MGMT 8805M Week 2 Innovation Case Example

Does the Handheld Probe Meet the Theory's Conditions? An Innovation Case Testing a Composite Ultrasound Entrant Against Each Condition Disruption Theory Requires, With Dated Evidence, a Verdict per Row and the Rival Explanations That Could Account for the Same Outcome

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Walden University

MGMT 8805M: Agile and Disruptive Innovation Management

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Month Day, Year

Does the Handheld Probe Meet the Theory's Conditions? An Innovation Case Testing a Composite Ultrasound Entrant Against Each Condition Disruption Theory Requires, With Dated Evidence, a Verdict per Row and the Rival Explanations That Could Account for the Same Outcome

The Market Before the Entrant

Until 2019, hospital ultrasound in the composite market studied here was sold almost entirely as cart-based systems. Brightwater Medical Imaging, the leading supplier, sold carts at $95,000 to $180,000 to radiology, cardiology and obstetrics departments, and smaller carts at about $40,000 to emergency departments. Primary care practices, ambulance services and rural clinics rarely bought ultrasound at all; at those prices, and without trained sonographers, the purchase made no sense.

The Entrant's Path

Pocketsound, a composite entrant, launched a handheld probe in 2019 that plugged into a tablet, priced at $2,000 plus a $400 annual software subscription. Its early images were grainy, and reviewers in point-of-care journals described them as adequate for checking fluid and bladder volume but not for diagnostic work. Between 2021 and 2024, Pocketsound added guidance software that helped untrained users position the probe and improved image processing twice. By 2025, it was selling to emergency departments as well as primary care.

The Conditions Table

[after]

Conditions follow Christensen and Raynor (2003), who set out the pattern of entry at the low end or among nonconsumers followed by upward improvement. Evidence is dated so a reader can confirm the order of events.

Table 1

Disruption Conditions Tested Against the Pocketsound Case

Why the Verdict Is Not Complete Fit

The third condition holds only partly. Pocketsound became good enough for the focused checks emergency physicians perform, but radiology and cardiology still use carts, and the evidence does not show that the handheld will reach them. The case therefore fits disruption theory in one tier of the market, not across it.

A Precedent for Caution

King and Baatartogtokh (2015) asked experts to evaluate cases cited as disruptions in Christensen's work and found that fewer than one in ten met all the theory's conditions. Their result is a reason to report the conditions individually, as this case does, rather than to declare the case a disruption because the incumbent lost share. Christensen et al. (2018), reviewing the theory's development, acknowledged that the term had been applied loosely and argued for applying the conditions strictly.

Rival Explanations

Two rivals could account for the same outcome. The first is ordinary cost leadership: Pocketsound simply made a cheaper product using consumer electronics components, and any firm with lower costs would have taken share. This rival predicts that Pocketsound would compete on price in Brightwater's core segments from the start, which the 2019 sales do not show. The second is reimbursement change: in 2022, a composite payer policy began paying for point-of-care ultrasound in primary care, which could have created demand regardless of the entrant's path. This rival fits the primary care growth after 2022 but not the 2019 to 2021 sales, which came before the policy.

What Would Change the Verdict

The case's verdict depends on two observations that could still move. Should cardiology units start swapping their carts for handheld probes on routine echocardiograms, the third condition would move from partial to full fit, and the case would describe a disruption of Brightwater's core rather than of one tier. If, on the other hand, emergency departments that bought handhelds keep renewing their cart contracts at the old rate, the handheld would look like a complement, and the fourth row's verdict, that Brightwater had little motive to respond, would matter less, since there would be little to respond to. Brightwater's renewal data for 2026 and 2027 should settle the second question; the first may take longer, because cardiology departments replace equipment on cycles of seven years or more.

What the Case Shows

The Pocketsound case fits disruption theory in the emergency and primary care tiers, with dated evidence for each condition, and does not fit it in diagnostic imaging. The rival explanations each account for part of the record but not its order.

References

Christensen, C. M., McDonald, R., Altman, E. J., & Palmer, J. E. (2018). Disruptive innovation: An intellectual history and directions for future research. Journal of Management Studies, 55(7), 1043-1078. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12349

Christensen, C. M., & Raynor, M. E. (2003). The innovator's solution: Creating and sustaining successful growth. Harvard Business School Press.

King, A. A., & Baatartogtokh, B. (2015). How useful is the theory of disruptive innovation? MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(1), 77-90.