تکنولوژی مخرب: چگونه "کداک" انقلاب عکاسی دیجیتالی را از دست داد؟

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how a firm responds to a challenge from a transformational technology that poses a threat to its historical business model. We extend Christensen’s theory of disruptive technologies to undertake this analysis. The paper makes two contributions: the first is to extend theory and the second is to learn from the example of Kodak’s response to digital photography. Our extensions to existing theory include considerations of organizational change, and the culture of the organization. Information technology has the potential to transform industries through the creation of new digital products and services. Kodak’s middle managers, culture and rigid, bureaucratic structure hindered a fast response to new technology which dramatically changed the process of capturing and sharing images. Film is a physical, chemical product, and despite a succession of new CEOs, Kodak’s middle managers were unable to make a transition to think digitally. Kodak has experienced a nearly 80% decline in its workforce, loss of market share, a tumbling stock price, and significant internal turmoil as a result of its failure to take advantage of this new technology.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how firms respond to challenges from rare transformational technology that threatens a traditional, successful business model. We propose an extension of Christensen’s theory of disruptive technologies and illustrate the extensions with a longitudinal case study of Kodak. Kodak is unique in that it developed and patented many of the components of digital photography, yet this new form of photography has had a serious, negative impact on the firm. The two main contributions of the paper are the extension to Christensen’s theory and the lessons from Kodak’s unsuccessful response to a major technological discontinuity. The digital camera combined with information and communications technologies (ICT), specifically the capabilities of the computer to store and display photographs, and the Internet to transmit them, transformed the major customer processes associated with photography. The consumer could take many photos at virtually no cost, and delete unwanted ones by pushing a button. Rather than waiting to develop a photo and then sending it by mail to another person, the customer uploads the picture to a PC and sends it as an email attachment to multiple recipients. If the customer wants a hard copy, she can print a picture locally on an inexpensive color printer on a PC, send it to an Internet photo service, or go to a store that had a developing kiosk.

one of the goals of this paper is to propose extensions to Christensen’s theory of disruptive technology that improve its ability to explain major, IT-enabled transformations. We believe that the history of Kodak supports Christensen’s theory of disruptive technology and the dilemmas of the innovator, and at the same time suggests some extensions to this theory. Generalizing our study of Kodak to Christensen’s theory of disruptive technology, we added considerations of organization change and culture. Fig. 1 helps to understand the change processes and the struggle management faces as it tries to marshal the firm’s dynamic capabilities for change while overcoming core rigidities in the organization. A second goal of the paper is to learn from Kodak’s unsuccessful response to the challenges and threats of ICT and digital cameras that changed the process of photography. Kodak invested heavily in digital photography, but middle managers and the culture of the organization made it impossible for the company to capitalize on that investment. When confronted with a rare, discontinuous change from technology, senior management in a firm faces the daunting task of changing the organi- zation to embrace the new technology. Change depends on convincing management ranks that the threat is serious; after a long period of success, core competencies become core rigidities, making change that much more difficult. Kodak also dem- onstrates how difficult it is to change an organization’s culture; a polite, bureaucratic organization staffed by risk-averse managers is unlikely to respond successfully to a disruptive technology. In Christensen’s study of disk drives, it was not clear that customers were ready for new innovations, and the incumbent manufacturers received little feedback suggesting the need for them. In Kodak’s case, the customer was embracing new tech- nology at a rapid rate. As Carly Fiorina observed: Kodak sat on a mountain of cash and profitability in their traditional photography business and I believe their thinking was digital photography will eat into my traditional most profitable business. I don’t want that to happen. What I think Kodak miscalculated about was they weren’t in charge of whether that would happen. Consumers were in charge. Indi- viduals were in charge. And an individual will always choose ... what gives them greater control, flexibility, freedom, choice. ... So suddenly consumers had a new way of taking pictures that gave them more control, more freedom, more flexibility and more choice. The consumer became in charge of how fast Kodak’s traditional business would be eaten away. And Kodak unfortunately didn’t see that in time. (Carly Fiorina interview, Batavick and Lucas, 2008 ) What are the lessons learned from viewing Kodak from the lens of Christensen and our extensions to his theory? The most important observation is that management has to recognize the threats and opportunities of new information and commu- nications technologies and marshal capabilities for change. This change effort involves attacking core rigidities and the cul- ture of the organization, and bringing all levels of employees on board, or the change effort will fail. This analysis of Kodak’s history supports the proposed extensions of Christensen’s theory, specifically the need to change the organization and its culture when responding to a disruptive technology. The unanswered question is when confronted with a major technolog- ical discontinuity, can managers and organizations change a business model that has been successful for more than a century?