In the Wall Street Journal article, How Hard Times Can Drive Innovation, Clayton M. Christensen is interviewed. Christensen is a Harvard Business School professor and author, focusing on innovation.

Among other things, Christensen says in the interview:

• Today’s economic downturn will have a huge positive impact on innovation as:
  • It forces innovators to not waste as much money as they normally would innovating by keeping them focused on their goal
  • “Breakthrough innovations come when the tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. That’s when people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.”
• Private companies are more likely to produce disruptive innovations than public companies, as public companies tend to focus more on short-term performance to please their shareholders and are not as likely to risk near-term performance reductions in rolling out such an innovation.