Publications

January 2017
Supplement

Intrapreneurship at DaVita HealthCare Partners: Cash Flow Tool

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton

DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc. (DaVita) is one of the U.S.'s leading dialysis providers, a process whereby persons with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are connected to a machine that performs the functions of a healthy kidney. Kent Thiry, DaVita's CEO, has expanded... View Details

Keywords: Intrapreneurship; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Startup Management; Startup; Strategic Positioning; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Business Startups; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States

2017
Chapter

Getting Started with Ambidexterity

By: Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman

This paper demonstrates the value of thinking about ambidexterity as having three distinct moments—ideation, incubation, and scaling—that share common features for success, such as the role of the senior team, and that also have distinct disciplines. Incubation is a... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

December 2016
Background Note

Reaching Beyond Your Organization: Empowering Innovation

By: William R. Kerr

Forward-thinking established companies utilize new routes for external innovation with start-ups and crowds. The reading reviews strategic partnerships, strategic investments, strategic acquisitions, and crowd-based collaborations. Case examples include Google, SK... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Corporate Innovation; Collaboration; Partnerships; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy

December 2016 (Revised December 2018)
Case

From Start-Up to Grown-Up Nation: The Future of the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem

By: Elie Ofek and Margot Eiran

In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel’s strong innovation track record and the country’s reputation as the “startup nation.” Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he... View Details

2016
Working Paper

Foreign Competition and Domestic Innovation: Evidence from U.S. Patents

By: David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson, Pian Shu and Gary Pisano

Manufacturing is the locus of U.S. innovation, accounting for more than three quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The rise of import competition from China has represented a major competitive shock to the sector, which in theory could benefit or stifle innovation. In... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Competition; System Shocks; Trade; Innovation and Invention; Manufacturing Industry; China; United States

Find at Harvard

Read Now

Article

Risk Management—The Revealing Hand

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes

Many believe that the recent emphasis on enterprise risk management function is misguided, especially after the failure of sophisticated quantitative risk models during the global financial crisis. The concern is that top-down risk management will inhibit innovation... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management

Read Now

August 2016 (Revised August 2016)
Teaching Note

Intrapreneurship at DaVita Healthcare Partners

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Preble

July 2016 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Alphabet Eyes New Frontiers (A)

By: Juan Alcacer, Raffaella Sadun, Olivia Hull and Kerry Herman

In October 2015, Google restructured into Alphabet, a holding company, which analysts said would facilitate innovation among its diverse subsidiaries. But when news reports surfaced revealing struggles within Alphabet companies including Nest, the smart thermostat... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Conglomerates; Corporate Restructuring; Google; Corporate Strategy; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research and Development; Diversification; Financial Reporting; Talent and Talent Management; Technology Industry; Computer Industry; California; United States

2016
Working Paper

Shareholder Activism on Sustainability Issues

By: Jody Grewal, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Shareholder activism on sustainability issues has become increasingly prevalent over the years, with the number of proposals filed doubling from 1999 to 2013. We use recent innovations in accounting standard setting to classify 2,665 shareholder proposals that address... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Activism; Activist Investors; Activist Shareholder; Corporate Social Responsibility; Environment; Corporate Performance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Investment Activism

SSRN

June 2016 (Revised November 2021)
Case

chotuKool: 'Little Cool,' Big Opportunity

By: Rory McDonald, Derek van Bever and Efosa Ojomo

In 2013, a team led by Gopalan Sunderraman, vice president of corporate development at Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.—one of the companies owned by Godrej Group, a large Indian conglomerate—was preparing to launch an innovative low-cost refrigerator. Developed expressly... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; India

2016
Working Paper

Big History, Global Corporations, Virtual Capitalism

By: Richard L. Nolan

Homo sapiens has mastered its environment so thoroughly that, for the first time in history, a small minority of the population is capable of creating enough food and fuels to support not only itself, but also a growing majority of the 6 billion people now living on... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Internet and the Web; Innovation and Invention; United States

SSRN

Read Now

March 2016 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Michael Milken: The Junk Bond King

By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew G. Preble

Michael Milken, an investment banker who dominated the junk bond market in the 1980s, was sentenced to jail in 1990 after pleading guilty to a number of securities and tax-related felonies. In the preceding decade, Milken had helped usher in a new wave of leveraged buy... View Details

Keywords: Junk Bonds; High-yield Bonds; Financial Innovation; Shareholder Value; Bonds; Capital; Capital Structure; Cost of Capital; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Finance; Investment Banking; Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Private Equity; Restructuring; United States

March 2016 (Revised May 2021)
Supplement

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (C): Toward P-TECH's Rapid National Expansion

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Kelsi Stine-Rowe

In early 2016, Stanley Litow, IBM's Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM International Foundation, made his travel arrangements for still another flight from New York to discuss possibilities for application of a new... View Details

Keywords: IBM; P-TECH; Stanley Litow: Robin Willner; Cuomo; Scaling; Innovation; New York State; New York City; Business Model; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Growth and Development; Technology Industry; New York (state, US); New York (city, NY)

2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Shelly London and Ethics Education

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Teaching Note for Case 313-028. Following a successful career as a Senior Vice President, Vice President, and Chief Communications Officer at two large corporate companies, Shelly London became a Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow. During her fellowship she set out to... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Education; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Decision Making; Leadership; Innovation and Management; Change Management; Social Enterprise; Education Industry; Service Industry; North and Central America

January 2016
Case

SAP SE: Autism at Work

By: Gary P. Pisano and Robert D. Austin

This case describes SAP's "Autism at Work" program, which integrates people with autism into the company's workforce. The company has a stated objective of making 1% of its workforce people with autism by 2020. SAP's rationale for the program is based on the belief... View Details

Keywords: Software; Human Resource Management; Diversity Management; Germany; Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Management; Applications and Software; Recruitment; Diversity; Information Technology Industry; Germany

January 2016
Case

Haiti Hope: Innovating the Mango Value Chain

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

This case study examines a market-based approach to economic development through the eyes of NGO TechnoServe's project manager, implementing a US$9.5 million five-year public-private partnership between Coca-Cola, IDB, and USAID. The case ends at the beginning of the... View Details