Publications

Find at Harvard

June 2019 (Revised August 2024)
Module Note

Purpose Brands

By: Rory McDonald, Clayton M. Christensen and Shaye Roseman

Introduces a framework for innovation and brand building that is connected to an understanding of customers' Jobs to Be Done. View Details

Keywords: Brand ＆ Product Management; Brand Architecture; Brand Building; Innovation; Product Development Strategy; Product Differentiation

29 May 2019
News

A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail

December 2011 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Cancer Treatment Centers of America: Scaling the Mother Standard of Care

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

The CEO of a private and growing national network of specialty care hospitals focusing on advanced-stage and complex cancer treatments reflected on the firm's past phase of growth before meeting with the company's Chairman and founder to discuss how to further scale... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Business Growth and Maturation; Medical Specialties; Service Delivery; Innovation and Invention; Health Industry

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Benefits of “Not Invented Here”

internally focused manner. Innovation today must be managed as an open system, with a far greater external focus. Q: Which companies today are the best examples of open innovation, and why? A: IBM, Intel,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Sep 2014
News

Innovation: Revenge of the Nerds

The HourlyNerd origin story could become an HBS legend: The rapidly growing startup, which connects graduates from top MBA programs with businesses that need project-based consulting, began as a FIELD 3 project—one that fellow HBS classmates doomed to failure. In FIELD... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Dec 2017
News

The Changing Nature of Research

Rivkin, the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for research. “The world’s problems are becoming increasingly complex and no longer lend themselves to a single method View Details

November–December 2023
Article

Iterative Coordination and Innovation: Prioritizing Value over Novelty

By: Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Novelty; Goals; Specialization; Coordination; Field Experiment; Software Development; Agile; Scrum; Iteration; Iterative; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Value; Goals and Objectives; Integration; Applications and Software

Read Now

28 Mar 2014
News

Wanted: Public Entrepreneurs

Keywords: public entrepreneurs; government innovation; Government

11 Mar 2015
HBS Seminar

Ernest Wilson, University of Southern California, Annenberg School

23 Oct 2020
Video

Entrepreneurship Opportunities in a Post-COVID World: The Future of EdTech

01 Dec 2013
News

Joining Together for HBS

new HBS Fund Chairs, we are eager to explore how we can join together to help shape the future of HBS, ensuring that it continues to be a positive force in the world. We are excited about the School's View Details

Keywords: alumni giving; innovation; business education

September 2017 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Adaptive Platform Trials: The Clinical Trial of the Future?

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In July 2017, Dr. Brian M. Alexander, president and CEO of the AGILE Research Foundation, was preparing to launch a new type of clinical trial—an adaptive platform trial—to study potential therapies for glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive form of brain cancer.... View Details

Keywords: Clinical Trials; Cancer; Adaptive Platform Trials; Platform Trials; Adaptive Trials; Glioblastoma; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Business Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Health Industry; United States

April 2020
Case

Apple Inc. in 2020

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

After a decade as CEO, Tim Cook is facing one of his biggest strategic transitions of his tenure. While Apple had performed spectacularly well under Cook, Apple's core business was maturing. Sales of iPhones, iPads, and Macs were flat or down. However, Apple's new... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Market Positioning; Marketing Implementation; Planning; Products; Strategic Positioning; Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Product Positioning; Communication; Competition; Leadership; Strategic Planning; Computer Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry

14 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact

he says. "And obviously there should be a method for periodically testing and critiquing that strategy, and modifying it if it's not working." Ebrahim is working on a series of case studies focused on nonprofit and public organizations... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

20 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

The Three Types of Leaders Who Create Radical Change

research associate at HBS. The article appears in the new issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. “If you look at the history of any successful social change movement,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Wordle

By: Karen G. Mills, Christina Wallace, Ebehi Iyoha, Gabriella Elanbeck and Morgane Herculano

After sourdough bread, countertop chive gardens, and vaccine selfies came a pandemic-era trend that everyone seemed to be in on: one daily chance to guess a five-letter word and crow about your success on social media via little green and yellow squares. From a... View Details

Keywords: Games; Innovation; General Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trends; Entrepreneurship; Bids and Bidding; Consumer Behavior; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Technology Industry

2023
Working Paper

Scoring and Funding Breakthrough Ideas: Evidence from a Global Pharmaceutical Company

By: Joshua Krieger, Ramana Nanda, Ian Hunt, Aimee Reynolds and Peter Tarsa

We study resource allocation to early-stage ideas at an internal startup program of one the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world. Our research design enables us to elicit every evaluator’s scores across five different attributes, before seeing how they would... View Details

Keywords: Project Selection; Pharmaceuticals; Financing Innovation; Resource Allocation; Innovation and Invention; Research and Development

Read Now

December 2003
Case

Sale of Hephaestus, Inc. to Vulcan Ventures, Inc.

Henry Hephaestus founded Hephaestus, Inc. in 1895. Its first product was a tapered roller bearing for use with horse-drawn wagons and carriages. It reduced friction on the axle and reduced the force necessary to move a heavy load, thereby enabling one horse to do the... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Entrepreneurship; Family Ownership; Manufacturing Industry