The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Disruptive innovation follows convergent patterns across industries
Documents convergent patterns in disruptive innovation across industries - low-end entry, gradual performance improvement, eventual mainstream displacement. The pattern repeats in steel, disk drives, education, and many other industries because the economic dynamics are universal.
Christensen's work demonstrates convergence at the strategic pattern level: disruption follows similar trajectories because the underlying competitive dynamics create similar selection pressures across industries.
Key Findings from Christensen & Christensen (1997)
- Disruptive innovation follows convergent patterns across industries
- Low-end entry → performance improvement → mainstream displacement
- Incumbents predictably fail to respond effectively
- Pattern repeats because economic dynamics are universal
- Successful companies fail by doing what made them successful
- Disruptive technologies initially underperform on mainstream metrics
- Incumbents rationally reject disruption (doesn't serve current customers)
- New entrants succeed by serving new or low-end markets first
- Successful companies fail by serving existing customers too well
- Disruptive technologies start in low-end or new markets
- Incumbent resource allocation processes favor sustaining innovations
- Detecting disruption gradients requires different sensing systems
Used in 3 chapters
See how this research informs the book's frameworks:
Documents convergent patterns in disruptive innovation - low-end entry, performance improvement, mainstream displacement - across multiple industries.
See convergent innovation patterns →Explains the mechanism of the succession trap - why optimizing for current success prevents adaptation to new conditions.
See succession dynamics →Foundational work explaining why successful companies fail by not reallocating toward disruptive gradients - corporate phototropism failure.
See directional growth challenges →