Samantha Roy
ENT 350
March 21, 2019
Clayton Christensen Biography Midterm
Clayton Christensen is an incredibly intelligent Harvard Business School Professor. He is
the Author of The Innovators Dilemma and has groundbreaking work toward disruptive
innovation which he is best known for in the business ideology world. However, beyond the
business world, Christensen has applied his insightful ideas toward diverse areas such as the
education field, healthcare and self-help to name a few (McGregor, 2013). His innovative
insights on life and management have impacted the world of corporate leaders across the nation.
A religious man, he was a missionary for his church for 3 years growing up and identifies
as a Mormon Christian. He continues to serve his church in Massachusetts today
(claytonchristensen.com, 2019). Christenson was born in Salt Lake City and moved out to
Massachusetts for career advancement and started working as a management consultant with
BCG in Boston. He also helped co-found Ceramics Process Systems company. Continuing he
obtained his bachelor’s degree in economics (summa cum laude) at Brigham Young University
(claytonchristensen.com, 2019). He then continued to receive his M. Phil in Applied
Econometrics from Oxford. Subsequently, Christensen gained his MBA from Harvard Business
School [1979]. Following, he became a White House Fellow and an assistant to U.S
Transportation Secretaries [1982]. Later in [1992], Christenson was awarded his DBA from
Harvard Business School and hired as a faculty member attaining full professorship and tenure
by 1998 (Christensen, 2019). A year prior to Christensen’s professional career began at the
Harvard Business School, The Innovators Dilemma was published. This work was his greatest
and one of the more ground-breaking achievements in his career. The book illuminates the idea
of Disruptive Innovation with a solution to “See big problems as big opportunities” or in other
words the intersection between non-consumption and jobs needed to get done (Bigman &
Cooper, 2019). In other words, Christensen focused on explaining his ideology on making
product or processes better and cheaper while derailing higher-end competition (Bigman &
Cooper, 2019). In an article on Chief Executive between Christensen and curious co-author
Efosa Ojomo, they discuss how to stay ahead of the curve and pondered how companies fail and
why others succeed. Christensen pointed out the effects of innovating and creating more markets.
He went on to exemplify, “We puzzled about why would China have such a vibrant society as a
