Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Technology & Operations Management and General Management faculty groups.
His research and teaching interests center on the management issues related to the development and commercialization of technological and business model innovation. Specific areas of focus include developing organizational capabilities and finding new markets for new technologies.
Professor Christensen holds a B.A. with highest honors in economics from Brigham Young University (1975), and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics and the economics of less-developed countries from Oxford University (1977), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. He was awarded his DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1992.
Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Professor Christensen served as chairman and president of Ceramics Process Systems Corporation (CPS), a firm he co-founded with several MIT professors in 1984. CPS is a leading developer of products and manufacturing processes using high-technology metals and ceramics such as silicon nitride and silicon carbide. From 1979 to 1984 he worked as a consultant and project manager with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he was instrumental in founding the firm's manufacturing strategy consulting practice. In 1982 Professor Christensen was named a White House Fellow, and served through 1983 (on a leave of absence from BCG) as assistant to U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole.
Professor Christensen became a faculty member at the Harvard Business School in 1992. He taught courses in Technology and Operations Management, General Management, and Operations Strategy. He then developed a course called Managing Innovation. Professor Christensen currently teaches an elective course he designed called Building a Sustainably Successful Enterprise, which teaches managers how to build and manage an enduring, successful company or transform an existing organization.
Professor Christensen is the author of the bestselling books The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997), which received the Global Business Book Award for the best business book published in 1997, The Innovator's Solution (2003), and Seeing What's Next (2004). In addition, he edited two casebooks on Innovation: Innovation and the General Manager (1999) and Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, 4th edition (2004).
Professor Christensen's writings have been featured in a variety of publications, and have won a number of awards, such as the Best Dissertation Award from The Institute of Management Sciences for his doctoral thesis on technology development in the disk drive industry; the Production and Operations Management Society's 1991 William Abernathy Award, presented to the author of the best paper in the management of technology; the Newcomen Society’s award for the best paper in business history in 1993; and the 1995 and 2001 McKinsey Awards for articles published in the Harvard Business Review.
Professor Christensen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He worked as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Republic of Korea from 1971 to 1973 and speaks fluent Korean. He continues to serve in his church in a variety of ways and is extensively involved in other activities in the community. He served from 1986 to 1994 as a member of the Program Review Board and Strategic Planning Committee of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and was a member and chairman of the board of directors of the Massachusetts Affiliate of the American Diabetes Association between 1984 and 1996. Professor Christensen was also a founding board member of the Combined Health Appeal of Northeastern Massachusetts. He was an elected member of the Town Meeting (council) in Belmont Massachusetts for eight years; served as vice-chairman of the town's personnel board; and as chairman of its long-range financial planning task force. He has served the Boy Scouts of America for 25 years as a scoutmaster, cubmaster, den leader and troop and pack committee chairman. He and his wife Christine live in Belmont, MA. They are the parents of five children.
The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business 2nd Ed.
Seeing What's Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change
Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice