When are technologies disruptive? a demand‐based view of the emergence of competition

Abstract By identifying the possibility that technologies with inferior performance can displace established incumbents, the notion of disruptive technologies, pioneered by Christensen (1997), has had a profound effect on the way in which scholars and managers approach technology competition. While the phenomenon of disruptive technologies has been well documented, the underlying theoretical drivers of technology disruption are less well understood. This article identifies the demand conditions that enable disruptive dynamics. By examining how consumers evaluate technology and how this evaluation changes as performance improves, it offers new theoretical insight into the impact of the structure of the demand environment on competitive dynamics. Two new constructs—preference overlap and preference symmetry—are introduced to characterize the relationships among the preferences of different market segments. The article presents a formal model that examines how these relationships lead to the emergence of different competitive regimes. The model is analyzed using computer simulation. The theory and model results hold implications for understanding the dynamics of disruptive technologies and suggest new indicators for assessing disruptive threats. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.