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The Problem with Disruption

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BT Technology Journal

Abstract

Back in January 1995 Clayton Christensen and Joseph Bower wrote an article, ‘Disruptive Technologies: catching the wave’, in the Harvard Business Review, in which they argued: ‘No matter the industry, a corporation consists of business units with finite life spans: the technological and market bases of any business will eventually disappear.’ Good businesses will often be adept at managing a process of incremental improvement, but this kind of incremental change, what they call ‘sustaining technologies’, is not the focus of this paper but rather disruptive technologies, which change the rules and leave established businesses with nowhere to go.

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References

  1. Bower JL and Christensen CM: ‘Disruptive technologies: catching the wave’, Harvard Business Review (January-February 1995).

  2. Christensen CM and Overdorf M: ‘Meeting the challenge of disruptive change’, Harvard Business Review (March-April 2000).

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  4. Christensen CM: ‘The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail’, Harvard Business School Press (June 1997).

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  6. Hughes P M and Cosier G: ‘Prototyping, people and a culture of innovation’, BT Technol J, 19, No 4, pp 29-34 (October 2001).

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Authors
  1. G Cosier
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  2. P M Hughes
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Cite this article

Cosier, G., Hughes, P.M. The Problem with Disruption. BT Technology Journal 19, 9–14 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013714126299

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013714126299

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