Independent Innovation and Invention - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 2025
Case

AI Meets VC: The Data-Driven Revolution at Quantum Light Capital

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Ilya Kondrashov, CEO of Quantum Light Capital, was driven to harness AI for identifying high-potential scale-ups. Collaborating with Nik Storonsky, founder of Revolut, the duo observed that most venture capital (VC) decisions were heavily influenced by emotion, with... View Details

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Article

Surviving Radical Technological Change through Dynamic Capability: Evidence from the Typesetter Industry

Recent work in the field of management has focused on "dynamic capability," the ability of a firm to develop new capabilities in response to shifts in its external environment, as a significant source of competitive advantage. This paper enhances our understanding of... View Details

Keywords: Management; Technology; History; Competition; Competency and Skills; Investment; Technological Innovation; Business Ventures; Geographic Location; Knowledge Acquisition; Competitive Advantage; Change

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01 Dec 2001
News

A Close-Up Look at the Men behind the Empire

Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built (HarperBusiness), a new book by HBS professor Richard S. Tedlow, presents fascinating biographical essays of seven men whose... View Details

Keywords: Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices

31 Jul 2007
First Look

First Look: July 31, 2007

both men—Forbes christened Schumpeter, not Keynes, the best navigator through the turbulent seas of globalization. Time has proved that assessment accurate. Prophet of Innovation is also the private story of a man rescued repeatedly by... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Jun 2016
First Look

June 14, 2016

roles are uncertain, goals are shifting, expertise and organizational cultures are varied, and participants have clashing or even antagonistic perspectives. I have studied more than a dozen cross-industry... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Oct 2020
News

Clearing the Path to Citizenship

appropriate federal forms, which can sometimes exceed 600 pages, and independent immigration attorneys review the applications to ensure all the necessary supporting documents are included. The company... View Details

Keywords: April White

07 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 7, 2009

efficiency, independence of irrelevant objects, and resource-monotonicity on two preference domains (Ehlers and Klaus, 2003, Theorem 1). They explicitly prove Theorem 1 for... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Jun 2013
News

Collective Wisdom

according to Karim R. Lakhani, is that thanks to the Internet, crowdsourcing has moved into new and unexpected industries and organizations, establishing itself as a mainstream strategy for View Details

Keywords: crowdsourcing; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools

04 Dec 2014
News

Hacking Health Care

vision is Hacking Heath, a Montreal-based social collaborative that hosts weekend brainstorming sessions, or “hackathons,” to spur innovation in the industry and, ultimately, save lives. “The end game is to transform health care with more... View Details

Keywords: Jill Radsken

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

XTV: Xerox’s Attempted Recovery From “Fumbling the Future”

this period, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) delivered some important technologies for the corporation. One of the most critical inventions was laser printing for Xerox's printers and copiers, an... View Details

Keywords: by Henry Chesbrough

1990
Chapter

Implementing New Production Technologies: Exercises in Corporate Learning

By: D. A. Leonard-Barton

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Production; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Ventures; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Citation

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

Earth Day focuses the world's attention on the both the dangers and opportunities facing the planet. But sustainability and the intersection between business and the environment are issues that need to be addressed all the time, as cities grow, resources diminish, and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

December 2024
Supplement

Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change (B)

By: George Serafeim, Debora L. Spar, Peter Tufano, Hugo Etchegoyhen and Emilie Billaud

The (B) case explores Northvolt’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on November 21, 2024, highlighting the company’s struggles to scale operations amid a global EV market slowdown and internal production challenges. While the (A) case detailed Northvolt’s ambitious... View Details

Keywords: Batteries; Electric Vehicles; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy; Green Technology; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Technological Innovation; Risk Management; Failure; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transportation; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Sweden

Citation

16 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Weighing Digital Tradeoffs in Private Equity

When private equity (PE) firms buy a company, they typically follow a standard playbook to create value—streamlining operations, restructuring debt, changing management, and cutting costs. However, as digital technologies View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

16 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

Read Our Most Popular Stories of the Quarter

great customer service is no longer the responsibility of just one department. Creating the customer-centric organization. (12,182 visits) What Machine Learning Teaches Us about CEO Leadership Style Researchers use machine-learning to look for links between a CEO's... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

First National Bank's Golden Opportunity

By: Shawn A. Cole, Peter Tufano, Daniel Schneider and Daryl Collins

Executives at First National Bank in South Africa are considering whether to launch a potentially exciting, but rather unorthodox, new savings product. Instead of paying interest, this product gives depositors the chance to win large cash prizes each month. Michael... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Banks and Banking; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Demand and Consumers; Banking Industry; South Africa

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June 1989 (Revised May 1993)
Case

Fairfield Inn (A)

By: James L. Heskett

The Fairfield Inn, an economy hotel venture by the Marriott Corp., has developed a novel method for selecting and measuring the performance of its hotel personnel that fits the company's strategy. Because it faces the need to grow rapidly, questions have arisen as to... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Franchise Ownership; Performance Evaluation; Corporate Strategy; Accommodations Industry

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July 2011 (Revised September 2012)
Case

Intraoperative Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer (A)

By: Willy Shih

"This trial is going to take longer." Those were words that Michael Kaschke, CEO of Carl Zeiss AG, was not surprised to hear as he nurtured the intraoperative radiotherapy business inside his company's microsurgery unit. But he also didn't expect it to take 13 years to... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Business History; Disruptive Innovation; Emerging Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Safety

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05 Oct 2016
Blog Post

4 Things You Should Know about Entrepreneurship at HBS

and mentorship while I was at HBS, and since ZipBooks’ founding, has acted formally as an advisory board member. I was also amazed at how willing professors were to give their time View Details