Exploring the Role of Managers in Nurturing Disruptive Innovations

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual framework of managerial activities to foster disruptive innovations. Despite wide recognition of managerial role at middle and lower tiers of organization towards shaping its long-term strategy, the existing research, so far, has lacked in explicitly explaining the managerial activities directed towards the development of disruptive innovations. Authors explored the extant literature on disruptive innovation theory and identified three phases of the disruption process where managers at the middle and lower tiers can play an active role. The authors named this role of managers as their disruptive innovation activities (DIA). Furthermore, manager’s DIA is explored in the context of existing antecedents of manager’s strategic activities and a conceptual framework is proposed along with a resource map for future research, in this direction.