Question
Characteristics of Disruptive Technology Identify a disruptive technology from your lifetime, detail its characteristics, and then explain why you believe this is a disruptive technology. Be sure to include how disruptive innovation could impact issues and practices in organizational learning, development and leadership, and current theory from psychology. |
Discipline: ORG 8615 Advanced Topics in Organizational Development & Leadership |
Answer
Characteristics of Disruptive Technology
Contents
Impacts of Disruptive Technology in Organizations. 3
Introduction
Disruptive technology
There is a continued alteration in the economic markets and business platforms as a result of the evolving technological industry. The technology adopted an organization can either be sustaining or disruptive depending on the outcome it bears. Whereas sustaining technology improves on the existing one, disruptive technology more or less takes the place of an accomplished technology in a business or economy. Good leadership makes it possible for innovation to take place and maintain a culture of change (Vermeulen, 2012).
It is imperative to embrace technological advances that effectively change day-to day-life for the better. Just like listening to stories, the more one hears about a new technology, the greater the chances of understanding a concept. It allows one to evaluate the stories and analyze what they talk about, therebybroadening scope of comprehension (Adichie, 2009). Hence, when a corporate or an individual embraces innovative technology, there are chances of creating value where there was none.
Numerous disruptive technologies have completely transformed the business world in terms of communication, marketing and productivity, one of them being social media networking.In a manner typical of disruptive technologies, social mediainfluence started taking a toll on small groups of people before finally being fully accepted by most of the world’s population. Those organizations that had firm, objective understanding of the potential social media had in terms of changing the world of business were better prepared to respond to emerging issues more effectively (Kuran, 2013).
Impacts of Disruptive Technology in Organizations
What inspires transformation in the technology sector largely relates to efforts to change consumer behavior and preferences. By identifying your force towards inspiration, one can come up with interesting innovations and creations that would have otherwise been elusive (Kapur, 2009). When televisions and radios were introduced to the world, it was suddenly easier to relay information to large masses of people than before. People could now see or hear what was going on in the rest of the world. Similarly, the use of the Internet-enabled social networking further made it easier to get news and information at any location and time.
There is need to come up with an elaborate and systematic plan of action to adapt to disruptive technology. Engaging stakeholders to put new visions in order to win their approval across requires excellent communication skills (Barth, 2013). How a leader explains the effectiveness of a given technology in an institution, determines retention measures that will be adopted. A good story builds trust and understanding in a company’s staff when compelling illustrations are used and the same should be used when promoting a disruptive technology with better potential than the existing one.
The adoption of new technologies is usually slow as clients do not quickly embrace them due to uncertainty in terms of aspects such as quality and safety. Hence, there is need to build consumer confidence through commercialization in emerging markets.People will not get interested in what one is doing, but why he/she is doing it (Stareva, 2014).In psychology theory, a lot of focus is on how technology-based social systems such as social media networking have the potential to introduce privacy concerns and technology-related anxiety (
Conclusion
Social media networking is indeed a disruptive technology that has changed how business is done. It has transformed the world of media by facilitate instant information access. This way, it connects people on a larger scale than traditional networking. Companies like Coca-Cola have embraced this technique by creating stories for their customers which they advertise on the Internet (Stareva, 2014). For companies to be successful, they must embrace such disruptive technologies to strengthen competitive advantage (Vermeulen, 2014).
References
Adichie, C.N. (2009). The Danger of a Single Story. Ted Talks, (Web).
Barth, S. (2013). Winning Hearts and Minds – Storytelling for Leaders.Krauthammer, (Web).
Coovert, M. D. &Thompson, L. F. (2014). The Psychology of Workplace Technology. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kapur, S. (2009). We Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves. Ted Talks, (Web).
Kuran, E. (2013). Leader as storyteller. Industrial and Commercial Training, 45(2), 199-122
Stareva, I. (2014). How to become a break through storyteller.Iliyana Stareva, Hubpost, (Blog Post).
Vermeulen, F. (2014). The Narrative Advantage. Business Strategy Review, 23(3), 55-57.