Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(675)
- Faculty Publications (74)
- November 2017
- Case
iRobot: Moving Beyond the Roomba
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
The makers of the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, connected the latest version of their product to the Internet. This new feature opened up a wealth of new opportunities and challenges for the company. View Details
Keywords: Irobot; Smart Home; Connected Home; Roomba; Vacuum; Mapping; Internet Of Things; Connected Products; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- 2017
- Working Paper
Explaining the Vertical-to-Horizontal Transition in the Computer Industry
This paper seeks to explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated corporations in the late 19th century and the opposing forces that led to a vertical-to-horizontal transition in the computer industry 100 years later. I first model the... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens
By: Willy Shih
This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details
Keywords: Big Data; Internet Of Things; Internet Of Everything; Industrie 4.0; Digital Factory; Digital Enterprise; Digital Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Production Management; Production Planning; Computer Software; Germany; German Manufacturing; Machinery and Machining; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Technological Innovation; Production; Supply Chain; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science; Manufacturing Industry; Germany
- Article
Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy
By: Edward Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca
The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation
By: Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani
The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary growth of new models of managing and organizing the innovation process, which emphasize users over producers. Large parts of the knowledge economy now routinely rely on users, communities, and open innovation... View Details
- January 2016
- Case
Open Innovation at Fujitsu (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey
This case study examines the open innovation journey at Fujitsu, a global information and communication technology company. The case ends with the location decision between Tokyo, Japan, downtown San Francisco or Sunnyvale, California, regarding establishing a small... View Details
Keywords: Open Innovation; Collaboration; Culture Change; Leadership; Japan; United States; Inter-organizational Relationships; Teaming; Maker Movement; Nascent Industries; Change Management; Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Emerging Markets; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Sunnyvale; Tokyo; San Francisco
- October 2015
- Case
Facebook: The First Ten Years
By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively
Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details
- Summer 2015
- Article
Investment Incentives in Open-Source and Proprietary Two-Sided Platforms
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes
We study incentives to invest in platform quality in open-source and proprietary two-sided platforms. Open platforms have open access, and developers invest to improve the platform. Proprietary platforms have closed access, and investment is done by the platform owner.... View Details
- May 2015 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Philips Healthcare: Marketing the HealthSuite Digital Platform
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In June 2014, leading healthcare and consumer technology company, Royal Philips ("Philips"), announced its HealthSuite Digital Platform to house healthcare data and enable applications used by physicians and patients. Philips had strong equity in the healthcare... View Details
- September 2014
- Teaching Plan
Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm
In early 2009, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life was... View Details
- August 2014
- Case
Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (A)
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Greta Friar and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa
In 2006, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, was looking for a way to solve Netflix's customer churn problem. Netflix used Cinematch, its proprietary movie recommendation software, to promote individually determined best-fit movies to customers. Hastings determined that a... View Details
Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Prizes; Digitization; Algorithms; Recommendation Software; Disruption; Transformation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- June 2014
- Teaching Note
Google Glass
By: Thomas Eisenmann
In early 2014, business development executives at Google were formulating a distribution strategy for Glass, a wearable computer that projected information on a display viewable with an upward glance. Options, which were not mutually exclusive, included 1) continuing... View Details
- April 2014 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
Google Glass
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Lauren Barley and Liz Kind
In early 2014, business development executives at Google were formulating a distribution strategy for Glass, a wearable computer that projected information on a display viewable with an upward glance. Options, which were not mutually exclusive, included 1) continuing... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
Open English
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Lisa Mazzanti
Open English, a Miami-based startup offering online English language learning services, had more than 30,000 active students across Latin America in 2012. The company had just closed a $43 million financing round in order to rapidly scale its service to the next level.... View Details
- August 2013 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Coursera
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Hyunjin Kim
By providing free and open-access online courses at a large scale, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms seek to innovate the business models of the traditional higher education industry. In a little over a year, Coursera had grown at a rapid rate to emerge as a... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
Open Innovation at Siemens
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Katja Hutter, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa and Johann Fuller
The case describes Siemens, a worldwide innovator in the Energy, Healthcare, Industry, and Infrastructure & Cities sectors, and its efforts to develop and commercialize new R&D through open innovation, including internal and external crowdsourcing contests. Emphasis is... 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
- 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
- August 2011
- Supplement
InnoCentive.com (B)
By: Karim R. Lakhani and Eric Lonstein
InnoCentive.com enables clients to tap into internal and external solver networks to address various business issues. In 2008, InnoCentive introduced "InnoCentive@Work" (lC@W), which recognized clients' reluctance to share problems and solutions with an external... View Details
- July 2011 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
Digital Microscopy Is Making Me Crazy!
By: Willy Shih
For Carl Zeiss Microimaging, modular hardware and software enabled customers to tailor Zeiss's broad range of microscopy systems hardware and software to meet a wide range of needs from basic scientific research in the biological and medical sciences to clinical... View Details