Publications

05 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 5, 2017

much thinking on the importance of regions and the policies that should be designed towards them. But there is comparatively little work on what regional governments’ role should be in implementing these policies relative to that of other... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Other Article

Introduction

By: Stefano Brusoni, Joachim Henkel, Michael G Jacobides, Samina Karim, Alan MacCormack, Phanish Puranam and Melissa Schilling

In 2000, Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark published Design Rules: The Power of Modularity, a book that introduced new ways of understanding and explaining the architecture of complex systems. This Special Issue of Industrial and Corporate Change celebrates... View Details

Keywords: Complex Systems; Industry Structure; Systems Design; Complexity; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Innovation and Management

25 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Fostering Organizational Learning: The Impact of Work Design on Workarounds, Errors, and Speaking Up About Internal Supply Chain Problems

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker

18 Jul 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, July 18, 2017

is to suggest a (preliminary) taxonomy and research agenda for the topic of “firms, crowds, and innovation” and to provide an introduction to the associated special issue. We specifically discuss how various crowd-related phenomena and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 May 2016
Research Event

Crowdsourcing, Patent Trolls, and Other Research Insights Highlighted at Harvard Business School Symposium

Lakhani said the question comes down to this: Do we have the right labor force? His research team recently held a three-weeklong contest that looked to improve the accuracy and processing speed of an algorithm View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman & Carmen Nobel

05 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Constance E. Helfat, Karim R. Lakhani & Michael E. Menietti.

11 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

The House Wants to Squelch Voices of ‘Small’ Shareholders. Research Shows Those Voices Matter.

Source: iStock In June 2017, the US House of Representatives passed the Financial CHOICE Act, a 589-page bill designed to repeal many of the regulations in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Buried on... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 2020
Article

The Role of Interdependence in the Microfoundations of Organization Design: Task, Goal, and Knowledge Interdependence

By: Marlo Raveendran (formerly Goetting), Luciana Silvestri and Ranjay Gulati

Interdependence is a core concept in organization design, yet one that has remained consistently understudied. Current notions of interdependence remain rooted in seminal works, produced at a time when managers’ near-perfect understanding of the task at hand drove the... View Details

Keywords: Interdependence; Organizational Behavior; Work Design; Organizational Design; Goals and Objectives; Knowledge Sharing

Register to Read

July 2002
Article

The Economist As Engineer: Game Theory, Experimental Economics and Computation As Tools of Design Economics

By: Alvin E Roth

Keywords: Game Theory; Economics; Mathematical Methods; Design

01 Mar 2016
News

HBS Fund Helps Fuel Faculty Research and New Learning Experiences

Data’s Double Duty: Research and the Real World As Raffaella Sadun was wrapping up her Corporate Strategy course last fall, one of her students sent her a four-page analysis of the private equity industry in India, a topic the class had... View Details

01 Sep 2014
News

All For One

“collective genius” to describe the kind of leadership she saw at Pixar and assembled her own collective to research it. The team included her then–research associate Emily Truelove and Pixar executive Brandeau, who contributed his own... View Details

Keywords: Michael Blanding; faculty; research; Market Research, Photo, Translation, Veterinary and Other Services; Professional Services

2021
Working Paper

Consuming Contests: Outcome Uncertainty and Spectator Demand for Contest-based Entertainment

By: Patrick J. Ferguson and Karim R. Lakhani

Contests that are designed to be consumed for entertainment by non-contestants are a fixture of economic, cultural and political life. In this paper, we examine whether individuals prefer to consume contests that have more uncertain outcomes. We look to... View Details

Keywords: Contest Design; Information Preferences; Consumer Demand; Sports; Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Demand and Consumers; Outcome or Result

SSRN

2010
Article

Induced Variation in Administrative Systems: Experimenting with Contexts for Innovation

By: Adrian Caldart, Roberto Vassolo and Luciana Silvestri

Research on intra-organizational evolution determined that variation results from the autonomous strategic behavior of the firm. We revisit this idea by examining a case of induced variation, where a multinational firm experimented with different, coexisting,... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Design; Emerging Economies; Organizational Design; Innovation and Management

November 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Supplement

Global Expansion at Sanford C. Bernstein (C)

By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert

Robert van Brugge, CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein, a premier sell-side research firm, has recently appointed a new Director of Asian Research to lead the firm's Hong Kong office. Van Brugge wonders what advice he should give the new Director as the firm continues to... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Organizational Design; Talent Management; Leadership; Finance; Globalization; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; Hong Kong

01 Sep 2014
News

In Search of Innovation

Acceleration Challenge is designed to extend these pockets of excellence in health care delivery throughout the country. At the first Forum on Health Care Innovation, hosted by HBS and Harvard Medical School in 2012, senior health care... View Details

Keywords: April White; faculty research

Article

Exploring the Duality Between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the 'Mirroring' Hypothesis

By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak

A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that the organization produces. Specifically, products tend to "mirror" the architectures of the organizations in which they are... View Details

Keywords: Organization Design; Architecture; Modularity; Open Source Software; Communication; Design; Governance; Management Practices and Processes; Open Source Distribution; Product Design; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Structure; Performance; Problems and Challenges; Behavior; Software

March 2013 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Building Innovation at Terrapin Bright Green

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Sydney Ribot and Mary Saunders

Describes Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental consulting and strategic planning firm, and its approach for creating integrative, systematic solutions to green-building conundrums through consulting, research, and policy-related activities. Emphasis is placed on the... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Design; Entrepreneurs; Creative Industries; CONSULTING Firms; Energy; Design; Governance; Growth and Development; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge; Labor; Organizations; Problems and Challenges; Research; Strategy; Value; Consulting Industry; New York (city, NY)

Educators

Purchase

2016
Chapter

User-Generated Content and Social Media

By: Michael Luca

This paper documents what economists have learned about user-generated content (UGC) and social media. A growing body of evidence suggests that UGC on platforms ranging from Yelp to Facebook has a large causal impact on economic and social outcomes ranging from... View Details

Keywords: User-generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Design Economics; Internet and the Web; Marketing; Economics; Media; Social Media