Publications

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July 1996 (Revised August 2017)
Case

Continuous Casting Investments at USX Corporation

By: Clayton Christensen

Focuses on the difficulty established companies face when confronted with disruptive technological innovations. The power that their prior asset investments, their cost structures, and their customers have in constraining their investment and innovation decisions are... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Assets; Cost; Investment; Technological Innovation; Problems and Challenges; Mining Industry; Real Estate Industry

July 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

The Mozilla Foundation: Launching Firefox 1.0 (A)

Explores the Mozilla Foundation's decisions leading up to the launch of Firefox 1.0, including its default browser, managing corporate partnerships, managing product development, and moving toward a revenue-based model. Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Commercialization; Open Source Distribution; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology; Social Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; United States

14 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 14

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/13-010.pdf IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property Authors:Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin, and Willy C. Shih... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2019 (Revised February 2019)
Supplement

The a2 Milk Company

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel Fisher and Greg Saldutte

The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details

May 2005 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Arctic Timber AB: Engineered Woods Division (A)

By: Michael L. Tushman, David Kiron and Wendy Smith

Describes the leadership challenges involved in managing strategic innovation and change in a highly mature business unit. Allows systematic exploration of organizational structures, incentives, competencies, and culture that impede innovation. Pivots on a new leader's... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure

22 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 22

explicitly considering counterfactual histories had the innovations never been invented or adopted. Download the paper: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16780 An Empirical Decomposition of Risk View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 21

information is a central determinant of a firm's demand function, even for purchases as large as college attendance. When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship Authors:Sonali Shah View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

When you think about which countries have produced the greatest management innovations, the United States and Japan are likely to top your list. But it was Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s that was... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2003
Case

Driving Change at Seagate

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Douglas A Raymond and Lyn Baranowski

A new CEO, Steve Luczo, together with COO Bill Watkins, have led a turnaround of Seagate, raising productivity dramatically and increasing innovation through teamwork, cross-functional collaboration, and other transformations in the culture of this manufacturer of disk... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Transformation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Initial Public Offering; Going Public; Information Technology Industry

July 1995 (Revised April 1996)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners (A)

By: Teresa M. Amabile, George P. Baker III and Michael Beer

Cambridge Technology Partners uses a highly innovative product strategy, supported by a human resources strategy, that has been very successful. However, high growth rates jeopardize product quality while tension about relative compensation levels between sales and... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Quality; Human Resources; Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

January 2019
Case

Data.gov (Abridged)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Robert D. Austin and Yumi Yi

This case presents the logic and execution underlying the launch of Data.gov, an instantiation of President Obama's initiative for transparency and open government. The process used by Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, and his team to rapidly develop the website and to... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Internet and the Web; Ethics; Cost vs Benefits; Innovation and Management; Information Management; Public Administration Industry; Information Industry; United States

09 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

A Playbook for Small-Business Job Creation

faced her whole career: How can the United States drive innovation and turn it into jobs? She believes the answer to that question is key to the country's long-term economic growth, View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Financial Services

November 1999
Case

IBM Ireland: Reinventing Education Crosses the Atlantic

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and John R. R Scannell

IBM has just launched an innovation partnership with the Irish Ministry of Education to bring information technology to Irish schools. Wired for Learning was developed in the United States; how well will it be applied in Ireland? View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Innovation Strategy; Education; Technology Adoption; Government and Politics; Technology Industry; Education Industry; United States; Republic of Ireland

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November 2000 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Bush Boake Allen

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Ashok Nimgade

Bush Boake Allen, a flavor and fragrance firm, is considering strategic options that would integrate customers into its innovation process via a potentially disruptive Internet-based technology. As this approach could result in dramatic changes to the firm's business... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Management Teams; Product Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Conflict Management; Internet; Chemical Industry

October 2009
Case

Low-k Dielectrics at IBM

By: Willy C. Shih and Giovanni Carraro

Innovations at the frontiers of technology carry enormous risk of making wrong choices. This case examines a decision made by IBM in its semiconductor process technology strategy: a material to use as a dielectric insulator in its leading edge silicon chip technology.... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Science; Creativity; Semiconductor Industry; United States

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Article

Entrepreneurship as Experimentation

By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Entrepreneurship research is on the rise, but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made. At a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

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April 2019
Teaching Note

The a2 Milk Company

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details

February 2020
Case

Intellectual Ventures Update 2020

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

After raising $6 billion and buying 60,000 patents, Intellectual Venture (IV) was confronted with a changing legal environment. After a number of important legal decisions, including the Supreme Court's so-called "Alice" decision, IV had to shift strategy. IV sold off... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology; Business Model; United States