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How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2021

Tom Nicholas
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Abstract

In 1993, four years prior to the publication of Clayton Christensen's highly influential book, The Innovator's Dilemma, the Business History Review published an article by Christensen titled “The Rigid Disk Drive Industry: A History of Commercial and Technological Turbulence.” The article relates the theory of disruptive innovation to Alfred D. Chandler's work on large vertically integrated enterprises. It was published during a pivotal era of scholarship on innovation, management practice, and industry evolution, much of which used the history of firms, industries, and technologies to build theory. I survey the impact and critiques of Christensen's research agenda, highlighting how it illustrates where the boundaries associated with the “lessons of history” should be drawn.

Keywords

Innovationdisruptive innovationClayton ChristensenHarvard Business Schoolrigid disk driveInnovator's Dilemma
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 95 , Issue 1 , Spring 2021 , pp. 121 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2021

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Footnotes

I thank Walter Friedman, Geoff Jones, Josh Lerner, Rory McDonald, Richard Tedlow, Mary Tripsas, Mike Tushman, Derek Van Bever, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and constructive criticisms. Funding was provided by the Division of Research and Faculty Development at Harvard Business School.

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13 Technically he uses the term “spinout,” as these firms were often founded by employees who had defected from incumbent firms. However, the terms “spinoff” and “spinout” are often used interchangeably in the literature. Some authors define a spinout as a new company formed by employees that has no direct link to the parent company, as distinguished from spinoffs, where the ties are loosely maintained. Because these instances are rarely fully separable, I use the term “spinoff” here, and later in the article, to refer to both types of entity.

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