Publications

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

H2 Green Steel: A Clean-Tech Triple Play?

By: Debora L. Spar, Gunnar Trumbull, Henry Tao and Julia Comeau

At the end of 2023, the Swedish startup H2 Green Steel was mid-way through construction on an integrated steel plant in Northern Sweden that would use abundant local hydro power to create Europe’s first commercial-scale green steel. Their goal was to help European... View Details

Keywords: Steel; Green Business; Green Technology; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Startups; Climate Change; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Renewable Energy; Steel Industry; Sweden

October 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

HTC and Virtual Reality

By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Allison M. Ciechanover

In fall 2017, HTC CEO and Chairperson Cher Wang was driving the company to focus on virtual reality (VR). HTC's first VR product, VIVE, released in spring 2016, was applauded for its superior immersive room-scale capabilities. However, early adoption of VR beyond... View Details

Keywords: Virtual Reality; Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Innovation and Management; Consumer Behavior; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Industry

2012
Book

The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited

By: Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

While the importance of innovation to economic development is widely understood, the conditions conducive to it remain the focus of much attention. This volume offers new theoretical and empirical contributions to fundamental questions relating to the economics of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Nonprofit Organizations; Resource Allocation; Economic Growth; Research and Development

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April 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

AI Wars

By: Andy Wu, Matt Higgins, Miaomiao Zhang and Hang Jiang

In February 2024, the world was looking to Google to see what the search giant and long-time putative technical leader in artificial intelligence (AI) would do to compete in the massively hyped technology of generative AI. Over a year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a... View Details

Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation

May 2017
Case

Fresh to Table

By: Gautam Mukunda and Brooks C. Holtom

After the contentious firing of an office manager, the leadership at Fresh to Table, a software-as-a-service provider for luxury hotels and restaurants, make an unpleasant discovery. While reviewing the office manager's internal electronic communications, company... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Resignation and Termination; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Leadership

April 2001 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Color Kinetics Incorporated (A)

By: Das Narayandas and Mary N. Caravella

Two-year-old start-up Color Kinetics has developed unique colored lighting technology using digitally controlled LEDs, and has developed that technology into a successful line of products for its first targeted market of "retailtainment." Now in November 1999, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Growth and Development; Management Teams; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Electronics Industry

Julia Austin is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship where she currently teaches Startup Operations. Julia is also a certified Executive Coach, board member, startup advisor and angel investor... View Details

September 2017
Case

Sensing (and Monetizing) Happiness at Hitachi

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

Inspired by research linking happiness and productivity, Hitachi had invested in developing new “people analytics” technologies to help companies increase employee happiness. Hitachi had begun manufacturing high-tech badges that quantify a wearer’s activity patterns.... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Japan; Sociometers; Wearables; Interpersonal Communication; Human Resources; Happiness; Technology Industry; Japan

June 2016
Case

Alnylam: Building a Biotechnology Powerhouse

By: Kevin Schulman

Alnylam is an early stage biomedical technology focused on commercial development of a novel technology platform, siRNA. This technology offered promise to treat rare genetic disorders that could not be treated with other technologies. Alnlyam's development entailed... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Health Disorders; Intellectual Property; Biotechnology Industry

26 Aug 2016
News

Under Armour's value to city overhangs TIF debate

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Transparency Sped Innovation in a $13 Billion Wireless Sector

deliberately makes its drivers available, they're giving up some of that proprietary protection they've made for themselves in the interest of trying to invite more partners.” He adds that he understands why some firms are reluctant to open up their View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology

01 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

File-Sharing and Copyright

Keywords: by Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Koleman Strumpf; Technology; Technology

The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)

While the importance of innovation to economic development is widely understood, the conditions conducive to it remain the focus of much attention. This volume offers new theoretical and empirical contributions to fundamental questions relating to the economics of... View Details

2009
Working Paper

The CHAT Dataset

By: Diego A. Comin and Bart Hobijn

This note accompanies the Cross‐country Historical Adoption of Technology (CHAT) dataset. CHAT is an unbalanced panel dataset with information on the adoption of over 100 technologies in more than 150 countries since 1800. The data is available for download at:... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; History; Technology Adoption