Abstract

A fundamental problem in the field of new technology is how firms develop and sustain disruptive technologies for industrial change. The literature has analyzed several characteristics of disruptive innovations. However, the drivers are hardly known. The study suggests that, in markets with high intensity of r&d investments, the emergence of disruptive technologies can be driven by the coevolution of consequential problems and their solutions in r&d labs of firms. In general, incumbent and entrant firms have a strong incentive to find innovative solutions to unsolved, consequential and new problems in order to achieve and sustain the prospect of a (temporary) profit monopoly. This study can be useful for bringing a new perspective to explain and generalize one of the sources of disruptive technologies in markets with technological dynamisms that can support industrial and corporate change in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.