Digital 'disruption' stays incremental because institutions systematically screen out radical business models early in their development.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Why Digital Disruption Stays Incremental: Cross-Domain Convergence in Green Digital Business Model Innovation
SSRN · 6506775
The Takeaway
We often wonder why technology hasn't radically solved climate change yet. This paper shows that 'radical' models are usually pruned by regulators or market incumbents before they can scale, leaving only the versions that fit existing, inefficient systems.
From the abstract
Digital technologies are often portrayed as disruptive levers for decarbonisation, yet many digital green initiatives improve transparency and efficiency without redesigning how environmental value is authorised, coordinated, and appropriated. We address this puzzle by theorising green digital business model innovation as the evolution of venture-level configurations under multi-domain selection in policy-steered sustainability transitions. Building on the activity-system view of business models