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Disruptive Innovation in the Digital Age

August 13, 2020 | MIT Sloan Management Review | Innovation

In the MIT SMR interview with Clayton Christensen for the winter 2020 issue, in what was to be his last interview, he said, “The mechanics of disruption are the same as ever, but recent technological and business model innovations present unique opportunities and challenges for both incumbents and entrants.”

Surely, new technologies and business models are transforming the way we as company leaders foster innovation in our companies. So we set out to update and augment the theory of disruptive innovation by calling on leading thinkers to weigh in on what has, and hasn’t, changed since Christensen’s theory was first published.

Getting to some of the answers starts with asking the right questions. For instance: What does the ascendance of a new generation of straight-to-consumer disrupters tell us about how innovation is evolving? What are the sources of disruption that every company must monitor? Is disruption always the right strategy — or not? And why have companies not gotten better at solving the innovator’s dilemma two decades after Christensen first helped us understand how disruption occurs?

The answers to these questions and more lie in this exclusive collection.

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