This assignment points out who Clayton Christensen is and what are his main findings in the area of innovation management in commercial enterprises. This text is divided in four parts. First, an introduction of the person Clayton Christensen with some background information about his career. The second part outlines his major work of disruptive innovation. Based on this theory he made some suggestions how to deal with this type of innovation, which will be discussed in the fourth part. A brief summary and a personal statement will end up this paper.
Clayton M. Christensen is a Business Administration professor at Harvard Business School. He has a joint appointment in the technology and operations management and general management faculty group. He holds a B.A. in economics from Brigham Young University, a Master in economics from Oxford University, and an MBA and DBA from Harvard Business School (Christensen & Anthony & Roth 2004). Before he became a professor he cofounded a material science firm, was White House Fellow and worked for the Boston Consulting Group. The most famous publication he has written until now is the book “The Innovator’s dilemma”, which won the global business book award in 1997 (Christensen & Raynor 2003). Two other mostly recognised books are “The innovator’s solution” and “Seeing what’s next” which are based on the findings in the aforementioned award winning book.
The disruptive innovation theory is Christensen’s major finding. This theory is about the fact that even if managers are doing a perfect job, their companies lose market share. Doing a perfect job in this case means that they have their competitive antennae up, listen astutely to their customers, and invest aggressively in new technologies (Christensen 2003). The fi ...