Publications

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February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Background Note

Accidental Innovation

Describes the role accident has historically played in invention and discovery, and raises questions about the importance of variation in business innovation processes. View Details

Keywords: Business Processes; Innovation and Invention

Educators

2019
Book

Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation

By: Gary P. Pisano

Creative Construction tackles the myth that larger enterprises are inherently incapable of transformative innovation and are doomed to be disrupted by nimble start-ups. If larger enterprises seem incapable of transformative innovation, it is due to how we design... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Business Growth and Maturation; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Creativity; Leading Change

Program

Leading and Building a Culture of Innovation

Summary Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response to quantum shifts in how we work and live. In the midst of economic, societal, and technological disruptions,... View Details

Article

Frame Flexibility: The Role of Cognitive and Emotional Framing in Innovation Adoption by Incumbent Firms

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Mary Ann Glynn and Michael Tushman

Why do incumbent firms frequently reject nonincremental innovations? Beyond technical, structural, or economic factors, we propose an additional factor: the degree of the top management team's (TMT) frame flexibility, i.e., their capability to cognitively expand an... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Adoption; Cognition; Framing; Emotional Resonance; Incumbent Inertia; Innovation and Invention; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management

As the Alfred D. Chandler Jr. International Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School in 2023, I had the unique opportunity to delve into the history of the life sciences industry in the Cambridge-Boston area. My research focused on how... View Details

October 27, 2022
Article

4 Types of Innovators Every Organization Needs

By: Andy Wu, Goran Calic and Min Basadur

Every company strives to be innovative, but most are missing key ingredients. How can you identify which ingredients your organization needs — and which employee styles can fill in the gaps? The authors’ research distills four key innovation styles that can lead to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Leadership; Innovation and Management

2015
Chapter

Design Thinking and Innovative Problem Solving

By: Srikant Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

In 2012 we set out to answer two key questions. Can anyone, including MBAs and executives with superb analytical skills, learn to think more innovatively? If so, how might we go about developing these skills? Through close collaboration with individuals from major... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Problem Solving; Innovation; Design; Innovation and Invention; Cognition and Thinking

01 Sep 2020
News

Ink: The Habit of Innovation

Habit Inside Your Organization. The book, co-authored by Innosight partners Andy Parker and Natalie Painchaud, as well as Paul Cobban of DBS Bank in Singapore, suggests there is a better way. The authors present a roadmap for making View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Innovation

Artificial intelligence promises to greatly increase the efficiency of the economy. But it may have an even larger impact on the economy by serving as a new general-purpose “method of invention” that can reshape the nature of the... View Details

July 2013
Article

Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity

By: C. Fritz Foley and William R. Kerr

This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the... View Details

Keywords: Technology Transfer; Innovation; Ethnic Networks; Patents; Diasporas; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Research and Development; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; United States

18 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Innovation Network

Keywords: by Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, and William Kerr; Technology

Research Summary

Managing Innovation

I continue to study the disruptive processes by which innovation transforms -- or fails to transform -- industries and companies. There are three elements to these transformations. The first is a technological enabler -- an innovation that makes complicated, expensive... View Details

September 2015 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Emdeon's Acquisition of Change Healthcare: Innovating Transparency Solutions for Health Care Consumers

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Jeet Guram and Aanchal Raj

Case describes acquisition of Change Healthcare, which provides health care cost and quality information, by Emdeon, a health information exchange, and discusses health care transparency. Emdeon is a billion-dollar company that has grown through acquisitions; at its... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Industry; Healthcare Innovation; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Integration; Analytics and Data Science; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States

Educators

2001
Other Unpublished Work

Clusters of Innovation Initiative: Wichita

By: Michael E. Porter

This study contains a conceptual framework for assessing the competitiveness of regional economies, an analysis of the Wichita region overall, as well as detailed assessments of two representative clusters—aerospace vehicles and defense and plastics. The report... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Economics; Industry Clusters; Economy; Growth and Development; Industrial Products Industry; Aerospace Industry; Kansas

Article

Financing Innovation

By: William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

We review the recent literature on the financing of innovation, inclusive of large companies and new startups. This research strand has been very active over the past five years, generating important new findings, questioning some long-held beliefs, and creating its... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Innovation and Invention

Article

Intermediary Functions and the Market for Innovation in Meiji and Taisho Japan

By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu

Japan experienced a transformational phase of technological development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We argue that an important, but so far neglected, factor was a developing market for innovation and a patent attorney system that was... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Patents; Innovation and Invention; Japan

November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Nicole M. Jones and The Hangar℠: Delta Air Lines' Global Innovation Center

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Nicole M. Jones was hired to lead The Hangar, Delta Air Lines’ new innovation center in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta’s leadership had intended for The Hangar to catalyze a new approach to innovation at the company. After conducting three months of research on... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Lab; Breakthrough Innovation; Biometric Technology; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Innovation and Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Georgia (state, US)

Educators

Research Summary

Reinvention and “Frame Flexibility”

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

Adopting a radical innovation creates pressure for leaders to reframe their mental models while they also sustain their organization's existing capabilities and product category variants. Yet at key junctures in a product class and during technological change, a... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Change; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Diffusion Processes; Technology Adoption; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Emotions

August 2012 (Revised August 2024)
Module Note

Evaluating the Viability of Innovative Technology-Commercializing Ventures

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

A guide for how a person who is not an expert in either technology nor business can, nevertheless, exaluate whether two promising innovative medical technologies are technically and/or financially feasible. Hint: I would not invest in either. View Details

Keywords: Medical Devices and Supplies Industry