Publications

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March 1994
Article

Expropriation and Inventions: Appropriable Rents in the Absence of Property Rights

By: J. Anton and Dennis Yao

We analyze the problem faced by a financially weak independent inventor when selling a valuable, but easily imitated, invention for which no property rights exist. The inventor can protect his or her intellectual property by negotiating a contingent contract (with a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Rights; Sales; Contracts; Negotiation

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March 1998
Teaching Note

Electric Vehicles: Pipe Dream or Product of the Future? TN

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Teaching Note for (1-698-065). (A reprint not in this system). View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Information Technology; Performance; Auto Industry

December 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Technical Note

A Guide to the Vocabulary, Evolution, and Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By: Shane Greenstein, Nathaniel Lovin, Scott Wallsten, Kerry Herman and Susan Pinckney

A note on the vocabulary, evolution, and impact of AI. View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Software; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry

Educators

2009
Working Paper

Assess, Don't Assume, Part II: Negotiating Implications of Cross-Border Differences in Decision Making, Governance, and Political Economy

By: James K. Sebenius

When facing a cross-border negotiation, the standard preparatory assessments—of the parties, their interests, their no-deal options, opportunities for and barriers to creating and claiming value, the most promising sequence and process design, etc.—should be... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Corporate Governance; Negotiation Process; Organizational Culture; Business and Government Relations

November 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

reMarkable: e-Writing the Future

By: Elie Ofek and Curtis Hsu

Magnus Wanberg is the creator of reMarkable, a breakthrough e-writer device set apart from similar products on the market by having solved the frustrating “slow ink” problem typically experienced on pen-based electronic devices, thus providing a “pen and paper” like... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Innovation Management; Go To Market Strategy; Marketing Plan; Target Market; Digital Devices; Consumer Electronics; Forecasting; Information Technology; Marketing Strategy; Innovation and Management; Marketing Channels; Entrepreneurship; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Marketing; Product Development; Electronics Industry

Educators

2024
Working Paper

Moral Incoherence During Category Emergence: The Contentious Case of Connected Toys

By: Ryann Noe

Through a longitudinal study of the emergence of connected toys – physical toys that interact with digital devices – I build theory about moral incoherence: when competing views about the moral worth of a category persist over time. During the course of their... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Moral Sensibility; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Behavior

01 Mar 2023
News

The Latest Model

Cathy Barrera (PHDBE 2014), cofounder of the economic consulting firm Prysm Group, was looking for something new to do. She had just left a tenure-track position at Cornell, where her research focused on the intersection View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; blockchain; cryptocurrency; economic models; innovation; consulting; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

September 2023
Teaching Note

Nexleaf Analytics: Saving the World Using the Internet of Things

By: Frank Nagle

Teaching Note for HBS Case 722-414. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Competitive Strategy; Patents; Expansion; Information Technology; Health Industry; Information Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Technology Industry

05 Aug 2002
What Do You Think?

Is Platform Leadership Old Hat or the Wave of the Future?

Summing Up Platform leadership, the process by which base technologies are developed and on which innovations created by many entrepreneurs can be based, may be characteristic of the knowledge economy. But... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

31 Jan 2024
Blog Post

Career Advice from the Guests of the HBS Climate Rising Podcast

outside of our direct industry to address it. Paul McDonald, Senior Director, Opower Product Strategy & Marketing at Oracle (How OPower Uses Behavioral Science & AI to Reduce Energy Demand): “There's... View Details

Article

Signaling When Nobody Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment in One-shot Anonymous Interactions

By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. However, why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation... View Details

Keywords: Signaling; Morality; Trustworthiness; Anger; Third-party Punishment; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Trust; Reputation

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November 14, 2022
Article

Policies for Adapting to the ‘New Normal’ of the Anthropocene

By: Andrew J. Hoffman, P. Devereaux Jennings and Nicholas A. Poggioli

Keywords: Natural Environment; Environmental Management; Economic Systems; Behavior; Technological Innovation

July 13, 2023
Article

Threads Foreshadows a Big—and Surprising—Shift in Social Media

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Liang Wu

Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, has become the fastest downloaded app in history. One of the reasons for this is because it allows users to port over their profiles and follows from the already popular social media platform Instagram, also owned by Meta—a feature... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; Crypto Economy; Blockchain; Network; Industrial Organization; Competition; Open Innovation; Open Platforms; Open Source Innovation; Social Networks; Social Media; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry

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September 2016 (Revised October 2018)
Case

LabCDMX: Experiment 50

By: Mitchell Weiss and Maria Fernanda Miguel

There were probably 30,000 public buses, minibuses, and vans in Mexico City. Though, in 2015, no one knew for certain since no comprehensive schedule existed. This was why el Laboratorio para la Ciudad (or LabCDMX) had spawned an effort to generate a map of the... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Experimentation; Lean Startup; Government; Innovation; Crowdsourcing; Open Data; Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Government Administration; Transportation; Transportation Industry; Mexico City; Mexico

Educators

Web

Augustine Heard & Co.: Building a Family Business - A Chronicle of the China Trade

Home Site map Map / Directions Search: General Information HBS Home About Annual Report Campus Commencement Dean Nohria Employment Give News New Construction Academic Programs Doctoral Programs Executive Education MBA Summer Venture in... View Details

2018
Working Paper

When to Take the Leap: The Antecedents and Consequences of Leapfrog CEOs

By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng

Much of the prior research on CEO successions focuses on differences between CEOs appointed from within the firm and those appointed from outside; however, this dichotomy neglects significant heterogeneity in CEOs’ career trajectories. In this study, I examine the... View Details

Keywords: Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Innovation and Management

2006
Other Unpublished Work

Does Competition Increase Patent Litigation? Empirical Evidence of Strategic Patenting in the Telecom Equipment Industry

By: Juan Alcacer and Rachelle C. Sampson

Anecdotal evidence suggests that patent litigation has increased in the last 20 years as firms in knowledge intensive industries use patents more frequently to protect their knowledge stocks and managers focus on extracting new revenue streams from existing patent... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Competition; Lawsuits and Litigation