Navigating disruption: a practical framework for strategic response
Leila Soleimani, Ryan StaufferPurpose
This paper aims to develop a practical, decision-oriented framework to help managers select an appropriate strategic response to disruptive innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a conceptual approach grounded in the disruptive innovation literature. It synthesizes prior research to identify three key decision factors (urgency, internal capability and internal resistance) and integrates them into a structured decision framework supported by a decision tree. The framework is illustrated through two contrasting case analyses, followed by a cross-case comparison and a summary table, to show how different configurations of these factors are associated with different strategic responses.
Findings
The analysis shows that effective disruption response depends on the alignment between strategy and context. External cooperation is most effective under high urgency and low internal capability, ambidexterity performs best when internal capability is high and resistance is low, and autonomous units are most suitable when internal resistance is high and urgency is low to moderate. Strategic misalignment increases the risk of delayed or unsuccessful responses.
Originality/value
This paper offers a practical framework that links organizational conditions directly to strategic choice. It contributes by bringing together urgency, capability and resistance into a unified decision tool and by illustrating how different strategic responses may succeed or fail depending on their alignment with these conditions.