Aiming at innovation in the Swedish defense industry – the difficulties of responding to disruptive market change in a technology driven context

The Defence industry in Sweden has recently undergone a disruptive change in market context, changing from a stable develop-to-order logic to a market-driven industry. Previous research on disruptive change has mainly focused on radical technology shifts but offer little insights of how to deal with disruptive market change. This paper is based on an exploratory interview study of a Swedish defence supply organization. This paper argues that the rational responses are little adapted to this type of change in technology driven contexts and does not address the underlying organizational values and routines for knowledge generation that are crucial for developing innovative capabilities. 1 Sofia Borjesson, Division of Innovation Management, Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Vera Sandbergs Alle 8, SE 412 96 Gothenburg. Phone: +46 31 772 5159. Fax: +46 31 167528. Email: sofia.borjesson@chalmers.se

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