Exploring the Disruptive Nature of Disruptive Technology

Christensen's ideas on disruptive technology (DT) have undergone much debate in mainstream strategy and innovation literature, largely concerning the difficulties in their application. The main issue seems to be the paradox of encouraging the development of, to all intense and purposes, uncompetitive technologies. This paper uses bibliometric techniques to examine the spread and influence of DT, and whether DT itself has behaved as a DT. In particular a scientometric analysis of the DT literature - defined as articles which cite either of Christensen's books. The analysis identifies the rate of spread of DT and the periphery areas where DT has seen continued application well away from the core of strategy and technology management. These include clearly defined clusters in economics of market orientation, modularity, legal perspectives on technological change, and environmental and regional geography.