The motorcycle industry is experiencing a paradigm shift. Alternatives to fossil fuels and changing customer preferences have slowly begun phasing out parts of the traditional motorcycle market. As a result of this, electric motorcycles are growing in popularity. A theory which discusses and theorizes regarding these types of industrial paradigm shifts is the theory of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation was introduced by scholar Clayton Christensen and has received a lot of attention since. The aim with this degree project was to contribute to our collective understanding of the innovation process by examining the electric motorcycle industry from the perspective of disruptive innovation. This was accomplished by compiling an industrial history of electric motorcycles which was analyzed using the concepts introduced by Christensen and further developed by his critics. This study used secondary information compiled in an industrial history using the narrative approach to historical analysis. The results showed that Christensen’s version of disruption was the most suited to explain the early attempts at electric motorcycles. The versions of disruption proposed by Christensen’s critics provided insight into how customer needs and the motorcycle market developed disruptive susceptibility over the years. The results of the study suggest that producers of electric motorcycles are adapting their products to the mainstream market instead of considering low-end markets with disruptive potential, which indicates that the actors are not expecting disruption as Christensen describes it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-445540 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Lewin, William |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Industriell teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | SAMINT-MILI ; 21005 |
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