Strategy & change summary
Week 1
Tushman, M. L., & Anderson, P. (1986). Technological discontinuities and organizational
environments
Competence destroying discontinuities create a new product class or substitute an existing product.
Competence enhancing discontinuities are improvements in price/performance that build on existing
know-how.
- Competitive uncertainty will be higher after a technological discontinuity than before the
discontinuity.
- Environmental munificence will be higher after a technological discontinuity than before
- Competence-enhancing discontinuities will be associated with decreased entry-to-exit ratios
and decreased interfirm sales variability
- Successive competence-enhancing discontinuities will be associated with smaller increases in
uncertainty and munificence
- Organizations that initiate major technological innovations will have higher growth rates than
other firms in the product class
Anderson, P., & Tushman, M. L. (1990).Technological discontinuities and dominant designs: A
cyclical model of technological change.
During the era of ferment, competition among variations of the original breakthrough culminates in
the selection of a single dominant configuration of the new technology.
- The mean number of new designs introduced during the era of ferment is greater than during
the subsequent era of incremental change
- The era of ferment following a competence-destroying discontinuity is longer than the era of
ferment following a competence-enhancing discontinuity
- The era of ferment grows shorter in each of a series of consecutive competence-enhancing
discontinuities
The dominant design marks the end of an era of ferment.
- In regimes of low appropriability, a single dominant design will emerge following each
technological discontinuity
- After each technological discontinuity, sales of all versions of the new technology will peak
after the emergence of a dominant design, not during the era of ferment
- A technological discontinuity will not itself become a dominant design
- A dominant design will not be located on the frontier of technological performance at the time
it becomes dominant
- Dominant designs arising from competence-destroying discontinuities will be initiated by new
entrants in the industry, while dominant designs arising from competence-enhancing
discontinuities will be initiated by firms whose entrance preceded the discontinuity
In the era of incremental change variation take the form of elaborating the retained dominant design.
The focus of competition shifts from higher performance to low cost and to differentiation via minor
design variations and strategic positioning tactics.
- Most of the total performance improvements over the lifetime of a technology will occur
outside the era of incremental change
, Christensen, C. M. (2013). The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail.
Companies depend on customers and investors for resources
- Companies with investment patterns that don’t satisfy their customers and investors don’t
survive.
Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies
- The larger and more successful an organization becomes, the weaker the argument that
emerging markets can remain useful engines for growth
Markets that don’t exists can’t be analysed
- It is in disruptive innovations where we know least about the market that there are such strong
first-mover advantages
An organization’s capabilities define its disabilities
- Capabilities are found in processes and values, these to are not flexible. Capabilities in one
context are disabilities in another context.
Technology supply may not equal market demand
- Disruptive technologies are disruptive because they subsequently can become fully
performance competitive within the mainstream market against established products.
Nokia case
Their highly matrixed and complex structure did not let them quickly restructure to address the
changing environment.
They also had arrogance and complacency, and a lack of strategic focus that led to failure of the
company
Week 2
Birkinshaw, J., & Gibson, C. (2004). Building ambidexterity into an organization.
Adaptability is the ability to move quickly toward new opportunities. Alignment is a clear sense of
how value is being created in the short term and how activities should be coordinated and streamlined
to deliver that value. The combination is called ambidexterity.
- Supportive organizational context, characterized by performance management and social
support, would be associated with a higher level of ambidexterity.
- It shows that the influence of organizational context on performance only occurs through the
creation of ambidexterity.
With structural ambidexterity there are separate structures for different types of activities, however,
R&D might lack linkages to the core business. In contextual ambidexterity, the systems and structures
are more flexible, allowing employees to use their own judgement as to how to divide their time
between adaptation- and alignment-oriented activities. Individuals exhibit initiative, cooperation,
brokering skills and multitasking abilities.
Christensen, C. M., & Overdorf, M. (2000). Meeting the challenge of disruptive change
Week 1
Tushman, M. L., & Anderson, P. (1986). Technological discontinuities and organizational
environments
Competence destroying discontinuities create a new product class or substitute an existing product.
Competence enhancing discontinuities are improvements in price/performance that build on existing
know-how.
- Competitive uncertainty will be higher after a technological discontinuity than before the
discontinuity.
- Environmental munificence will be higher after a technological discontinuity than before
- Competence-enhancing discontinuities will be associated with decreased entry-to-exit ratios
and decreased interfirm sales variability
- Successive competence-enhancing discontinuities will be associated with smaller increases in
uncertainty and munificence
- Organizations that initiate major technological innovations will have higher growth rates than
other firms in the product class
Anderson, P., & Tushman, M. L. (1990).Technological discontinuities and dominant designs: A
cyclical model of technological change.
During the era of ferment, competition among variations of the original breakthrough culminates in
the selection of a single dominant configuration of the new technology.
- The mean number of new designs introduced during the era of ferment is greater than during
the subsequent era of incremental change
- The era of ferment following a competence-destroying discontinuity is longer than the era of
ferment following a competence-enhancing discontinuity
- The era of ferment grows shorter in each of a series of consecutive competence-enhancing
discontinuities
The dominant design marks the end of an era of ferment.
- In regimes of low appropriability, a single dominant design will emerge following each
technological discontinuity
- After each technological discontinuity, sales of all versions of the new technology will peak
after the emergence of a dominant design, not during the era of ferment
- A technological discontinuity will not itself become a dominant design
- A dominant design will not be located on the frontier of technological performance at the time
it becomes dominant
- Dominant designs arising from competence-destroying discontinuities will be initiated by new
entrants in the industry, while dominant designs arising from competence-enhancing
discontinuities will be initiated by firms whose entrance preceded the discontinuity
In the era of incremental change variation take the form of elaborating the retained dominant design.
The focus of competition shifts from higher performance to low cost and to differentiation via minor
design variations and strategic positioning tactics.
- Most of the total performance improvements over the lifetime of a technology will occur
outside the era of incremental change
, Christensen, C. M. (2013). The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail.
Companies depend on customers and investors for resources
- Companies with investment patterns that don’t satisfy their customers and investors don’t
survive.
Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies
- The larger and more successful an organization becomes, the weaker the argument that
emerging markets can remain useful engines for growth
Markets that don’t exists can’t be analysed
- It is in disruptive innovations where we know least about the market that there are such strong
first-mover advantages
An organization’s capabilities define its disabilities
- Capabilities are found in processes and values, these to are not flexible. Capabilities in one
context are disabilities in another context.
Technology supply may not equal market demand
- Disruptive technologies are disruptive because they subsequently can become fully
performance competitive within the mainstream market against established products.
Nokia case
Their highly matrixed and complex structure did not let them quickly restructure to address the
changing environment.
They also had arrogance and complacency, and a lack of strategic focus that led to failure of the
company
Week 2
Birkinshaw, J., & Gibson, C. (2004). Building ambidexterity into an organization.
Adaptability is the ability to move quickly toward new opportunities. Alignment is a clear sense of
how value is being created in the short term and how activities should be coordinated and streamlined
to deliver that value. The combination is called ambidexterity.
- Supportive organizational context, characterized by performance management and social
support, would be associated with a higher level of ambidexterity.
- It shows that the influence of organizational context on performance only occurs through the
creation of ambidexterity.
With structural ambidexterity there are separate structures for different types of activities, however,
R&D might lack linkages to the core business. In contextual ambidexterity, the systems and structures
are more flexible, allowing employees to use their own judgement as to how to divide their time
between adaptation- and alignment-oriented activities. Individuals exhibit initiative, cooperation,
brokering skills and multitasking abilities.
Christensen, C. M., & Overdorf, M. (2000). Meeting the challenge of disruptive change
