Managers' disruptive innovation activities: the construct, measurement and validity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present results of a study that operationalizes the construct of disruptive innovation activities (DIA) at managerial level and to examine its validity. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed method approach is adopted in this study where a Likert-type scale to measure DIA is developed basing on the interviews of thirteen managers and conceptualization of disruptive innovation at manager level. Later, the scale validity and reliability are examined through quantitative data from 390 managers. The data are analyzed using IBM SPSS 23 and AMOS 21. Findings The findings of the study indicate that managers' DIA are spread across four phases of the disruptive innovation process, i.e. initiation, introduction, evolution and convergence. Furthermore, the reliability measures, exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analysis and subsequent convergent and discriminant validity tests support the DIA scale. Nomological validity of DIA is also presented which demonstrates its predictive validity. Research limitations/implications Limitations include research methods used in this study, such as cross-sectional design and nonprobabilistic sampling technique. Implications for future research are also provided. Originality/value Despite highlighting the importance of managers regarding disruptive innovation outcomes, prior research lacked to provide empirical foundations to understand the phenomenon from managerial perspective. This study fills this gap in the literature by providing a measure of DIA at manager level and distinguishing it from similar constructs. The construct validity of DIA can help measure an organization's disruptive potential in terms of its key human resource. Moreover, the DIA scale can be used to substantiate the alignment of the managerial activities with the innovation roles in organizational settings and to develop more relevant incentive plans.