Publications

May 2008
Supplement

Kenny Kahn at Muzak (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

Supplemental Material for 408-057 View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Geographic Location; Innovation and Invention; Employees; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Design; Music Industry

January 2008
Article

Where Will We Find Tomorrow's Leaders?

By: Linda A. Hill

Unless we challenge long-held assumptions about how business leaders are supposed to act and where they're supposed to come from, many people who could become effective global leaders will remain invisible, warns Harvard Business School professor Hill. Instead of... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Globalization; Innovation Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Situation or Environment; Personal Characteristics

November 1995
Case

InterZine Productions, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman and Jason Green

Brian Henley founded InterZine Productions to develop interactive multimedia content for America Online (AOL) and the Internet. With funding and support from AOL's Greenhouse program, Henley has launched Golf, a unique interactive golf service. While he has operated on... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Capital; Financing and Loans; Internet and the Web; Management Teams; Innovation and Invention; Media and Broadcasting Industry

October 2015 (Revised September 2016)
Technical Note

Flight: Now without Humans Aboard

By: Mitchell Weiss, Karim Lakhani, HT Kung and Kerry Herman

This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Drones; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Design; Research and Development; Technological Innovation; Rights; Ethics; Strategy; Transportation Networks; Market Entry and Exit; Innovation and Management; European Union; Asia; United States

April 2013 (Revised October 2013)
Case

National Instruments

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Keri Pearlson and Natalie Kindred

This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based in Austin, Texas, with over $1 billion in 2011 sales, NI designs, produces, and sells software and hardware platforms... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Organizational Culture; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Media; Management Systems; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry; Texas

2010
Article

We Cannot Go On: Disruptive Innovation and the First World War Royal Navy

By: Gautam Mukunda

Insights from Disruptive Innovation theory (DI) are often used in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of national security policy. DI explains why successful companies are sometimes defeated by new competitors with relatively unsophisticated products.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; History; National Security; Framework; Adaptation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technological Innovation; Machinery and Machining; Disruptive Innovation; Theory; Developing Countries and Economies; Technology Industry

October 2024
Article

Global Mobile Inventors

By: Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ernest Miguelez and Sara Signorelli

The number of Global Mobile Inventors (GMIs), inventors moving across borders during their career, has increased more than tenfold over the past two decades, and the corridors of mobility have shifted towards a growing presence of emerging markets. We document that... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Immigration; Patents; Knowledge; Technological Innovation

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Spring 2023
Article

Incentive Contract Design and Employee-Initiated Innovation: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

This study examines how the design of incentive contracts for tasks defined as workers’ official responsibilities (i.e., standard tasks) influences workers’ propensity to engage in employee-initiated innovation (EII). EII corresponds to innovation activities that are... View Details

Keywords: Employee-initiated Innovation; Contract Design; Rank-and-file; Extra-role Behaviors; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation and Management

April 2021
Case

Distinct Software

By: Das Narayandas, Arijit Sengupta and Jonathan Wray

Distinct Software (disguised name), a global enterprise software company, is at an important point in its growth trajectory where the luster of its mantra of “grow and win at any cost” has dimmed with increasing competition and margin pressures. To help navigate its... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Marketing; Sales; Performance Productivity; Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning

March 2020
Case

SRS and the Defense Innovation Unit: Rethinking Procurement

By: Paul A. Gompers and David Lane

SRS and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) follows the process by which SRS, a lean maker of remotely-operated submersible vehicles, navigates the DIU’s acquisition process. Set up in 2015 to speed the U.S. military’s access to promising commercial technologies, the DIU... View Details

Keywords: Procurement; Defense Innovation Unit; Business Startups; Acquisition; Technological Innovation; Investment; Commercialization; United States

2019
Chapter

Interorganizational Collaboration and Start-Up Innovation

By: Vikas A. Aggarwal and Andy Wu

This chapter presents an overview of the literature on collaborative relationships between start-ups and incumbent firms, focusing on the implications of these relationships for start-up innovation and performance. Value creation in such relationships occurs when... View Details

Keywords: Alliance; Corporate Venture Capital; Complementary Assets; Appropriability; Business Startups; Joint Ventures; Knowledge; Innovation and Invention; Value Creation; Entrepreneurship

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June 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Innovation at Insigne Health

By: Srikant M. Datar, Linda A. Cyr and Caitlin N. Bowler

Insigne Health is a fictional for-profit, integrated health insurer/health care provider whose leadership believes that by shifting members’ focus from “sickness” to “well-being” it could increase the overall health of its insured population and decrease the resources... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Behavior Change; Chronic Disease; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Design; Behavior; Change; Innovation and Management

Article

The Board's New Innovation Imperative: Directors Need to Rethink Their Roles and Their Attitude to Risk

By: Linda A. Hill and George Davis

As firms scramble for competitive advantage, boards—once the cautious voices urging management to mitigate risk—are now calling for breakthrough innovation. Indeed, avoiding risk is now seen as the riskiest proposition of all. In speaking with CEOs and board members... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Innovation Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Corporate Governance