Publications

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summer 1993
Article

Underinvestment and Incompetence as Responses to Radical Innovation: Evidence from the Photolithographic Industry

By: Rebecca Henderson

Keywords: Investment; Competency and Skills; Innovation and Invention; Fine Arts Industry

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07 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Investment Cycles and Startup Innovation

Keywords: by Ramana Nanda & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

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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09 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

How to Speed Up Energy Innovation

Is there a special sauce for stimulating innovation in the energy sector, a concoction to spur cost-effective developments toward solving the climate change problem? HBS professor Rebecca Henderson doesn't claim to know all the ingredients for that special sauce. But... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

20 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Five Discovery Skills that Distinguish Great Innovators

In their new book, The Innovator's DNA, authors Jeff Dyer, Hal Gergersen, and Clayton M. Christensen build on the idea of disruptive innovation to explain how and why the Steve Jobses and Jeff Bezoses of the world are so successful. This... View Details

Keywords: by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gergersen & Clayton M. Christensen

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

witnessing firms developing and experimenting with much more radical risk-mitigating technologies. These include developing new products and processes that mitigate contagion risk. For example, in China, robots have been designed to... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

February 2019 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Schneider Electric: Opening Up to External Innovation

By: Antonio Davila

Schneider Electric competes in tough but stable markets around energy management, automation, and control of infrastructures ranging from homes to production plants. New technologies and new approaches to serving markets are challenging the status quo. To take... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Venture Capital; Accelerator; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Organizational Design; Energy Industry; Manufacturing Industry; France; United States

February 2008
Case

Campbell Soup Company: Selling Channel Innovation to Customers

Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

26 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

A Clear Eye for Innovation

seeking to pioneer radical or disruptive innovations while pursuing incremental gains. A business does not have to escape its past, these cases show, to renew itself for the future. [...] A New Lens On... View Details

Keywords: by Charles A. O'Reilly III & Michael L. Tushman

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

Managers today have a problem. They know their companies must grow. But growth is hard, especially given today's economic environment where investment capital is difficult to come by and firms are reluctant to take risks. Managers know View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor & Scott D. Anthony

06 May 2002
Research & Ideas

A Toolkit for Customer Innovation

pace of change in many markets accelerates and as some industries move toward serving "markets of one," the cost of understanding and responding to customers' needs can easily spiral out of control. In the course of studying product View Details

Keywords: by Stefan Thomke & Eric Von Hippel

April 2019 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)

By: Ryan Raffaelli, David G. Fubini and Aldo Sesia

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Innovation Leadership; History; Technological Innovation; Investment; Decision Making

15 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Business IT Innovation is so Difficult

radical business process innovation versus incremental change. It's widely understood that when it comes to product innovation, market-leading firms are often more likely than laggards to pursue product... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

October 1994
Case

Campbell Soup Company: A Leader in Continuous Replenishment Innovations

Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management; Logistics

24 Oct 2007
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

change. Key concepts include: Jumpstarting innovation is a critical business imperative. Executives realize that radical change is needed, but do not feel equipped to be able to make those changes.... View Details

August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging

By: Willy Shih

Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details

23 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Product Disasters Can Be Fertile Ground for Innovation

incremental and radical innovations that made the devices safer and better. How safe a product is, unlike other features, may be difficult to judge before an event occurs. Often, the producer, the consumer,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

Research Summary

Reinvention and “Frame Flexibility”

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

Adopting a radical innovation creates pressure for leaders to reframe their mental models while they also sustain their organization's existing capabilities and product category variants. Yet at key junctures in a product class and during technological change, a... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Change; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Diffusion Processes; Technology Adoption; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Emotions

Summer 2020
Article

Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn

By: Josh Lerner and Ramana Nanda

Venture capital is associated with some of the most high-growth and influential firms in the world. Academics and practitioners have effectively articulated the strengths of the venture model. At the same time, venture capital financing also has real limitations in its... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Financing; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Technological Innovation