Summary and Analysis of The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail: Based on the Book by Clayton Christensen
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About this ebook
Named one of the most important business books ever written by the Economist and the winner of the Global Business Book Award, The Innovator’s Dilemma uses true stories of the successes and failures of prominent companies to analyze why great firms fail when faced with critical market and technological innovation.
In this summary of Clayton Christensen’s book for entrepreneurs, managers, CEOs, and business leaders, you’ll learn:
- Why sometimes “doing the right thing” can be the wrong thing, especially when faced with disruptive technology
- Why most companies, even good ones, struggle to adapt their business practices
- What executives can do to ensure both the short-term health and long-term survival of their organizations
With historical context, chapter-by-chapter overviews, important quotes, definitions of key terms, and other features, this summary and analysis of The Innovator’s Dilemma is intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
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Summary and Analysis of The Innovator's Dilemma - Worth Books
Contents
Context
Overview
Summary
Company Directory
Direct Quotes and Analysis
Trivia
What’s That Word?
About Clayton M. Christensen
For Your Information
Bibliography
Copyright
Context
Written in 1997, during the so-called tech bubble, and based on substantial research across many different industries, The Innovator’s Dilemma was revised in 2000 and again in early 2016 to bring it up to date with emerging technology and new disruptions from entrants creating entirely new markets. While the majority of the case studies and examples focus on businesses in the late 20th century, they are more than relevant today—and there is much to learn from the successes and failures of the past that can be applied to tomorrow’s innovations.
Based on research and multiple case studies, the book offers critical insight into what drives adoption of sustaining business development and what prevents organizations from successfully adopting disruptive practices. Though some of the industries and businesses may seem outdated to contemporary readers (8-inch drives and Woolworth stores), the fundamental principles that governed the successes or failures of different companies still resonate today.
Overview
In the early 1940s, Joseph Schumpeter introduced the concept of creative destruction, which he described in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy as the process of industrial mutation … that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating the new one. This process of creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.
In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen proves that disruptive technology is the force behind Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction. He does this with mountains of data taken from multiple industries and organizations to demonstrate that sound business management can actually sow the seeds of decline and eventual demise of companies of all stripes.
The dilemma is that doing the right things—listening and responding to customers, focusing resources on activities that maximize profit—are actually the wrong things when faced with disruptive technology. Christensen provides case study after case study that