Publications

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July–August 2024
Article

The Middle Path to Innovation

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Duke Rohlen, Ben Creo and Will Kynes

Too many companies are failing to innovate. One reason, say the authors, is the polarized approach companies take to innovation. At one end of the spectrum, corporate R&D efforts tend to focus on product refreshes and incremental line upgrades that generate modest... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

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29 Jun 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

Keywords: Re: Emily Truelove; Consumer Products

2008
Simulation

Strategic Innovation Simulation: Back Bay Battery

By: Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen

This online simulation allows students to play the role of a business unit manager at Back Bay Battery Company who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery space. Players have to manage R&D... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Investment; Product Development; Research and Development; Battery Industry

2025
Working Paper

Too Much, Too Soon? Early Funding, Technological Unconventionality, and Innovation Capabilities

By: Harsh Ketkar and Maria Roche

The availability of financial resources significantly shapes firm innovation outcomes, especially for early-stage, innovation-focused technology firms. However, prior research has provided conflicting findings about this relationship: On the one hand, resource... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Technology Strategy; Novelty; Unconventionality; Resource Constraints; Early Stage Firms; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance

SSRN

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March–April 2017
Article

Innovation Outcomes in a Distributed Organization: Intrafirm Mobility and Access to Resources

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

Prior research has established a relation between intra-firm mobility and innovation outcomes at distributed organizations. The literature has also uniformly agreed on the mechanism underlying this relationship: the sharing of tacit knowledge and recombination of ideas... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Innovation and Invention; Resource Allocation

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2019
Working Paper

Using Technology to Augment Professionals, Instead of Replacing Them, for Innovative Problem Solving

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Felicia Ng, Aniket Kittur and Robert Kraut

While in some technological and scientific areas innovation is flourishing, in others it is stalling, leaving important problems unsolved for decades. One explanation is professionals’ limitations as problem solvers, as accumulating depth of knowledge enhances one’s... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Expertise; Future Of Work; Crowdsourcing; Artificial Intelligence; Problem Solving; Professionalism; Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development

25 Apr 2014
News

Investing in Innovation

Fund for Leadership and Innovation or made gifts directed to specific priorities. A multiyear series of Campaign events will be held in more than 20 locations around the world, each designed to connect... View Details

Keywords: HBS Fund; Educational Services

October 2016 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Innovating Beyond Ochsner

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Olivia Hull

The Ochsner Health System has developed a proprietary software tool designed to treat hypertension. Built into the system’s electronic medical records, the Hypertension Digital Medicine program allows patients to record their blood pressure at home and share readings... View Details

Educators

01 Jun 2022
News

'Rooted' In Innovation

in 2019 that is already creating jobs and expanding economic opportunities in his home country of Cameroon. In May, CassVita was honored with a Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge Award funded by the... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Understanding the Process of Innovation

pull this off? Focus instead on Big Idea Group's "process of innovation and value creation," says Christensen. Lack of creativity is rarely the reason for lackluster products View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gray

11 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Supporting Independent Workers During COVID-19: One Phone Call at a Time

classmates at Harvard Business School, and became fast friends over their passion for the gig economy and the future of work. They both spent their summer before HBS working with fintech-focused venture... View Details

April 1999 (Revised May 1999)
Teaching Note

Innovation and the General Manager: Managing Innovation: Introductory Teaching Note for Instructors

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Provides instructors with an overview of the entire Managing Innovation course. It lists the cases that are recommended to be taught in each class session and summarizes the key concepts students should learn in each of the course's five modules. View Details

Keywords: Cases; Innovation and Management; Managerial Roles

01 Jun 2023
News

An Engine of Innovation

Startup life can often feel like a solo sport, says Matt Segneri (MBA 2010), the Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Executive Director of the Harvard Innovation Labs: “What the three labs in our ecosystem do is to make building a venture something that happens within a truly... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

2023
Working Paper

Centralization and Organization Reproduction: Ethnic Innovation in R&D Centers and Satellite Locations

By: William R. Kerr

We study the relationship between firm centralization and organizational reproduction in satellite locations. For decentralized firms, the ethnic compositions of inventors in satellite locations mostly resemble their host cities, with little link to the inventor... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Business Offices; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design

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05 Nov 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Litigation of Financial Innovations

Keywords: by Josh Lerner

2007
Case

Technology transfer and innovation at China's First Auto Works

By: Ian Larkin

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology; Auto Industry; China

2022
Working Paper

The Regulation of Medical AI: Policy Approaches, Data, and Innovation Incentives

By: Ariel Dora Stern

For those who follow health and technology news, it is difficult to go more than a few days without reading about a compelling new application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to health care. AI has myriad applications in medicine and its adjacent industries, with... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Health Care and Treatment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Technological Innovation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry