Publications

05 Apr 2022
Blog Post

The HBS New Venture Competition Turns 25: Celebrating A Quarter Century of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

$325,000 in cash prizes, sponsors have donated in-kind tools and services that will help the startups launch and grow. In-kind sponsors are AWS, Baker for Business, Bubble, CASE Smart Impact Capital, Foley Hoag, Harvard Innovation Labs,... View Details

November 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Supplement

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy (B)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau

After the legendary founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) retired, the new chairman had to grapple with fresh challenges related to its China market: a recently opened factory in China had to find ways to reverse its financial loss and meet its... View Details

Keywords: Cross-cultural; Foreign Investment; Government; Business and Government Relations; Globalization; Change Management; Customer Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Global Strategy; Leadership; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan; China

2018
Working Paper

Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production

By: Daniel P. Gross

Though fundamental to innovation and essential to many industries and occupations, individual creativity has received limited attention as an economic behavior and has historically proven difficult to study. This paper studies the incentive effects of competition on... View Details

Keywords: Incentives; Tournaments; Radical Vs. Incremental Innovation; Motivation and Incentives; Competition; Creativity; Innovation and Invention

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September 2020 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Catalys Pacific

By: Joshua Lev Krieger

In 2019, BT Slingsby founds Catalys Pacific, the first biotech “venture creation” fund in Tokyo. After convincing some of the biggest Japanese pharmaceutical firms to invest, BT hopes the fund can make a big splash and transform biotechnology innovation in Japan. After... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Companies; Biotech; Health Care; Entrepreneur; Innovation; International Business; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Innovation Strategy; Venture Capital; Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Tokyo

Web

Wartime Innovation - Georges F. Doriot : Educating Leaders, Building Companies, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

that he underwent the most significant metamorphosis of his life, transforming himself from a professor of business into a world-class builder of innovative new enterprises." 30 Doriot's understanding of the risks and rewards of View Details

February 2024
Supplement

Can Cities Beat the Heat? (B14): San Jose Climate Action Snapshot

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Hailey Chen and Jacob A. Small

Climate snapshots provide a summary of climate actions that occurred between 2018 and 2024, highlighting major green initiatives, innovations, carbon mitigation strategy, and action across multiple levels of government and the private sector. Snapshots also provide an... View Details

Keywords: Cities; Climate; Climate Impact; Innovation; Mitigation Policies; Carbon Footprint; Investing; Climate Finance; Mobility; Adaptation; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Problems and Challenges; Sustainable Cities; Innovation and Invention; United States; San Jose

February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Finberg: Corporate Venture Capital in Türkiye

By: Paul A. Gompers and Namrata Arora

In December 2021, Murat Özyeğin, Chairman of Fiba Holding, along with Ömer Mert and İhsan Elgin, engaged in discussions about the future of United Payment, a fintech company in which Finberg, a subsidiary of Fibabanka, held a 20% stake. Finberg, established in 2018 as... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Venture Capital; Technology; Return On Investment; Venture Capital; Investment; Strategy; Technological Innovation; Competition; Valuation; Acquisition; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Banking Industry; Middle East; North Africa; Turkey; Ukraine; Romania; Poland

Winter 2021
Article

Can Staggered Boards Improve Value? Causal Evidence from Massachusetts

By: Robert Daines, Shelley Xin Li and Charles C.Y. Wang

We study the effect of staggered boards (SBs) using a quasi-experiment: a 1990 law that imposed an SB on all Massachusetts-incorporated firms. The law led to an increase in Tobin's Q, investment in CAPEX and R&D, patents, higher-quality patented innovations, and... View Details

Keywords: Staggered Board; Entrenchment; Life-cycle; Tobin's Q; Innovation; Profitability; Investor Composition; Governing and Advisory Boards; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Institutional Investing; Value

SSRN

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October 2021
Case

Sparking Growth at Consumer Reports

By: Christina Wallace

Consumer Reports (CR) is a nonprofit organization that traditionally provided independent testing and research on consumer goods. With the need to diversify its audience and revenue streams CR partnered with market research firm Spark No. 9 to identify potential... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Management; Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Social Media; Innovation and Management; Nonprofit Organizations

22 Dec 2022
Blog Post

Climate Stories Episode #13: Democratizing Climate Returns - Nisha Desai (HBS 1997), Founder and CEO of Invest With Intention

energy.’ We were trying to be a bridge between saving the planet with new technologies” while talking to utilities and the “incumbent energy industry” about buying clean sources of power. Today, Nisha has evolved her focus and is launching a new venture, an View Details

Web

Wartime Innovation - Georges F. Doriot : Educating Leaders, Building Companies, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

that he underwent the most significant metamorphosis of his life, transforming himself from a professor of business into a world-class builder of innovative new enterprises." 30 Doriot's understanding of the risks and rewards of View Details

January 2024
Article

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

By: Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend and Yulia Zhestkova

The treatment of foreign investors is a contentious topic in U.S. entrepreneurship policy. We model a setting where foreign corporate investments in Silicon Valley may allow U.S. entrepreneurs to pursue technologies that they could not otherwise, but may also lead to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Corporate Venture Capital; Knowledge Spillovers; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Policy

SSRN

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February 2015
Case

TouchTunes and the Connected Digital Jukebox Platform

By: Alan MacCormack and Noah Fisher

The case describes innovation and new product development at TouchTunes, the leader in the Digital Jukebox market. In March 2013, after releasing its innovative "Virtuo" jukebox developed in collaboration with frog design, TouchTunes was at a crossroads. Having... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Design; R＆D; Outsourcing; Platform Strategy; Digital Media; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Music Industry

September 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

2U: Higher Education Rewired

By: Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Karim R. Lakhani

In its 2019 Partner Symposium, 2U, an online program management provider (OPM), showcased its new vision: “Career. Curriculum. Continuum. A construct for lifelong learning in the 21st century.” 2U, founded in 2008 and went public in 2014, was looking to expand beyond... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Architectural Innovation; Make V. Buy; Learning; Higher Education; Internet and the Web; Innovation Strategy; Transformation; Digital Transformation

Web

Student Spotlight: From Nigeria to HBS: Reigniting My Passion for Healthcare Innovation - Blog: Health Supplement

Practitioners Topics Topics Biotech/pharma Care Delivery Clinical Trials Digital Health Global Health Health Care Entrepreneurship Health Care Innovation Health Care Investment Health Care at HBS... View Details

May–June 2014
Article

Paradigm-Changing vs. Paradigm-Deepening Innovation: How Firm Scope Influences Firm Technological Response to Shocks

By: Gautam Ahuja, Curba Morris Lampert and Vivek Tandon

We examine the direction of firms' research efforts as they respond to the shock of a sharp increase in the price of a key input. In terms of direction, firms can respond to this shock with paradigm-changing investments that develop technologies to use substitute... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Evolutionary Approaches; Shocks; Technological Innovation; System Shocks; Corporate Strategy

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Article

Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Digitization; Industrial Internet; Technological Innovation; Production; Competitive Strategy; Engineering; Aerospace Industry

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January 2013 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Kunshan, Incorporated: The Making of China's Richest Town

By: William C. Kirby, Nora Bynum, Tracy Yuen Manty and Erica M. Zendell

In 1980, the city of Kunshan was mere countryside, registering neither on the Chinese government's nor the international business community's radar. By 2010, Kunshan had become the richest city per capita in China and a global technology powerhouse, home to companies... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Investment; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Emerging Markets; FDI; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Innovation Leadership; Technology Industry; China; Taiwan Strait