Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(295)
- Faculty Publications (112)
- Summer 2013
- Article
IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property
By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih
Firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, this article introduces the concept of "IP... View Details
- 2013
- Chapter
Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: Task Decomposition, Knowledge Distribution and the Locus of Innovation
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf and Michael L. Tushman
This chapter contrasts traditional, organization-centered models of innovation with more recent work on open innovation. These fundamentally different and inconsistent innovation logics are associated with contrasting organizational boundaries and organizational... View Details
- December 2012 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
AmTran Technology Ltd.
By: Willy Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Karen E. Robinson
As an original design manufacturer (ODM) of television sets and leading supplier to Vizio, a market leader in the U.S. for LCD flat panel TVs, AmTran Technology Ltd. uses what founder Alpha Wu describes as a "WE" model in which western companies perform sales,... View Details
Keywords: Modularity; Technology Transitions; Analog; Digital; Television; TV; Flat-panel; ATSC; NTSC; Video; Global Strategy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Product Design; Supply Chain; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Electronics Industry; Taiwan; United States; Japan
- 2012
- Article
Organization Design for Business Ecosystems
The modern corporation has long been the central focus of the field of organization design. Such firms can be likened to nation-states: they have boundaries that circumscribe citizen-employees, and they engage in production and trade. But individual corporations are... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised May 2013)
- Case
ASUSTeK and the Google Nexus 7 Tablet
By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang
Days after Jerry Shen introduced a new tablet computer at the Consumer Electronics Show, a Google meeting convinced him to go with a lower price point and co-branding as the Nexus 7. While his company would have a premier position at launch, companies like Samsung... View Details
Keywords: Nexus; Google; ASUSTeK; Android; Tablet; Kindle; Kindle Fire; Notebook Computers; ODM; Apple; Price Point; App Store; Ecosystem; Open Handset Alliance; Reference Design; iPad; EMS; Electronic Manufacturing Services; Smartphone; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Industry Structures; Product Design; Product Development; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Taiwan; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
Modularity and Organizations
Modularity describes the degree to which a complex system can be broken apart into subunits (modules) that can be recombined in various ways. Modularity is important for organizations and the economy because the boundaries of organizational units and corporations are... View Details
- Article
Exploring the Duality Between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the 'Mirroring' Hypothesis
By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak
A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that the organization produces. Specifically, products tend to "mirror" the architectures of the organizations in which they are... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Digital Microscopy at Carl Zeiss: Managing Disruption
By: Willy Shih
Ulrich Simon, the head of the Microscopy business group at Carl Zeiss AG knew that his unit was facing a disruptive threat, so he chartered a special team to tackle the industrial segment. Given a high degree of autonomy, the project team developed an understanding of... View Details
- Sep 2012
- Keynote Speech
Modularize—Allocate—Protect: How Firms Profit from Open Modular Systems
- 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
Keywords: Technology Transitions; Competency-destroying; Digital; Analog; Digital Transition; Modular; Modularity; Technological Change; Radical Innovation; Incremental Innovation; Architectural Innovation; Modular Innovation; Sustaining Innovation; Competency-enhancing; Noise Propagation; Perfect Copying; Digital Music; Digital Media; Consumer Electronics; Kodak; Sony; Panasonic; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Adoption; Transition; Change Management; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property
By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih
In this paper we explain how firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, we introduce the concept... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
IP Modularity in Software Ecosystems: How SugarCRM's IP and Business Model Shape Its Product Architecture
By: Josef Waltl, Joachim Henkel and Carliss Y. Baldwin
- 11 May 2012 - 12 May 2012
- Conference Presentation
Patents and Modularity
- March 2012
- Article
Does America Really Need Manufacturing?
By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih
Too many U.S. companies base decisions about where to locate production largely on narrow financial criteria. They don't consider whether keeping manufacturing at home makes more sense strategically or take into account the impact it might have on their ability to... View Details
- 2011
- Working Paper
From Single Deals to Negotiation Campaigns
By: David A Lax and James K. Sebenius
Negotiation scholars typically take the individual deal, or a few linked deals, as the unit of analysis. While analyzing one deal requires a familiar conceptual framework, doing the same for a broader "negotiation campaign" calls for a different focus and set of... View Details
Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Framework; Business Subsidiaries; Agreements and Arrangements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Information Management; Finance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Business and Government Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues
- 2012
- Working Paper
The Impact of Modularity on Intellectual Property and Value Appropriation
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel
Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect intellectual property (IP). We... View Details
- 18 Nov 2011
- Conference Presentation