Disruptive Technology - Publications - Faculty & Research

28 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Could Create a 'Bankruptcy Pandemic'

vendors could disrupt supply chains, further hurting the business and destroying value. This potential problem is troubling to a number of bankruptcy scholars, including my colleague Mark Roe at Harvard Law School. So, is this bleak... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

June 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Strategic Innovation at the United Nations: A Network of Ecosystems

By: Frank Nagle, Elizabeth J. Altman and Amy Klopfenstein

In 2021, Gina Lucarelli, leader of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Labs, prepared for a meeting with UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. The two planned to discuss the future of the Accelerator Labs, a network of social innovation labs located... View Details

Keywords: Change; Disruption; Transformation; Change Management; Education; Learning; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Geography; Geographic Scope; Global Range; Local Range; Geopolitical Units; Country; Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Information Technology; Information Management; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Knowledge; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Enterprise; Non-Governmental Organizations; Social Psychology; Social and Collaborative Networks; Society; Social Issues; Welfare; Strategy; Cooperation; Adaptation; Public Administration Industry; North and Central America

Citation

Educators

04 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 4

Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51635 forthcoming Journal of Financial Economics Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital By: Ewens, Michael, Ramana Nanda, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf Abstract—We study how View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

The Upside of Highlighting a Product's Downsides

their products and downplay risks, fearing that any negative sentiment might hurt demand. But research led by Ryan W. Buell, a professor in the HBS Technology and Operations Management Unit, and doctoral student MoonSoo Choi found that... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

04 Aug 2011
What Do You Think?

How Dangerous Is Common Sense to Managers?

valid, Watts argues, why wouldn't we be able to predict the success of a strategy, a new disruptive technology, a product, or an advertisement? The reasons he gives are that these phenomena are too complex, involving so many variables... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Web

Launching Tech Ventures | HBS Online

manage your company. Launching Tech Ventures focuses specifically on technology companies and the early strategic decisions that founders, joiners and VCs must make to find a viable business model that has product-market fit. The course... View Details

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

creates a more genuine style of leadership communication. Interactivity turns that communication into a two-way dialogue, allowing management to respond to workers’ needs better, and act on their insights. Technology can facilitate a... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams, and Katherine Connolly Baden

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

other countries outside China such as Germany and Sweden before local contagion even started, allowing precious time to acquire personal protective equipment before it became scarce. Second, since the company was able to foresee large View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

PublicationsThe Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators Authors:Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen Publication:Harvard Business Press, 2011 Abstract Some people are just natural... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Mar 2018
News

Every Trick in the Book

Borders is gone. So are B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, and Crown Books. Barnes & Noble, headed by CEO Demos Parneros (AMP 178, 2010), now has about 630 physical bookstores—down from more than 700 in 2011. But the number of independent bookstores, a breed declared endangered... View Details

Keywords: April White

20 Jan 2023
News

Free Spirits

attention-begging designs give away its second disruptive innovation, which is to fully embrace its NA-ness, according to Annie Wilson (PhDBA 2020). A behavioral scientist and lecturer of marketing at the Wharton School who wrote a case... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality

26 Aug 2024
Research & Ideas

Can AI Match Human Ingenuity in Creative Problem-Solving?

When ChatGPT and other large language models began entering the mainstream two years ago, it quickly became apparent the technology could excel at certain business functions, yet it was less clear how well artificial intelligence could handle more creative tasks. Sure,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Information Technology; Information; Technology

15 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Post-CrowdStrike, Six Questions to Test Your Company's Operational Resilience

the full stack of technology infrastructure to find out if your business could support continuous operations during an actual disruption. Are there clear roles and responsibilities for business continuity? People: Clearly define and... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch

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,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

02 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Disruptors Sell What Customers Want and Let Competitors Sell What They Don’t

Over the past two decades, entire industries have been disrupted by Internet competitors who "unbundled" their content and delivered it to consumers in new ways. Newspapers lost out to Google and Craigslist, record companies to iTunes and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

20 Aug 2024
Book

Why Competing With Tech Giants Requires Finding Your Own Edge

turn, strengthens their bargaining position against each of these technology behemoths. To hub or not to hub: Finding the right path to grow your ecosystem When building an ecosystem, companies have choices: they can be a hub or a... View Details

Keywords: by Feng Zhu; Technology; Technology

05 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: iPads, Kindles, and the Close of a Chapter in Book Publishing

textbook market is another potential target for e-book disruption, especially as new devices such as the iPad add video and other immersive technologies to the mix. "If we as a society are concerned about the next generation... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Information; Publishing; Entertainment & Recreation

18 Nov 2013
Op-Ed

Twitter IPO: Overvalued or the Start of Something Big?

focusing on disruptive technologies, offers his analysis of the Twitter IPO phenomenon. In our second-year MBA elective Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (a course developed by my colleague Clay Christensen), one of the... View Details

Keywords: by Chet Huber; Technology

01 Apr 2000
News

At Cyberposium, Amazon's Bezos Debunks Internet Myths

movie theaters did with the advent of television. Myth #2: There are no barriers to entry on the Internet. What about the huge sums, asked Bezos, that Amazon and other e-commerce companies invest in their businesses? Barriers to entry are actually getting higher in the... View Details

01 Jun 2017
News

Streamlining the Supermarket

whom he’d known since high school. They were equally intrigued. “We thought, why don’t we use that technology to disrupt the grocery industry by bringing the same type of efficiencies to the supermarket?”... View Details

Keywords: Francis Storrs

Publications