Publications

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April 2021
Background Note

HEAD vs. LEAD: Disruptions Originating at the High- vs. Low-End of the Market

By: Elie Ofek, Olivier Toubia and Didier Toubia

Twenty five years after it was initially proposed, Clay Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation continues to be a major reference for entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, and investors. However, the term “disruptive innovation” is often used in ways and contexts... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry; New Product Management; Targeting; Disruptive Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Entrepreneurship; Product; Management; Innovation Strategy; Technology

April 2022
Article

AI Insurance: How Liability Insurance Can Drive the Responsible Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

By: Ariel Dora Stern, Avi Goldfarb, Timo Minssen and W. Nicholson Price II

Despite enthusiasm about the potential to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to medicine and health care delivery, adoption remains tepid, even for the most compelling technologies. In this article, the authors focus on one set of challenges to AI adoption: those... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Medicine; Health Care and Treatment; Legal Liability; Insurance; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning

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16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Customers Want from Your Products

frequently bought milk shakes. Next, they invited people who fit this profile to evaluate whether making the shakes thicker, more chocolaty, cheaper, or chunkier would satisfy them better. The panelists gave clear feedback, but the consequent improvements to the View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook & Taddy Hall; Consumer Products

June 2022
Case

PFA Pensions: The Climate Plus Product

By: Daniel Green, Victoria Ivashina and Alys Ferragamo

The case explores whether alternative investments play a unique role in achieving low carbon dioxide emissions at the portfolio level. This case is set in April of 2020 and follows Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen, Chief Investment Officer, and Peter Tind Larsen, Head of... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Carbon Footprint; Alternative Assets; Alternative Investment Vehicles; Pension Fund Investing; Private Equity; Renewable Energy; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Denmark

23 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Product Disasters Can Be Fertile Ground for Innovation

Galasso wanted to see if the sustained media attention would have a positive effect on pushing safety-related innovation in diagnostic devices using radiation. To judge that, they examined new patent applications filed after the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

January 2011
Case

Sidoti & Company: Launching a Micro-Cap Product

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Sarah Abbott

It is 2010 and Sidoti & Company, a New York-based brokerage firm specializing in small capitalization stocks, has just launched a new product- micro cap stock research. The firm has hired a group of five analysts who will produce written research reports on micro-cap... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Financial Strategy; Product Launch; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; New York (city, NY)

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06 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Should Entrepreneurs Pitch Products or Ideas for Products?

In trying to secure financial backing for a new product, independent innovators generally face the question of how much to invest in development before showing it around. Should they create, say, a working prototype (and maybe even... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Motion Pictures & Video; Entertainment & Recreation; Banking

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

and maintained rewarding relationships with his wife and their two children. “It takes a lot more than organizing your schedule to be productive.” In a widely read Harvard Business Review article (May 2011), Pozen outlined six "principles for getting a lot... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

August 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

The De Beers Group: Launching Lightbox Jewelry for Lab-Grown Diamonds

By: Benjamin C. Esty

In May 2018, the De Beers Group shocked the diamond industry when it announced it was launching a new fashion jewelry brand of laboratory-grown (synthetic) diamonds. The reaction was swift as people sought to understand the company’s motivations: was it a “huge gamble”... View Details

June 1991 (Revised April 1995)
Background Note

Mass Production and the Beginnings of Scientific Management

Examines the coming of mass production (continuous and large-batch processes and those involving fabricating and assembling of interchangeable parts), and relates the beginnings of modern factory management to the needs and opportunities created by the new technology.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Change Management; Production; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry

05 Jul 2004
What Do You Think?

Work-Life: Is Productivity in the Balance?

Summing Up This month's column sought to pose a trade-off between improved work-life balance and productivity. In general, many among the large number of respondents rejected the notion. As Brian O'Leary put it, " ... finding a work-life balance will not undermine... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2005
Working Paper

The Curse of Innovation: A Theory of Why Innovative New Products Fail in the Marketplace

By: John Gourville

August 1994
Case

Komatsu Ltd. (B): Profit Planning and Product Costing

Describes Komatsu's profit planning and product costing systems. Komatsu can boast a high degree of employee dedication to achieving its profit plan. Also explores the logic behind the design of a new cost system at Komatsu that is less accurate at the product level... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Profit

21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

iStock Thinking about the fast-approaching era of artificial intelligence, employers rejoice in the increases to productivity such tools could bring, while workers are more likely to calculate the time left before R2-D2 takes over their... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

Research Summary

Managing Product Development in Rapidly Changing Environments

By: Alan D. MacCormack

A consistent finding in many studies of innovation is the repeated failure of established firms when faced with radical changes in their core markets or technologies. Professor MacCormack's research takes the view that many of these failures can be attributed to the... View Details

07 Jul 2003
What Do You Think?

Can We Have Too Much Productivity Improvement?

Summing Up There was a wide divergence of opinion on this month's column. A surprising number of respondents concluded that an economy could suffer, at least in the short-run, from too much productivity improvement. But many suggested... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Nov 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

Keywords: by Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca; Technology; Web Services

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

businesspeople visible, and sees them as crucial to the emergence of a new kind of political economy. A third point of departure in the new literature concerns the production... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

May 2010
Supplement

Flare Fragrances Company, Inc.: Analyzing Growth Opportunities, Instructor Spreadsheet Supplement (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Lisa D. Donovan

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Market Segmentation; Product Introduction; New Product Marketing; Product Lines; Product Positioning; Distribution; Analysis; Product Launch