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In 2010, “…more than 50 percent of the world’s population has access to some combination of cell phones …]and the Internet”
(Schmidt & Cohen, 2010, p. 75). Where Schmidt and Cohen con-sider the consequences of such statistics in a political context, it might be wondered how organizations are also affected. Erber had written previously that “…a new technological trajectory also leads to a new kind of industry with different key players and new industry structures” (2004, p. 18).
While digital technology offers new opportunities and challeng-es in political, social, and organizational contexts, Downchalleng-es (2009) points out that society is not necessarily capable of harnessing those opportunities. He describes what he calls a principle of modern life:
“technology changes exponentially, but social, economic, and le-gal systems change incrementally” (Downes, 2009, p. 2) referring to Kuhn’s paradigm shifts and Schumpeter’s creative destruction;
i.e. a replacement process. He states that this process is a law of disruption; also the title of his book. It might be questioned why Downes chooses to consider disruptions as technological break-throughs as Christensen had previously emphasized the difference between disruptive and radical innovations. As Downes is not, like Schmidt and Cohen, considering technology in a broader sense, this seems to miss Christensen’s point. Disruption in Downes’ study shares more commonalities with its dictionary origins; i.e. a distur-bance or something that interrupts (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.), than the theory of disruptive innovation.
It might be useful to consider Bell’s Law in this context as an ex-planation for Downes’ perceived relation between disruptive innova-tions and digital technologies. In 1972, Gordon Bell described four classes of computers where each new class has brought with it new markets. As the price for physical computer technology decreased, the user groups expanded, making system design costs rise in ac-cordance with a need for reliable and maintainable products.
While Gordon Moore stated that around every 18th month, engi-neers are able to double the numbers of transistors in an electri-cal circuit (Moore, 1965), Bell argued that the components used for each computer class actually had a decrease in transistors and were sold at lower prices. The time it takes to develop a new class is also the time it takes to understand how the new class will evolve and potentially disrupt the previous class.
Digital technology is the exact focus of a number of authors such as Downes who couple disruptive innovation theory with the context of digitization. Another example is the book by McQuivey and Ber-noff with the title Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation (McQuivey & Bernoff, 2013). These books are typically
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initiated with an introduction painting a picture of a world in dramatic change caused by an increase in technological innovations and the pace at which they are developed. McQuivey and Bernoff use the case of the then 12-year-old Thomas Suarez whose TEDx talk re-ceived more than two million views. Of his generation, they write:
“…they have the right mindset; one that compels them to use these tools in disruptive ways. They are the next step in the evolution toward a digitally disruptive economy” (McQuivey & Bernoff, 2013, p. 6). Thomas had developed an application using Apple’s software development kit which, while not successful in a general sense, represented the fact that people have the opportunity to implement their ideas relatively quickly and easily.
While this might be true, McQuivey and Bernoff seem to make a mistake similar to Downes when they write that “Equipped with a better mindset and better tools, thousands of these disruptors are ready to do better whatever it is that your company does” (McQuivey
& Bernoff, 2013, p. 7). According to Christensen, sticking with what your organization does best in developing products or services is sustaining innovation. Disruptive entrants are not competing with incumbents on their core competences — that would most likely lead them towards failure.
McQuivey and Bernoff do, though, make a point that relates closely to Christensen and Raynor’s concept of jobs-to-be-done when they write that “…disruption means finding a better way to meet a fundamental need that the customer has, not just replacing an existing process or outcome with something similar but slightly better” (McQuivey & Bernoff, 2013, p. 8). The relation to digital tech-nologies in terms of this is not, however, clear.
Whether considering the effects of digitization on a political, organizational, or individual level, many digital technologies will replace older technologies. That replacement process is not nec-essarily disruptive as suggested in a large part of the literature.
Looking at digital technologies in general from Schmidt and Co-hen’s perspective, they certainly do follow Christensen’s theory as well as Buxton’s model on the “Long Nose of Innovation” in how society is becoming increasing digital. However, zooming into indi-vidual technologies, reality is more complex. Some digital technolo-gies are sustaining innovations, and some are disruptive. The fact that the pace at which these technologies are developed is increas-ing at the present moment does not change the fundamental model of disruptive innovation.
On literature concerned with disruptive innovation in the coupling of Internet-based and wireless technologies, Latzer wrote that “…
these classifications and assessments not only differ in detail but
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are even contradictory” (2009, p. 599). He argues that Christen-sen’s theory is not directly applicable to the sector in general and that many researchers make the mistake of generalizing from single cases. Garcia and Calantone made a similar statement in their lit-erature review from 2002 on innovation typologies.
Assessing the impact of different digital technologies has proved, both for broadband communication and Internet-based technolo-gies, to be a hard task.
The background for this statement can be found in Latzer’s walk-through of innovation typologies and review of the position of disrup-tive and sustaining innovations in relation to previous typologies. He argues that the definitions of sustaining and disruptive innovations builds on the dichotomy between radical and incremental innova-tions — though definitely not being equal to that dichotomy. The dif-ference between radical and incremental innovations is the intensity of technological change they each represent. Furthermore, incre-mental innovations are often associated with existing technologies where radical innovations are typically associated with technologies that impact incumbents in a market negatively.