Disruptive firms and technological change

The fundamental question in the economics of innovation is how technological change is generated in competitive markets. This study confronts this question here by developing the concept of disruptive firms that deliberate introduce new and improved generations of durable goods that destroy, directly or indirectly, similar products and competencies present in markets in order to support their competitive advantage and/or market leadership. In fact, this concept of disruptive firms endeavours to explain firm success in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition, performance rivalry, increasing returns, and the destructive creation of existing competences and products. If correct, the framework suggests that rapid technological change depends in large measure on disruptive firms (subjects), rather than disruptive technologies (objects) and it extends the existing literature to provide a more complete picture of how technological and industrial change evolves. Hence, this theoretical framework can be useful for bringing a new perspective to explain and generalize, whenever possible one of the drivers that generates technological and industrial change in modern economies.