Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Disruption: Large Firms and New Product Introduction With a Potentially Disruptive Technology in the Industrial Robotics Industry

We explore the boundary conditions of Christensen´s theory of disruption. Using technological changes that were potentially disruptive to the manufacturers of industrial robots as the context, we find that, unlike Christensen´s suggestions, large hydraulic robot manufacturers introduced new products with the disruptive technology fairly early during the changes. We extend Christensen´s theory by suggesting that the boundary conditions of the theory are more nuanced than what the extant literature suggests.