Publications

September 2011
Article

What Drives Innovation?

By: Tom Nicholas

The idea that innovation drives economic growth is incontrovertible, but the factors that, in turn, drive innovation are not fully understood. This paper surveys the recent literature, focusing on three main drivers: intellectual property rights institutions, the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Economic Growth

Find at Harvard

Read Now

September 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?

By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg

In late 2018, evidence emerged that many of Google’s temporary help agency workers, vendors, and independent contractors (“TVCs”) were unhappy with the company. TVCs, who reportedly made up 49.95% of Google’s 170,000-person global workforce, had raised concerns of... View Details

10 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Top Scholars Say About Leadership

methods were inadequate for the ill-structured problems he encountered in city planning. Like Follett he often found himself working on what he termed "wicked problems," problems that, among other things, cannot really be understood until they are solved.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

August 2020
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu and George Gonzalez

In the first half of 2020, worldwide lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought explosive growth to the Zoom Video Communications platform, as people replaced in-person work and social events with videoconferencing. Months into the pandemic, CEO Eric Yuan... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Technology; Customer Value and Value Chain; Values and Beliefs; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; California

2016
Book

The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation

By: Vijay Govindarajan

How to Innovate and Execute. Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership

Find at Harvard

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

30 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

The Future of IT Consulting

adaptation in the IT consulting industry will be required in the future. By introducing innovations and educating the market about the competitive benefits of those innovations, IT consulting invents and "earns" its... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Consulting

September 2017 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Adaptive Platform Trials: The Clinical Trial of the Future?

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In July 2017, Dr. Brian M. Alexander, president and CEO of the AGILE Research Foundation, was preparing to launch a new type of clinical trial—an adaptive platform trial—to study potential therapies for glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive form of brain cancer.... View Details

Keywords: Clinical Trials; Cancer; Adaptive Platform Trials; Platform Trials; Adaptive Trials; Glioblastoma; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Business Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Health Industry; United States

February 2019 (Revised September 2021)
Case

The a2 Milk Company

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) became the most valuable company listed on the New Zealand stock exchange in 2018 by capitalizing on a biochemical discovery related to the protein composition of cow's milk. Because many people find the A1 protein difficult to digest, and... View Details

May 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Health City Cayman Islands

By: Tarun Khanna and Budhaditya Gupta

Narayana Health (NH) had been successfully delivering affordable high quality tertiary care to the masses in India through its chain of hospitals for over a decade. To encourage the adoption of the NH affordable care delivery model worldwide, Dr. Shetty, Chairman of... View Details

June 2023
Case

Verve Therapeutics: Taking DNA Editing to Heart

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

Verve Therapeutics, a public biotech company based in Boston, created a novel approach to addressing cardiovascular disease (CVD) - a leading cause of deaths globally. The company's approach was a single shot treatment to permanently lower cholesterol, thus reducing... View Details

Keywords: AI; Genetic Engineering; Medicine; Health Care and Treatment; Genetics; Innovation Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Medical Specialties; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry

23 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

The Vinyl Renaissance: Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf

Streaming accounts for about 85 percent of today’s music consumption, but sales of vinyl records have grown steadily over the past decade, owing to their rediscovery by members of Gen Z who view them as a timeless medium that offers richer sound quality. In fact, the... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Music

June 2023
Case

Launching Egypt’s First Digital Banking Platform: QNB Bebasata

By: Mark Egan, Billy Chan and Ahmed Dahawy

The leadership team at QNB Alahli, Egypt's second biggest private bank, looked back on their efforts to create a brand-new, fully digital banking platform since 2019. A digital-only banking service was unprecedented in Egypt, a country where over 90% of financial... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Product Launch; Finance; Banking Industry; Egypt

Web

Impact of the New Medium - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

achievement, noting how "photography has benefited from an application which places picture-making on an unparalleled level of popularity, and opens exciting new vistas for future development." 77 EXPLORE MORE OF THE EXHIBIT EXPLORE x HOME EMERGENCE OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY... View Details

March 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, The

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

In just seven days, the Ritz-Carlton transforms newly hired employees into "Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen." The case details a new hotel launch, focusing on the unique blend of leadership, quality processes, and values of self-respect and dignity,... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Status and Position; Culture; Value Creation; Accommodations Industry; Service Industry

April 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

IBM: Design Thinking

By: Srikant M. Datar, Amram Migdal and Paul Hamilton

This case describes the 2012-2020 effort at IBM to implement design thinking throughout the company and hire thousands of designers to serve on every product team alongside technical engineers and developers and product managers. IBM’s design transformation is told... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Divisions; Business Units; Business Organization; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Competency and Skills; Talent and Talent Management; Design; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Jobs and Positions; Job Design and Levels; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Operations; Product; Product Design; Product Development; Organizations; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Adaptation; Adoption; Technological Innovation; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States

01 Jun 2023
News

Buy Big, Sell Small

If you live in a rural village or small city in India and run low on toothpaste, rice, or cooking oil, you’ll likely visit your local kirana, the equivalent of a US neighborhood variety store and a mainstay of the country’s $932 billion retail economy. The shops are... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; retail; supply chain management; entrepreneurship; leadership; innovation; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade

January 2014 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Samuel Slater & Francis Cabot Lowell: The Factory System in U.S. Cotton Manufacturing

By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew Guilford

At the time of the American War of Independence (1776-1783) and for several decades after it, Great Britain dominated the global production of cotton textiles. In fact, Britain became so dominant in textile manufacturing and trading that Manchester, its industrial... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Production; Business History; Manufacturing Industry; Great Britain; Massachusetts