Clayton Christensen – Jennifer's Blog

Clayton M. Christensen (1952 – 2020) was a theorist, Harvard Business School professor, and co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute. He developed three influential frameworks: Disruptive Innovation, which explains how new entrants reshape industries; Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD), which interprets behaviour through the progress people seek; and Modularity theory, which shows how system architecture shapes competition and adoption. His frameworks remain central for understanding technological and institutional change in 2026.

I selected Christensen because few theorists offer a unified explanation for both technological transformation and organizational inertia. Although widely applied, his theories face critiques: some disruption cases lack empirical consistency, incumbents often adapt more successfully than predicted, and the theory fits less well in public-sector contexts where incumbents cannot be displaced and value networks restrict innovation. These critiques refine—rather than diminish—the conditions under which disruption occurs, especially in regulated fields like education.

Christensen’s work has influenced health care, education, and global development by challenging legacy cost structures, one-size-fits-all schooling, and aid-centric poverty strategy. Pope (Jan 2026) argues that AI is enabling new architectures with radically different cost structures, while the Christensen Institute (Jan 2026) notes that automation and economic uncertainty pressuring traditional models. These trends reflect Christensen’s modularity theory: AI-native platforms decouple tasks, automate components, and lower integration costs, allowing entrants to compete on speed and modular performance rather than full-stack capability.

Christensen advances a view of learning as differentiated, non-linear process, and driven by JTBD-style intrinsic motivation. He argues that modular and blended architectures support personalized learning, but only when the surrounding value network—credentialing, funding, assessment, accountability—changes. This explains why blended and competency-based models have struggled to disrupt traditional schooling and why, in 2026, AI tutoring systems are being layered onto existing structures rather than transforming them.

I plan to use AI as a jumping off point for where to start looking for relevant articles about Clayton Christensen. I will check all sources that are provided to ensure credibility. I will also use it as a way to check that I didn’t miss anything. My first draft was close to 600 words, not ideal. I put what I wrote into AI and asked for suggestions on how to make it more concise. I took some suggestions, others I did not.

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