled
’
Insights into Relationships between Disruptive Technology/Innovation and Emerging
Technology: A Bibliometric Perspective’ looks at the interplay between disruptive
technology and emerging technology. The authors notice that there is little integration
between research on emerging technology and that on disruptive technology/innovation.
Applying bibliometric methods, the paper explores the conceptual foundations, themes, and
research communities within these research domains, and co-citation analyses then point to
three largely distinct research communities in the relevant discourses on disruptive
technology/innovation and emerging technology. These differences among the domains
invite conceptual cross-fertilization and consideration of interdisciplinary approaches to
technological (and commercial) emergence.

2. How disruption spreads – concepts and case studies

In the second section, four papers tackle the thorny issue of how disruption spreads,
providing concepts and case studies.

In the first paper, ‘Managing social networks: applying Percolation theory

methodology’, Dmitry Zhukov , Tatiana Khvatova, Sergey Lesko & Anastasia
Zaltcman apply percolation theory methodology to gain insight into attitudes and
moods of individuals in the context of managing social networks. The percolation
approach could be used to predict people’s behaviour and to manage groups of
people within networks. One of the worries about social media is the possibly
disproportionate influence of negatively tuned individuals: the percolation method
may help manage it with the help of mass media. Similarly the method could be used
to define the critical proportion of those holding minority views yet able to live
peacefully amongst the majority. The current conceptual paper launches the
percolation methodology; when developed further it may well prove to be of great
interest not just to academics but also to public policy developers and politicians.

The second paper, ‘The Shift to Cloud Computing: The Impact of Disruptive Technology on
the Enterprise Software Business Ecosystem’ by Lambert J.M. Nieuwenhuis, Michel L.
Ehrenhard & Lars Prause analyses the shift from in-house to cloud-based enterprise
resource planning and the subsequent changes in the role of various stakeholders in the
business ecosystem. A literature study and fifteen expert interviews in three case studies
leads to the presentation of a generic value network for cloud-based enterprise software,
identifying the role changes of each stakeholder. For example, while the technical
consultant role remains relevant, the consultative partner role becomes more focused on
business process management. The vendor becomes a multi-role service provider, allowing
the cloud consumer to concentrate on his core business and focus on applying best
practices processes when using cloud services.

This paper is followed by Raja Roy’s article, ‘The Role of Relevant Lead Users of Mainstream
Product in the Emergence of Disruptive Innovation’, in which he illustrates the important
role of a particular lead user (called the relevant lead user) in paving the way for a
potentially disruptive technology to become definitely disruptive. Such a relevant lead user
is a critical source of information about new technology for the incumbent in identifying
whether a potentially disruptive technology is likely to transition to a definitely disruptive
one. The paper integrates understanding of technology and wider analysis in relation to
robotics. It also reveals that, contrary to Christensen’s assumption, incumbents do not jump
from the old technology to the new. Rather, the transformation occurs over a period of
time.

In the final paper in this section on how disruption spreads, Deepak Pandit, Maheshkumar
P. Joshi, Arun Sahay & Rajen K. Gupta illustrate how advanced technologies like those in
electric vehicles (EVs) can enable successful disruptive innovation in emerging economies.
In particular, dynamic capabilities are important to leverage potentially disruptive
technology. Their paper ‘Disruptive Innovation and Dynamic Capabilities in Emerging
Economies: Evidence from the Indian Automotive Sector’ finds that larger domestic firms
are key actors in disruptive innovation in emerging economies, and that a turbulent ‘VUCA’
environment enables the identification of disruptive opportunities. Managerial implications
include the importance of managing innovation policy in a turbulent environment and the
need for firms to have different dynamic capabilities on top of operational capabilities to
achieve disruptive innovation.

3. Societal aspects of disruption

Our last section emphasises the important area of the societal impact of disruption, and
contains two papers.

The first article, by Tijs van den Broek & Anne Fleur van Veenstra, entitled ‘Governance of
Big Data Collaborations: How to Balance Regulatory Compliance and Disruptive Innovation’,
describes the challenges of managing disruption by big data. Big data is an important driver
of disruptive innovations that increases organizations’ competitive advantage and is
potentially highly disruptive for current products, services and business models.
Organizations increasingly collaborate to share and exploit vast amounts of data for new
product, service and business model innovations. As a result, big data’s principle of data
maximization and open-ended purpose clashes with EU data protection regulation. When
personal and/ or commercially sensitive data are used, it is more likely that the governance
arrangement of big data collaboration is hierarchical and that this governance hampers
innovation. In the paper four archetypical governance arrangements: Market, Hierarchy,
Bazaar and Network are investigated in four cases of big data collaboration. The study
provides guidelines for IT and innovation managers on how to arrange and govern the
sharing of data among multiple organizations. The research reveals that big data
collaborations favour centralized over decentralized governance arrangements to mitigate
unforeseen risks from big data innovation.

The second paper in the section, and the last in this special issue, addresses the impact of
social media. In ‘Comparing Coverage of Disruptive Change in Social and Traditional Media:
Evidence from the Sharing Economy’, Christofer Laurell & Christian Sandström analyse how
social media differ from traditional media in their coverage of disruptive technological
change. They explore how two entrants transforming the personal transportation and
accommodation sectors were covered in social and traditional media – and how the two
forms of media differ substantially. Traditional media are focused on how disruptive
entrants affect society and their respective sectors at large, whilst social media instead
function as accelerators for the entrants as they receive predominantly positive coverage.
Social media focus on the specific offer rather than its implications and are more positive
toward disruptive innovations. The research implies that the rise of social media may
accelerate the growth of disruptive innovations which can, in turn, reduce the window for
response.

Conclusion
The rationale for this special Issue topic is founded in the inter-relationships of social,
technical, environmental and economic factors that shape disruptive innovation.
Historically, these have been covered individually in the contemporary academic and
popular literature. The areas highlighted by this special issue include the following:
 the impact of new technology, especially ubiquitous internet connectivity and the
‘internet of things’ ranging from smartphones and bikes through to robots and
driverless cars
 the impact of global integration, including economic interdependence and the
porous nature of local and national boundaries with respect to digital information
including big data
 business models enabled by disruptive technologies, for example peer networks and
social media which both respond to social changes such as the end of lifetime
corporate employment and shape further social change
  the growing importance of sustainability and environmental impacts on both
business operations and customer perception, as well as on regulation that in turn
can accelerate or hold back disruptive innovation.

This special issue has proved to be the medium into which authors from all over the world
have chosen to launch exciting new concepts, ideas and models.  Many may well be seen
and cited as taking forward the area of disruptive technology and disruptive innovation. 
They also have the potential to be developed and put into practice by business and in public
policy.  While the special issue has only started to move beyond prior concepts and analyses
of disruptive innovation, it has contributed to better defining the nature and levels of
disruptive innovation and disruptive technology, as well as understanding the mechanisms
by which disruptive innovation is propagated and diffuses whether within an industry
segment, transforming industry structure or leading to wider social change.  The examples
go beyond a North America and Europe-centric approach, recognising that emerging
economies such as China and India are leaders in certain areas of disruptive innovation.
 
Other issues with major research and social implications have not been fully addressed, such
as the consequences of changing generational demands (Millar & Lockett, 2014).  And one
area that needs to be highlighted for future research and policy development is the
interaction of disruptive technology with: (i) major underlying social changes such as aging
populations, (ii) global economic interdependence, (iii) the increasing attention to
sustainability and environmental protection, and (iv) political divisions within societies and
resulting shifts in international relations.  The predominant role of business schools in
current research needs to be complemented by wider perspectives from other disciplines
for the challenges of disruptive innovation to be addressed effectively in a multi-disciplinary
way.

Acknowledgements
This Special Issue could not have been accomplished without the dedication of our team of
reviewers who have given detailed and inspiring feedback to the authors throughout the
process, often with very slim deadlines. Our very sincere thanks go to:

Dr Peter C. Bishop, Prof Knut Blind, Javier Cenamor, Prof Joy Clancy, Sylvain Colombero, Dr
Efthymios Constantinides, Matthew Copeland, Prof Viktoria Dalko, Thibault Daudigeos, Prof
Alberto Di Minin, Dr Michel Ehrenhard, Prof Matthias Fink, Prof Samuel Fosso Wamba, Dr
Karolin Frankenberger, Prof Rita Faullant, Prof Robert Harmon, Dr Rainer Harms, Dr Liisa von
Hellens, Dr Stefan Huesig, Dr Nory Jones, Dr Kyujin Jung, Prof Tatiana Khvatova, Dr Jeroen
Kraaijenbrink, Prof Sascha Kraus, Dr Curba Lampert, Dr Christopher Laurell, Prof Marilyn
Liebrenz-Himes, Dr Florian Lüdeke-Freund, Dr Johannes Luger, Prof John Mahon, Prof Stan
Maklan, Dr Hari Mann, Dr Sean Marston, Dr M. Atilla Öner, Prof Mart Ots, Tamara Oukes, Dr
Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, Dr Wojciech Przychodzen, Prof Kaisu Puumalainen, Prof
Andreas Pyka, Dr Ashok Ranchod, Dr JR Reagan, Dr Ralph Richter, Dr Daniele Rotolo, Dr
Valerie Sabatier, Prof Milind Sathye, Dr Ludmila Striukova, Prof. Christopher Tucci, Dr Jesus
Valero and Dr Kasia Zalewska.

We hope you will enjoy reading this Special Issue as much as we did guest editing it.

Carla Millar, Martin Lockett, Ted Ladd.

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