Publications

19 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Digital Technology’s Profound Game Change for Marketers

technology's impact on their business, the entire customer experience, and leading innovation within their enterprises, not simply following a course set by their IT department. "Madison Avenue meets... View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang; Advertising; Technology

December 2004 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Intel Research: Exploring the Future

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

It is 2004 and David Tennenhouse, the director of Intel Research, is reviewing the organization he has built since 2000. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the "silicon roadmap" that drove most of Intel's R&D efforts.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Performance Evaluation; Venture Capital; Technology Networks; Semiconductor Industry; United States

May 1999
Background Note

Broadband Race, The

By: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak

Surveys developments in broadband in the late 1990s, focusing on the rivalry between telecom companies deploying DSL and cable companies rolling out cable modem service. Reviews the major broadband technologies, examines the state of competition in the United States,... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Competition; Telecommunications Industry; United States; Hong Kong; Singapore

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17 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Business Case for Diabetes Disease Management

HealthPartners, an independent nonprofit that is one of three health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the Minneapolis market. HealthPartners has an enrollment of about 675,000 people, and its network... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

September 2016 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Pebble: Wearables Pioneer

By: David Yoffie and Allison Ciechanover

In the summer of 2016, wearables “wunderkind” and Pebble founder and CEO, Eric Migicovsky, was pleased with the young startup’s success in the five years since its founding. The Silicon Valley–based company had recently shipped its two millionth smartwatch; held the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Product; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States; California

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

How Technological Disruption Changes Everything

who are focused on their existing and most profitable markets and don't see the threat coming from below. Exhibit A: The death of Digital Equipment Corp., which, along with a string of other minicomputer... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health

September 2023 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Avive: Resuscitating a Defibrillator from the Regulatory Brink

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

Avive Solutions set out to create a better Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) that would solve many of the problems with existing solutions, including lack of connectivity, difficulty-of-use and requiring prior training for successful use of the device, data... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Product Development; Business and Government Relations; Research and Development; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

June 2017
Teaching Note

IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Ginni Rometty, who became IBM CEO in 2012, led efforts to transform the company around cognitive computing and the AI platform Watson. This Teaching Note helps instructors understand and teach the Harvard Business School case “IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Technological Change; Artificial Intelligence; Data; IBM; Watson; Internet Of Things; Innovation and Invention; Management; Sales; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Transformation; AI and Machine Learning

July 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Joel L. Dawson: Eta Devices

By: Steven Rogers and Derek G. Abrams

After a successful career in research and academia, Joel Dawson decided to pursue entrepreneurship in the semiconductor industry. As one of the growing number of African-Americans in the technology field, Joel Dawson co-founded Eta Devices in 2010 based on new... View Details

Keywords: Joel Dawson; Eta Devices; Semiconductor Entrepreneurship; Decision Theory; Decision Making; Finance; Engineering; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Semiconductor Industry; Boston

13 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

The Dark Side of Trust

barrier to entry to competitors offering innovative products. What were your main findings about how trust influences the speed at which new ideas and products diffuse in the economy? A: We found that the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Service

August 2023
Case

Augmenix: Space to Think Differently

By: Satish Tadikonda and Sidhant Jena

Amar Sawhney, a serial medtech entrepreneur, had founded Augmenix to develop and commercialize a hydrogel-based medical device called SpaceOAR as an adjunctive technology to core radiation therapy. This technology was used to protect organs at risk (OAR) during... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Technology Adoption; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Commercialization; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

January 2021
Supplement

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

June 2005 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Note on the Convergence Between Genomics & Information Technology

By: David B. Yoffie, Dharmesh M Mehta and Rachel Sha

Focuses on the convergence between the genomics and semiconductor industries, in particular organ printing, DNA computing, biomolecular sensory networks, and DNA microarrays. Explains what this newly converged world looks like based on current research and findings in... View Details

Keywords: Genetics; Information Technology; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

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October 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

uberPOOL

By: Marco Iansiti, Michael W. Toffel and Amram Migdal

This case describes Uber's uberPOOL service, which let multiple Uber users who were headed in the same direction share a ride and pay substantially lower fares. View Details

Keywords: Uber; uberPOOL; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Transportation; Transportation Networks; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

features or discovered bugs. Feed its direct and indirect network effects. Support as much as possible the independent software vendor community so that the quantity and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

April 2010
Case

School of One: Reimagining How Students Learn

By: Stacey M. Childress, James Weber and Matthew Adams Haldeman

School of One was a start-up with a new approach to learning. Instead of one teacher delivering the entire math curriculum to a class of 20-25 students, School of One utilized a technology platform that allowed several teachers to collectively oversee the learning of a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Learning; Innovation and Invention

March 2020
Article

A Revolution in Economics? It's Just Getting Started...

By: Shawn A. Cole, William Pariente and Anja Sautmann

We have each experienced thrills and pain while supporting the mission of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which facilitated many of the experiments described in the 2019 Nobel Prize citation. J-PAL in many ways seeks to fulfill what Angrist and Pischke... View Details

Keywords: Randomized Control Trials; Economics; Research; Innovation and Invention