Publications: Notes at the Margin

Market Disruption: Consequences (June 19, 2017)

 

The phenomenon of disruption occurs when successful firms fail because they continue to make the same choices that drove their success.

 

This quote comes from a 2016 volume titled The Disruption Dilemma by Joshua Gans, professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto’s Rodman School of Business. Gans has taken the pioneering work of Clayton Christensen's The Innovator’s Dilemma to a higher, much more satisfactory (and useful) level. Substitute the words "oil producer" for "firms" and you arrive immediately at the situation confronting major oil companies and oil-exporting nations today. Sadly, these seem destined to make the same mistakes as the firms Gans discusses, which include Kodak, Polaroid, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Blockbuster.

 

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