The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

Clayton M. Christensen is the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. He distilled the book’s relevant concepts from research that he conducted as a doctoral student at Harvard Business School in the early 1990s. Before beginning his doctoral research, Christensen worked as a strategist for Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s most successful management consulting firms. He also founded an advanced-materials technology firm with laboratory researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before penning The Innovators Dilemma, Christensen first published many of his ideas in a 1995 article in the Harvard Business Review. The article is entitled “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave.”

Christensen’s doctoral research led to his installment in the Harvard Business School faculty. As a full professor, he taught courses on enterprise building and business transformation while also contributing to Harvard’s executive education offerings. He continued his entrepreneurial work as the founder of the management consulting firm Innosight LLC and two investment firms. One of them, Rose Park Advisors LLC, utilized his research insights in their investment strategy.

In 2011, Forbes hailed Christensen as one of the most influential thinkers in business theory. He also ranked multiple times on the Thinkers50