Disruption and Strategic Management: What are the theoretical implications of disruption on strategy

Abstract

There is a lot of interest in Disruption these days even though the concept of disruption itself is still under formation. Disruption can be traced back to the idea of disruptive technological change and to the late 1990s, but has re-emerged in the public eye in current years under guises such as Big Data, Digitalization, Globalization and many more. Furthermore, the effects of disruption are now being felt by organisations and industries all over the world. In this paper, we will try to outline and illustrate some of those effects by means of the case-study of an international, Danish, SME. The case company has been forced to face a number of challenges caused by disruption and in the process of doing so has changed its strategy process significantly towards a more learning based approach to strategic management.