Publications

03 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Everyone Knows Innovation is Essential to Business Success—Except Board Directors

Open the Wall Street Journal on any given day, and you are likely to find at least one story about how technology is disrupting yet another industry, and the pressures companies face to innovate. And yet, for board members of companies... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2012
Working Paper

When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship

A rich and distinguished body of research has documented the importance of user innovations. For the most part, this literature has found that users innovate but do not commercialize their innovations. Instead, users benefit from using their innovations and allow... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Commercialization; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

Read Now

April 1999
Teaching Note

Dimensions of Technology Strategy: Managing Innovation: Overview Teaching Note for Module 5

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Provides instructors with an overview teaching note for the technology strategy module of the course. The cases in the module give students insights about several issues in technology strategy. These include: 1) Whether to be a technological leader or follower; 2)... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Investment Return; Innovation and Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Managerial Roles; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Research; Strategy; Technology

03 Jan 2017
News

Using Technology to Tailor Learning to Each Child

Heather Staker (MBA 2001) is president of Ready to Blend, a firm that works with K-12 teachers to combine educational technology solutions with classroom instruction to accelerate children’s ability to learn and achieve. In this... View Details

28 Feb 2019
News

New Program Will Develop Leaders of Innovative Ventures

and his wife, Kristen, were intrigued by the idea of helping Harvard undergraduates with a passion for technology and entrepreneurship become future leaders of innovative ventures. So, the Robertses are... View Details

10 Oct 2024
Blog Post

High-Tech Greenhouse Innovations in The Netherlands

In January 2024, Professors Willy Shih and Mike Toffel led 45 HBS MBA students on site visits to witness the energy transition and innovative sustainable production activities throughout Denmark and the Netherlands, in the second year of... View Details

01 Jun 2011
News

Student Teams Take on Real-World Innovation

car and truck company, but also a technology company.” Accordingly, the teams focused on out-of-the-box approaches to enhancing the way passengers experience mobile communications and computing. Unlike most field study projects, this one... View Details

Keywords: Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Research Summary

Evolution of firm structure in vertical specialized technology supply chains

By: Willy C. Shih

The global market in many everyday products has been transformed by the internationalization of production. In many industries, semiconductors and electronic products in particular, a sequential mode of production has evolved in which goods are produced... View Details

Keywords: Globalization Of Supply Chain; Globalization; Technological Innovation; Manufacturing Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Auto Industry; United States; Asia; China

05 Nov 2014
HBS Seminar

CV Harquail, Authentic Organizations and Stevens Institute of Technology

April 2011 (Revised April 2014)
Case

ASAHI Net: Bringing Innovation to Education

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi

ASAHI Net developed a cloud-based platform for higher education institutions to use in Japan and was wondering if that platform could be accepted in the U.S. as well. View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Information Management; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Technology Platform; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Japan; United States

15 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Business IT Innovation is so Difficult

Harvard Business School professor Kristina Steffenson McElheran studies the effect of information technology on business process innovation. It's a topic, she is sometimes told, that is, well, less than exciting. "I've had people say to... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

1989
Chapter

On Technological Evolution within and of Industry Boundaries

By: T. Khanna

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Industry Structures; Boundaries

December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Blockbuster Inc. & Technological Substitution (D): The Threat of Direct Digital Distribution

Examines the emergence of technologies for delivering video content to consumer homes via direct digital distribution and investigates the strategic options facing video rental giant Blockbuster Inc. as it tries to respond to the new technological substitutes. Examines... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Competition; Change Management; Service Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

February 2002
Case

NeuroTherapy Ventures: Catalyzing Neurologic Innovations

Discusses the impact of limited market size on epilepsy therapies and shows how an early-stage venture fund can catalyze faster development of new treatments. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Commercialization; Innovation and Management; Business Startups; Pharmaceutical Industry

24 Oct 2007
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

introduce innovations that transform the way companies do business and consumers behave. Disruptive changes that might serve as the source of innovation include technology... View Details

29 Aug 2020
News

How technology enabled women’s rights, and changed the institution of marriage

Teaching Interest

Overview

Anil has taught in front of MBA and doctoral students. He was a teaching fellow in "Managing Innovation" (taught by Professor Karim Lakhani) and "Strategies Beyond the Market" (taught by Professor Dennis Yao) as well as in the MBA Analytics program. Anil also... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Innovation; Technology Strategy; Innovation Management; Entrepreneurship

28 Jun 2022
News

Open Digital Platforms to Spur Innovation

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Innovation and Regulative Ambiguities in the U.S. Geothermal Power Sector

By: Shon R. Hiatt

While prior institutional research has focused on institutional ambiguity as an exogenous condition under which organizations exercise agency, this study examines the state's exercise of agency in making legal institutions more or less ambiguous and its impact on... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Policy; Energy Sources; Innovation and Invention; Energy Industry; United States