This paper focuses on two prominent theoretically grounded approaches to this subject matter, namely disruptive innovations and generativity of the internet. This paper seeks to explicitly link these conceptual approaches in order to contribute to the epistemology on the development of ICTs.
This paper is structured in three primary and functional sections. The first section provides a theoretically grounded literature review on the research on the generativity of the internet and on disruptive innovation as well as the research base and links and forwards these two lines of discourse. The second section describes how the conceptual foundations and assumptions of Zittrain's generativity of the internet and Christensen's disruptive innovation share common precepts and conceptual assumptions. The third section suggests that the discourse for each of the two approaches could be furthered by more deliberately and concretely drawing on the value of complementarities.
This paper offers argumentation suggesting that the theoretical concepts of hierarchies and markets are also useful in drawing conceptual linkages between the disruptive innovations and generativity of the internet approaches.
Since this paper is intended to focus on conceptual issues a possible limitation is that an empirical discussion of this subject matter lies outside the scope of this paper's thesis.
This conceptual paper has practical implications for academics, executives in the private sector and policy officials who are interested in conceptually grounded implications of ICTs and attended issues of innovation and technological change.
The implications mainly pertain to how the process of innovation and technological change impacts the interactions among these firms both in terms of competition and collaboration.
This paper seeks to explicitly link conceptual approaches in order to contribute to the epistemology on the development of ICTs. The conceptual contribution of this paper goes one step further by suggesting how the discourse for each of the two approaches could be furthered by more deliberately and concretely drawing on the value of complementarities.
