A Critical Analysis of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”: Why Should New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail?

The disruptive innovation (DI) theory developed by Clayton Christensen has been one of the most influential management concepts in recent years, being required reading at such prominent companies as Microsoft, AT&T and Cisco Systems. In this paper we describe the disruptive innovation process and analyze the underlying assumptions of both the theory and of its practice implications. We argue that there is much misunderstanding in the business world as to the exact meaning of the theory and a clear need for greater clarity on when it arises and what firms can do about it. In particular, we find that the theory makes implicit assumptions about the availability of information that may be hard to sustain in most circumstances. Our analysis gives rise to the conclusion that the standard models of management control cannot fully explain why disruptive innovations should necessarily cause well-run firms to fail, while at the same time startups are able to succeed. That leaves two possibilities: that the process is invalid as a descriptive phenomenon, or alternatively, that some other force is driving the DI phenomenon. It is the second possibility that we focus on in this paper, developing a model based on Prospect Theory that more fully explains why managers at large firms would react differently to a DI than those at startups. Better understanding the assumptions underlying DI theory and its practice implications is critical for those whose responsibility it is to develop the firm’s strategic control systems, in particular, to management