In studies of innovation, it is common to distinguish between two levels or types of innovation: sustaining innovations that consist of incremental changes within the standards of a field and disruptive innovations which change those standards. This study aims to improve our understanding of individual, organizational, and network factors that promote each of these types of innovation.
Sustaining innovation is often taken as improvements within existing product categories and disruptive innovation as the creation of new product categories. In the case of the arts, structure is imposed by genre and thus the main distinction is between (sustaining) creativity within genres and (disruptive) creation of new genres. A major theoretical problem is understanding the relationship between the two types of innovation and whether the same actors are equally important to each. For example, are those actors who are proficient at applying estalished conventions more likely to be early or late to embrace a revolutionary change? Do certain routinized organizational practices inhibit one or both types of innovation?
This research project will explore this distinction in the field of pop music radio. Like many ohter industries, radio is characterized by high levels of sustaining innovation -- with most radio stations adding 2-10 songs a week to their airplay -- with occasional disruptive innovation -- as when an entire new genre of music becomes popular. In late 2004 and early 2005 a disruptive innovation -- a new genre called ''reggaeton'' music -- became popular on American hip hop and Spanish pop radio stations. This project will assemble a quantitative dataset of the airplay, programming practices, and social networks of 77 hip hop and 78 Spanish pop radio stations. The degree to which each station contributed to both sustaining innovation (the everyday ebb and flow of innumerable pop singles) and disruptive innovation (the emergence of a distinctive new genre) will be assessed. The study will explore whether the same radio stations were important to both processes and why or why not.
In addition to contributing to the social scientific understanding of innovation, this research will have two sorts of practical consequences. First, it may lead to improved business forecasting by enabling identification of key actors in a field. Second, the research should help policy makers craft pertinent regulations and incentives by shedding light on the structural conditions that encourage diversity and innovation.
