Publications

May 2020
Article

Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

We study whether increasing the share of female inventors leads to more biomedical inventions that focus on the needs of women. After accounting for detailed disease-technology, disease-year, and technology-year fixed effects, we find that a 10 percentage point... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Gender; Patents

Find at Harvard

Read Now

Research Summary

Do Leaders Lead in Business Process Innovation? The Case(s) of E-Business Adoption

This paper investigates how market position influences firm propensity to adopt new process innovations. Using detailed data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures, I study the adoption of frontier e-business practices during the early diffusion of the commercial... View Details

2025
Chapter

An Appraisal on 'Teaching the Early History of IB at Harvard Business School'

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter reviews new research about the origins of International Business as an academic discipline. Contrary to conventional wisdom that it originated in economics departments in the 1960s, this research highlights the importance of teaching at Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Harvard Business School; International Business; Business Education

2006
Chapter

Ancient History of Experimental Economics and Social Psychology: Reminiscences and Analysis of a Fruitful Collaboration

By: J. Keith Murnighan and Alvin E. Roth

Keywords: History; Social Psychology; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Economics

17 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

The Trial of Elizabeth Holmes: Visionary, Criminal, or Both?

really want that kind of excitement, that’s what people are attracted by and that’s accepted. Creating a business, describing those innovations in an enthusiastic manner, and then having it fail because it... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Biotechnology; Technology; Medical Devices & Supplies

October 2022
Case

Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to... View Details

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

Second Quarter 2024
Article

Venture Capital in a Time of Turmoil

By: Josh Lerner

One area of consensus among academic economists and policymakers is the need for greater innovation. This concern is rooted in worries about the lagging rate of productivity growth in many Western nations. In the U.S., for instance, the productivity growth rate... View Details

Keywords: Productivity Growth; Economic Growth; Innovation and Invention; United States; Europe

Read Now

25 May 2021
Blog Post

The Surprising Power of Nostalgia at Work

Many people assume that nostalgia is purely entertainment, a feeling individuals enjoy because it takes them back to the more carefree days of their youth. Some view it as maladaptive fixation on the past, perhaps indicating a fear View Details

Keywords: All Industries

01 Sep 2017
News

The Biggest Industry You’ve Never Heard Of

It’s a sunny May afternoon in LA. Søren Bjerg, a slender and pale 21-year-old with chunky glasses and a black hoodie, is sitting in the den of the house he shares with a half dozen other guys. It’s decorated the way you might expect it to... View Details

Keywords: April White; illustration by Brian Stauffer; esports; Twitch; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment

June 2013 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Governance and Sustainability at Nike (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-hê Hsieh and Lara Adamsons

Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details

Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland

25 Feb 2020
News

The Past Informs the Future of Work

technology management, and robotics to simplify and automate support activities. He also addressed dilemmas about whether to allow each division to adopt innovation at its own pace or institute it simultaneously company-wide, and the... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie; Telecommunications; Information

07 May 2008
Research & Ideas

The Intellectual History of Harvard Business School

created, developed, and refined at HBS during the past century. The second was to illustrate the variety of ways in which those ideas have influenced students, the business world, and the academy. And the third was to encourage future... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Education

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Collabrys, Inc. (A)-The Evolution of a Startup

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

The CEO of a two-year-old start-up must now decide whether to become a technology provider or a service agency. In a time of enormous uncertainty about the viability of various business models for Internet-delivered services and products, Collabrys has survived the... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Technological Innovation; Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; United States

01 Jun 2003
News

Portraits from the Class of 2003

Chirag Shah “A single, impoverished mother, only 15 years old, gave birth to the first baby I delivered.” In the Middle of Med School at Yale: came to HBS Inspiration for Becoming a Physician: doctors who attended to his brother’s gunshot... View Details

Keywords: Health, Social Assistance

February 2003 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, The

By: Allen S. Grossman and Christina Darwall

Patrick J. McGrath, the bishop of the healthy and growing San Jose diocese, is pioneering the use of long-term, business-like strategic planning to better deliver on his churches' core mission. The adopted plan addresses issues at the heart of how the diocese is... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Growth Management; Success; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges

2020
Working Paper

Incentive Power and Knowledge Sharing Among Employees: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

There is consensus, both in the literature and in practice, about knowledge sharing within organizations being a key determinant of success. However, organizations struggle to sustain employees’ engagement in knowledge sharing. One challenge lies in the fact that,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Sharing; Employee Driven Innovation; Innovation Appropriability; Contract Design; High-powered Incentives; Low-powered Incentives; Incentives; Pay-for-Performance; Rank-and-file; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity; Performance

February 2021
Case

Threadless: The Renewal of an Online Community

By: Shane Greenstein, Karim Lakhani and Christian Godwin

Threadless, an online apparel company and artist community which Jake Nickell founded in 2000, continued to maintain its status as a top company in the online apparel industry during its second decade. From 2010 to 2020, Threadless continued to operate its... View Details