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Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

By Clayton M Christensen

Harvard professor Christensen demonstrates in this revolutionary business book why outstanding companies that do everything right still lose their market leadership when confronted with disruptive changes in technology and market structure. He tells how to avoid a similar fate as businesses race online into the 21st century.

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This book is out of print and cannot be purchased.


Book Information

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Publish Date: 01/05/2016
Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781633691780
ISBN-10: 1633691780
Language: English

What We're Saying

September 28, 2007

In conjunction with their Business Book of The Year Award, The Financial Times is asking the question: "What is the best book of all time? " They solicited suggestions from a wide variety of business executives, including GE's Jeff Immelt and Ebay's Meg Whitman. The editorial staff then created a short list using the same criterea as their yearly awards. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 22, 2007

The Small Business Special Section of Monday's Wall Street Journal featured recommended reading from Nitzan Shaer, entrepreneur-in-residence with IDG Ventures in Boston. The focus of his recommendations was to show entrepreneurs where they might look for inspiration to stay focused and preserve. Here are the books and resources he recommended. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

May 18, 2007

U. S. News and World Report has a huge special report on the Best Business Books. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

April 09, 2007

I want to add one more point to Rebecca's post on the Carol Hymowitz column. Hymowitz ends her piece with: What's missing from bookstores, it seems, are more titles that show how executives have reshaped businesses so they don't become obsolete in the digital landscape, and one that explain the new rules of the corner office, where CEOs must cater to an array of constituents. To the first question of fighting technological irrelevance, Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma plays directly to that point. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

October 27, 2008

Marci Alboher of The New York Times recently conducted a Q&A session with Guy Kawasaki via email. One exchange for you entrepreneurs: Q. What is your advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding or growth opportunities if the credit and capital markets continue on their current course? READ FULL DESCRIPTION

May 06, 2008

The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a major feature titled "New Breed of Business Gurus Rises. " The article provides a ranking of the thought leaders in business today. The ranking system is based on the 2003 book What's the Big Idea? READ FULL DESCRIPTION

September 14, 2009

A few weeks ago, Fred Wilson from avc. com kicked up interest in books that entreprenuers should read. Fred, in particular, made the point that "there is way more insight to be gained from stories than from business books. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

July 24, 2009

Jeff Monday at Monday Dots has focused his latest video on the process of disruptive innovation. Jeff's source material is Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma (a 100 Best selection) and The Innovator's Solution. Using his unique dots approach, the video below quickly summarizes Christensen's theories: At the end of the video, Jeff goes even further and suggests an improvement: While I think this is good solution, I see it as highly reactive. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

May 27, 2009

Channel Insider recently posted a slide show of 21 Must Read Books for Business Success. It was compiled by asking "successful solution providers what books have both inspired them and shaped their approach to making their businesses a success. " You can get detailed descriptions of the books by viewing the slide show, but the list itself, with links, below. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

April 08, 2009

Inc. Magazine is celebrating 30 years of publication this month and as a part of their coverage have put together "The Business Owner's Bookshelf" - 30 books people running small businesses should read. Here is the list in its entirety: Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein (1996) The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, by Guy Kawasaki (2004) The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson (2006) Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell, by Nancy F. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

April 05, 2009

Impossible to Grasp

By Porchlight

I have been recommending The Innovator's Dilemma by Clay Christensen to a lot of people lately. There are so many industries being ravaging by disruptive innovations. Publishing of all flavors is being forever changed by print-on-demand, the internet, and the amateur. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 26, 2010

Inder Sidhu's Doing Both was number one on the Inc. /800-CEO-READ Business Book Bestseller List in July. Jon recently sent him three questions he asks of all our best-selling authors, and I really enjoyed his answers: What's the most influential book you've read? READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 03, 2010

Business Book Humiliations

By Sally Haldorson

Penguin's Portfolio imprint specializes in business books, and their Portfolio Javelin blog ("Business, Business Books, and the Business of Books") is a great read for any of us business book geeks. Yesterday, Will Weisser, Vice President and Associate Editor of Portfolio, wrote an entry inspired by a post in the Guardian's blog in which the author, Robert McCrum, confessed, despite his education and exposure to great books, that he had never read Middlemarch by George Eliot (if you too have not read Middlemarch, I highly recommend remedying that this summer--it's one of my favorites. ) McCrum then invites readers to share their book humiliations by listing the books that they regret never having read. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

February 12, 2010

Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face—and What to do About It by Richard S. Tedlow. Portfolio, 272 Pages, $26. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

November 22, 2011

The Thinkers50

By Porchlight

Congratulations are in order for friend of the company Marshall Goldsmith, one of the really good guys in this business, on winning the 2011 Thinkers50 Leadership Award as the World’s Most-Influential Leadership Thinker. Now sponsored by the Harvard Business Review, The Thinkers50 is a decade-old, biannual global ranking of management thinkers that uses ten criteria to rank thinkers: originality of ideas; practicality of ideas; presentation style; written communication; loyalty of followers; business sense; international outlook; rigor of research; impact of ideas and the elusive guru factor. Goldsmith has all of those qualities in spades, ranked number seven on the overall Thinkers50 list and was certainly deserving of the award in Leadership he took home. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 29, 2011

Culture and The Innovator's Cookbook

Book Review by Porchlight

When you booted up Windows 95, a man named Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno made that experience more remarkable and memorable. He made the little league game at the end of the movie Traffic seem profound and timeless—a gentle, reassuring reminder that the universe is stitched together of individual, seemingly mundane moments. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 24, 2011

With weary conviction, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote near the end of his life that "There are no second acts in American lives. " He gets picked on a lot for that, mostly because it's an easy and somewhat eloquent introduction to the many stories that get written about second acts in American life. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

July 19, 2011

You may know Clayton Christensen for his classic works on innovation, The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution. In fact, The Innovator's Dilemma was included as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Todd wrote something that struck me as I revisited the review he wrote for the book today. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

May 10, 2012

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth & Karen Dillon, Harper Business, 240 pages, $25. 99, Hardcover, May 2012, ISBN 9780062102416 Clayton Christensen is a business theorist who, in 1997, wrote the renowned Innovator’s Dilemma which introduced the idea that most well-established companies are overtaken not by behemoth competitors but by “disruptive” innovations that rise up and cut down giants in part because the giants were oblivious to the threat, and/or unable to invest in new emerging technologies. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

Full Description

In this revolutionary bestseller, Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership -- or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.

Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Find out: When it is right "not" to listen to customers. When to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins. When to pursue small markets at the expense of seemingly larger and more lucrative ones.

Sharp, cogent, and provocative, "The Innovator's Dilemma" is one of the most talked-about books of our time -- and one no savvy manager or entrepreneur should be without.

About the Author

Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In addition to authoring a number of highly influential Harvard Business Review articles, he is the author of eight critically acclaimed books, including the bestsellers The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, How Will You Measure Your Life?<

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