Disruptive firms

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of disruptive firms as market leaders that innovate with new durable goods to eliminate competitors, thereby driving technological and industrial change and shaping market dynamics.

Contribution

It proposes a new perspective that disruptive firms, not just disruptive technologies, are key drivers of technological and industrial change in competitive markets.

Findings

Disruptive firms support technological change and market leadership.

They generate and spread path-breaking innovations.

They induce consumers to adopt new products in changing socioeconomic environments.

Abstract

This study proposes the concept of disruptive firms: they are firms with market leadership that deliberate introduce new and improved generations of durable goods that destroy, directly or indirectly, similar products present in markets in order to support their competitive advantage and/or market leadership. These disruptive firms support technological and industrial change and induce consumers to buy new products to adapt to new socioeconomic environment. In particular, disruptive firms generate and spread path-breaking innovations in order to achieve and sustain the goal of a (temporary) profit monopoly. This organizational behaviour and strategy of disruptive firms support technological change. This study can be useful for bringing a new perspective to explain and generalize one of the determinants that generates technological and industrial change. Overall, then this study suggests that one of the general sources of technological change is due to disruptive firms (subjects), rather than disruptive technologies (objects), that generate market shifts in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.