A review of an article on “Integrating sustainability with disruptive innovation”, with focus on the literature review done: for MBA students

A review of an article on “Integrating sustainability with disruptive innovation”, with focus on the literature review done: for MBA students

 

How to describe the reference of the article in Harvard reference format?

The Harvard reference format for the article "Integrating sustainability with disruptive innovation: A comprehensive framework to identify key characteristics, barriers, and enablers" by Sercan Ozcan and Fulya Acikgoz, published in Technovation in 2026, would be:

Ozcan, S. and Acikgoz, F., 2026. Integrating sustainability with disruptive innovation: A comprehensive framework to identify key characteristics, barriers, and enablers. Technovation, 156, p.103606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2026.103606

 

What are the research objectives, research issues, research philosophy (i.e. positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism, and critical realism) and research type (i.e. descriptive, exploratory, causal, and evaluative types) of the study?

  Based on the content of the article "Integrating sustainability with disruptive innovation: A comprehensive framework to identify key characteristics, barriers, and enablers" by Ozcan and Acikgoz, the following can be summarized:

Research Objectives:

• To develop a comprehensive framework for Sustainable Disruptive Innovations (SDIs) that integrates sustainability and disruptive innovation theories.
• To identify the core characteristics, barriers, and enablers influencing the emergence and scalability of SDIs.
• To explain how SDIs progress from early niche entry to broader adoption using the Sustainability Pillars Model.
• To distinguish between user-driven and producer-driven SDIs and understand their different paths and constraints.
• To provide actionable insights for leveraging disruptive innovation to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Research Issues:

• The paradox in sustainability efforts where incremental changes are insufficient to address sustainability challenges, and disruptive innovations often increase consumption and waste.
• Fragmentation in existing research lacking a unified conceptual framework integrating sustainability and disruption.
• How SDIs achieve market penetration and scalability amid various barriers and enabling conditions.
• Differences in trajectories and challenges between user-driven and producer-driven SDIs.
• The need to understand barrier-enabler dynamics that support SDI transition from experimentation to systemic impact.

Research Philosophy:

• The study adopts a pragmatism philosophy. This is evident as it combines elements from disruptive innovation theory and sustainability models to provide practical and actionable insights, using empirical systematic literature review and content analysis to build a framework applicable to real-world sustainability challenges.
• The focus is on understanding and integrating multiple perspectives (environmental, social, economic, institutional) to address complex sustainability problems, which aligns with pragmatic approaches valuing practical outcomes.

Research Type:

• The research is primarily exploratory and descriptive.
• Exploratory: It aims to explore and clarify the fragmented literature on SDIs and uncover key characteristics, barriers, and enablers.
• Descriptive: It develops a comprehensive framework detailing how SDIs evolve and scale, describing characteristics, enabling conditions, and interactions within sustainability and disruptive innovation dimensions.
• There is also an evaluative aspect in assessing how existing SDI cases perform in practice and identifying implications.

In summary:

• Research Objectives: Develop a comprehensive framework of SDIs identifying characteristics, barriers, enablers, and pathways to scale.
• Research Issues: Integration of sustainability with disruption, scaling challenges, fragmented literature, and different SDI driving forces.
• Research Philosophy: Pragmatism.
• Research Type: Exploratory and descriptive, with evaluative elements.

This information is synthesized from the abstract, introduction, literature review, and discussion sections of the article.

 

How do the research philosophy, research type and research objectives of the study influence the literature review approach and literature review focus of the study?

The study's research philosophy (pragmatism), research type (exploratory and descriptive with evaluative elements), and research objectives (developing a comprehensive framework integrating sustainability and disruptive innovation) collectively shape the literature review approach and focus in the following ways:

1.    Research Philosophy (Pragmatism) Influence:

• Pragmatism emphasizes practical solutions and the integration of multiple perspectives to address complex real-world problems. Reflecting this, the literature review adopts an interdisciplinary and integrative approach, combining insights from both disruptive innovation theory and sustainability literature.
• The review does not limit itself to a single theoretical lens but incorporates varied frameworks (e.g., Sustainability Pillars Model, disruptive innovation characteristics) to build a comprehensive understanding.
• This broad and applied philosophy leads to a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology aimed at synthesizing diverse studies to generate actionable insights for advancing sustainability through innovation.

2.    Research Type (Exploratory and Descriptive, with Evaluative Elements) Influence:

• Because the study is exploratory, the literature review is designed to identify gaps, fragmentation, and emerging themes across the intersection of sustainability and disruptive innovation.
• The descriptive focus demands a thorough mapping and characterization of SDI concepts, barriers, enablers, and trajectories, which the review achieves by systematically coding and thematically analyzing 53 peer-reviewed articles.
• The evaluative aspect prompts inclusion of case study analyses and prior frameworks to assess and compare existing knowledge and practical examples, ensuring the review spans both theory and real-world evidence.
• Consequently, the literature review is comprehensive and structured, combining qualitative thematic analysis with categorization by sustainability pillars and innovation characteristics, enabling detailed synthesis of the state of the art.

3.    Research Objectives Influence:

• The need to develop a comprehensive framework integrates a literature review focus on identifying and synthesizing core SDI characteristics, barriers, enablers, and mechanisms connecting sustainability and disruptive innovation.
• It drives the review to cover multiple sectors, innovation maturity levels, and sustainability dimensions to inform the framework’s multidimensional approach.
• The objective to differentiate user-driven vs producer-driven SDIs steers the review to consider diverse innovation pathways and contextual dynamics, requiring broad inclusion of studies and cases.
• Overall, the objectives necessitate a systematic, rigorous, and multidimensional literature review that transcends fragmented prior work and supports framework formulation by clarifying how sustainability reshapes disruption and vice versa.

In sum, the pragmatist philosophy and exploratory/descriptive research design motivate a systematic, interdisciplinary, and integrative literature review approach. This approach focuses on bridging fragmented literatures on disruptive innovation and sustainability, categorizing key characteristics, barriers, and enablers, and providing a solid empirical and conceptual basis for developing a comprehensive SDI framework aligned with the study’s ambitious research objectives

 

Does the literature review examine any major academic theories?

Yes, the literature review in the study examines major academic theories, particularly focusing on:

1.    Disruptive Innovation Theory:

• The review revisits and applies the core dynamics of disruptive innovation (DI), especially as formulated by Christensen and colleagues, clarifying misconceptions in prior literature that often focus on the disruptive technology rather than the dynamic DI process itself.
• It emphasizes DI as a process where initially low-quality innovations target underserved segments and gradually improve to reshape industries through new business models and market creation.
• This theoretical foundation is crucial for linking disruption with sustainability challenges and informing the framework's conceptualization of Sustainable Disruptive Innovations (SDIs).

2.    Sustainability Pillars Model:

• The study employs the Sustainability Pillars Model to conceptualize sustainability across four interconnected dimensions: environmental (ecological integrity), economic (financial sustainability), social (equity and justice), and institutional (governance and regulatory frameworks).
• This model provides a comprehensive theoretical lens to assess how innovations drive holistic sustainability transitions and integrates these pillars into understanding SDI processes.

3.    Integration of Theories:

• The literature review connects DI theory with sustainability frameworks, demonstrating how sustainability considerations reshape innovation pathways by influencing niche entry, legitimacy building, network reconfiguration, and scaling.
• It situates SDIs as distinctive from conventional disruptive innovations not only in broader outcomes but also in altered innovation dynamics due to sustainability imperatives.

Thus, the literature review critically engages with and synthesizes key theories of disruptive innovation and sustainability, integrating them into the study’s conceptual framework and research analysis.

 

Describe 2 research limitations and 2 literature review limitations of the study.

The study identifies several limitations related to both its research approach and its literature review:

Research Limitations:

1.    Contextual Specificity and Generalizability:

• The findings may have limited generalizability across different regions, industries, or economic environments because the study's context-specific nature might not fully represent diverse settings.
• This restricts how broadly the results can be applied without further contextual validation.

2.    Use of Secondary Data and Lack of Empirical Access:

• The reliance on secondary data, including systematic literature review and content analysis, poses limitations in capturing internal decision-making processes and strategic adaptations within SDIs.
• Lack of direct access to organizational actors may obscure hidden mechanisms, tipping points, and dynamic aspects of SDI development that are not evident from published accounts.

Literature Review Limitations:

1.    Fragmentation and Lack of Comprehensive Frameworks:

• Existing literature provides fragmented insights into the interactions between SDI characteristics, enabling conditions, and scaling mechanisms.
• There is a lack of integrated, comprehensive frameworks that synthesize these different dynamics, which the study seeks to address but recognizes as a current literature gap.

2.    Emphasis on Successful Cases and Underrepresentation of Failures:

• Prior studies tend to focus predominantly on successful SDI examples, potentially underrepresenting or overlooking critical barriers and failure points that are essential for understanding the full innovation process.
• This selection bias in the literature limits an inclusive understanding of the severity of obstacles faced by SDIs and the necessary conditions for success.

These limitations highlight the need for more context-sensitive, empirically grounded, and nuanced research to deepen the understanding of sustainable disruptive innovations.

A basic note on throughput accounting – for advanced management accounting students

A basic note on throughput accounting – for advanced management accounting students

 

Highlight 5 main ideas of throughput accounting and provide a simple calculation example on throughput accounting.

Throughput accounting (TA) is a short-term decision-making approach that focuses on maximizing cash generated through sales while managing the resource that limits the whole operation—the bottleneck. It is closely linked to the Theory of Constraints.

Five main ideas

1.    Throughput is the key measure of value.
Throughput is sales revenue minus totally variable costs, usually direct material costs:

Throughput=Sales revenue−Direct material cost

It counts only when goods are actually sold, not merely produced.

2.    Most other operating costs are treated as fixed in the short run.
Labor, rent, utilities, depreciation, and overheads are grouped as total factory costs or operating expenses; TA generally does not allocate them to individual products.

3.    The bottleneck determines system output.
The constraint is the scarce resource—such as a machine, skilled worker, or process—that limits total production and sales. An hour lost at the bottleneck is an hour lost for the entire system.

4.    Products should be ranked by throughput per unit of bottleneck time.
Rather than choosing the product with the highest profit per unit, TA prioritizes the product that generates the most throughput per hour or minute of constrained resource.

5.    Improvement follows the five focusing steps.
Identify the bottleneck, exploit it fully, subordinate other activities to it, elevate or expand it if needed, and repeat once a new bottleneck emerges.

Simple calculation example

A company makes two products using one bottleneck machine with 1,000 machine hours available per month.

Item	Product A	Product B
Selling price per unit	$100	$80
Direct material cost per unit	$40	$20
Throughput per unit	$60	$60
Bottleneck hours per unit	2	1
Maximum monthly demand	300 units	800 units

Step 1: Calculate throughput per unit

Product A=100−40=$60 

Product B=80−20=$60

Both products have the same throughput per unit.

Step 2: Calculate throughput per bottleneck hour

Product A=602=$30 per bottleneck hour

Product B=601=$60 per bottleneck hour

Product B is more valuable because it creates twice as much throughput from each scarce machine hour.

Step 3: Rank and allocate bottleneck time

Produce Product B first, up to its demand:

800 units×1 hour=800

Remaining bottleneck hours:

1,000−800=200 hours

Use the remaining time for Product A:

200÷2=100 units of Product A

Step 4: Calculate total throughput

Product B=800×60=$48,000

Product A=100×60=$6,000

Total throughput=$54,000

If total factory costs are $30,000 per month, profit is:

$54,000−$30,000=$24,000

The key insight is that Product B should be prioritized despite having the same per-unit throughput, because it uses the bottleneck more efficiently.