The Disruptive Innovation Initiative
The Disruptive Innovation Initiative
We are living in a time of profound technological disruption.
Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, autonomous and electric vehicles, blockchain and cryptocurrency, alternative energy and renewables, gene editing and novel drug discovery, among many others are upending markets and transforming the way we live. The gales of creative structure are blowing strong, causing disruptions to markets and society.
What is Disruptive Innovation?
A hallmark of market-based economies is the periodic disruption of existing technology regimes by new, transformational technologies that reshape
competition, markets, and society. We know much about how such transitions unfold: learning curves that drive S-curves of technology improvement and
diffusion, market entry by existing market players and new entrepreneurial ventures that drive competition, and shakeouts that result in new business
models and a new competitive ordering.
Led by the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology, the initiative aims to bring cutting edge academic research and proven
frameworks to practitioners who are navigating the uncertainty caused by technology disruption.
Our Experts
Michael Lenox
Interim Dean of UVA Darden School of Business, University Professor,
Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration
Professor Lenox's primary expertise is in the domain of technology strategy and policy. He is broadly interested in the role of innovation and entrepreneurship for economic growth and firm competitive success. In particular, he explores the business strategy and public policy drivers of the direction of innovative activity and technology transitions such as those being driven by digital transformation and decarbonization. Professor Lenox has a long-standing interest in the interface between business strategy and public policy as it relates to the natural environment.
Rory McDonald
John Tyler Associate Professor of Business Administration
Professor McDonald’s research focuses on how firms compete and innovate effectively in new technology-enabled markets. Drawing on a mix of in-depth fieldwork and archival data, he studies how executives develop viable strategies in these contexts and how they obtain resources that improve their chances of success. For his research, he was named the Past Chairs’ Emerging Scholar by the Academy of Management (Technology and Innovation Management Division) and received both a Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship as well as the Kauffman Foundation Dissertation Fellowship.
Curriculum
Darden MBA Courses
Disruptive Innovation: Winning in New Markets and Product Categories (GBUS 8735)
The past two decades have witnessed the birth of an unprecedented number of new-to-the-world markets. Research into patterns of success and failure in new markets indicate that the most successful companies follow a set of implicit rules and share specific behaviors. Students will learn to use theories of innovation, organization, and leadership to determine which strategies will and will not be effective in new-market circumstances.
Strategy in the Digital Age (GBUS 8758)
One would be hard pressed to find a firm or an industry not feeling the impacts of our ever-evolving digital economy. Increasingly referred to as Digital Transformation, or its pathological twin – Digital Disruption, businesses are scrambling on how best to respond to an evolving set of digital trends including data analytics, artificial intelligence, big data, the internet of things, automation, and blockchain.
In this course, students explore the economic foundations of the digital economy and discuss how they impact the structure of industries and the nature of competition. The primary objective of the course is to further develop strategic thinking skills by applying the concepts, models, and tools of strategic analysis in the context of the dynamic, changing nature of the digital competitive environment.
Disruptive Strategy: Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (SEE 8265)
Leaders who aspire to run successful enterprises need to develop and execute a winning business formula. Difficult enough, but the reward for building a successful business is that the leader must then spot when external conditions require a change to the formula. And the more successful the business, the harder that part will be to pull off.
This course, which introduces a series of powerful theoretical frameworks for navigating these critical moments in enterprise growth, will prove valuable to students who anticipate managing, advising, or investing in any of a variety of organizations—from category-creating startups to industry-leading incumbents. The focus of the course is to learn to use well-researched theories about strategy, innovation, and management to understand why things happen the way they do in businesses, and to predict which tools, strategies, and methods will and will not be effective in the various circumstances in which students find themselves. Originated by Professor Clayton Christensen, the course helps students become insightful consumers and teachers of practical management theory and techniques.
Online Coursera Courses
Digital Business Strategy, Coursera (enrollment = 70,000+)
Digital Transformation, Coursera (enrollment = 150,000+)
Select Darden Cases
Expertise Disrupted? Consulting Confronts Generative AI (S-0477), McDonald, Rory; Harris, Jared; Klopfenstein, Amy
Carbfix: Creating a Market for Permanent Carbon Storage (S-0407), Lenox, Eichengreen
Intertrust Technologies: Digitizing and Decarbonizing the Electrical Grid (S-0449), Lenox and Prabhaker.
Nintendo and the Future of Video Gaming (S-0341), Harris, Jared D.; Lenox, Michael; Harrison, Katharine; Reiss, Mathew; Goldberg, Rebecca
To view more Darden cases, visit Darden Business Publishing.