Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2020
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma

By: Tom Nicholas
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:33
ShareBar

Abstract

In 1993, four years prior to the publication of Clayton Christensen’s highly influential book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, the Business History Review (BHR) published an article by Christensen titled “The Rigid Disk Drive Industry: A History of Commercial and Technological Turbulence.” The BHR piece 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

Clayton Christensen; Research; Impact

Citation

Nicholas, Tom. "How History Shaped the Innovator's Dilemma." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-014, July 2020. (Revised August 2020.)
  • SSRN
  • Read Now

About The Author

Tom Nicholas

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • February 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Barbarians at the Gate or Turnaround Gurus? Private Equity and the Rise of the LBO

    By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States?

    By: Tom Nicholas
    • October 2020
    • Faculty Research

    When Institutions Fail: HIV/AIDS in the 1980s

    By: Tom Nicholas and Christian Godwin
More from the Author
  • Barbarians at the Gate or Turnaround Gurus? Private Equity and the Rise of the LBO By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
  • Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States? By: Tom Nicholas
  • When Institutions Fail: HIV/AIDS in the 1980s By: Tom Nicholas and Christian Godwin
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College