STRATEGIC INNOVATION, DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION: THE CASE OF MOBILE NETWORK OPERATORS AND AN INTERNET CONTEXT

摘要

One of the greatest challenge facing firms today in a globally integrated and rapidly technologically evolving world is the ability to manage change and innovation across disruptive business cycles. These disruptions provide firms with the opportunity to create new competitive advantage; however, they also represent potential threats to be countered by incumbents.rnIn this paper we examine the disruption of the mobile telecoms business by new entrant Internet players such as Apple and Google. Strategic advantage rests with firms who can shape disruptions to their advantage and capture a dominant following early. To achieve competitive advantage, firms need to start early in building new capabilities that enable them to position themselves favourably in the context of disruption. This enables these firms 1) to contribute to the shaping of the disruption and the creation of the new emerging business cycles, and 2) to nurture and exploit the requisite flexibility to respond to new emergent dominant designs quickly and successfully.rnIn this paper the authors derive and discuss appropriate frameworks that support the analysis of strategic innovation and dynamic capabilities in the context of technological disruption; field research based on interviews with strategists, leadership and industry analysts within the mobile telecoms industry is used to substantiate the findings of this research.