Paper info

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND NICHE EMERGENCE: A LONGITUDINAL, MULTI-NATION ANALYSIS OF BIOAGRICULTURE

J. Michael Geringer and Ikenna Uzuegbunam

The paper was published at the 32nd IMP-conference in Poznan, Poland in 2016.

To better understand the theory of disruptive innovation, this study provides a longitudinal, multi-nation empirical investigation of the influence of agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) adoption in an established industry context, the agricultural commodities industry, over 1996-2015. By combining industrial organization economics and institutional theory perspectives, we propose that the adoption of disruptive innovation in the agricultural industry context will (1) negatively impact relative proportions of established segments in the industry, and (2) positively influence the development and growth of new niches in the industry. Furthermore, we investigate how these effects are affected by the institutional context of innovation adoption by leveraging a cross-country sample. This paper extends the growing literature on disruptive innovation by highlighting the broader effects of disruptive technological change in a novel industry context. Specifically, we consider the proposition that in addition to disruption of existing market segments, a disruptive innovation could create opportunities for the emergence of adjacent niches. This study also contributes to the literature by emphasizing the institutional dimensions of disruptive innovation. We submit that the findings documented in this paper have implications for firms and policy makers in different institutional environments.