Disruptive innovation from the perspective of innovation diffusion theory

Since it was first proposed by Christensen, disruptive innovation theory has provoked considerable debate in academia and industry. Initially limited to low-end innovations, most of the controversy around the theory has focused on other types of innovations that the theory excludes. This article examines both high-end and low-end disruptive innovations. Instead of technological development, the focus of analysis is on market groups, known as adopter categories. Adopter groups have various characteristics and sizes that play a critical role in the diffusion process of disruptive innovation. In addition, high-end and low-end should be very different in terms of relative advantage, one of the innovation attributes influencing the rate of adoption. To successfully ‘disrupt’ an incumbent, an innovation should have the potential to cross a critical chasm between early niche markets and majority mainstream markets. We conducted case studies on the rigid disk drives and the computer industry to illustrate the analytical approach based on the innovation diffusion process theory and the characteristics of various adopter categories.