Marković, Dušan Mijušković, Veljko All rights reserved Summary: The new business environment, created as a result of accelerated globalization at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is characterized by frequent economic and technological disruptions. These disruptions unfroze competitive relationships in many global industries and resulted in their restructuring. Great Recession, technology innovations, changing customers’ preferences, stricter environmental regulation, and the ongoing crisis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced companies in traditional mature industries, such as the automotive industry, to adapt competitive strategies to the new reality. Previously established sources of competitive advantage are no more sufficient to survive in the automotive industry. Therefore, competitors in the industry have to manage and balance the processes of exploration and exploitation. Auto-companies have invested the lion’s share of their revenues in R&D of electric, connected, and autonomous vehicles, but uncertainties about R&D performances are still very high. To face mounting the R&D expenditure, decreasing demand, and fierce competition in the industry, they need to restructure the supply chain and increase production efficiency. To achieve a balance between cost-efficiency and differentiation, many auto-companies establish strategic alliances with direct competitors and digital suppliers and acquire incumbents and innovative startups. Disruptions and Competitive Strategies in the Automotive Industry Transdisciplinarity, Integrated science 5 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:30382 doi:10.1007/978-3-030-94651-7_10 application/pdf 377670 bytes Acquisitions, automotive industry, disruptions, exploitation, exploration, strategic alliances info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart eng 2022