Fundamentals - Publications - Faculty & Research

October 2014
Article

Hidden Structure: Using Network Methods to Map System Architecture

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack and John Rusnak

In this paper, we describe an operational methodology for characterizing the architecture of complex technical systems and demonstrate its application to a large sample of software releases. Our methodology is based upon directed network graphs, which allows us to... View Details

Keywords: Architecture; Modularity; Dominant Designs; Complexity; Product Design; Software

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November – December 2011
Article

Explaining Influence Rents: The Case for an Institutions-Based View of Strategy

By: Gautam Ahuja and Sai Yayavaram

Research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents: monopolistic rents, efficiency rents, quasi rents, and Schumpeterian rents. Building on previous work on political and institutional strategies, we add a fifth type of rent: influence rents.... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Influence Rents; Generic Strategies; Strategy; Organizations; Renting or Rental; Economics

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07 Sep 2017
HBS Seminar

Martin Dimitrov, Tulane

Innovation and Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

At the heart of any innovation process lies a fundamental practice: the way people create ideas and solve problems. This “decision making” side of innovation is what scholars and practitioners refer to as “design.” Decisions in innovation processes have so far been... View Details

03 May 2024
Research & Ideas

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters' Worth to Be Exact

of each firm, including the actual walking distances between offices, to determine if and how much neighboring companies influenced each other’s website technologies, or “tech stack.” A company’s tech stack fundamentally shapes a... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

31 Jul 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

Keywords: by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart & Michael L. Tushman

19 Sep 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies

Keywords: by Emmanuel Farhi & Andrei Hagiu

Research Summary

How can General Managers Contribute to IT Success?

US companies are currently spending approximately 5% of their revenue on information technology (IT) each year. Over half of this investment goes to IT intended to change business processes, either within a single enterprise or across several. Hovewer, 30-75% of... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Narrative AI and the Human-AI Oversight Paradox in Evaluating Early-Stage Innovations

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Léonard Boussioux, Charles Ayoubi, Ying Hao Chen, Camila Lin, Rebecca Spens, Pooja Wagh and Pei-Hsin Wang

Do AI-generated narrative explanations enhance human oversight or diminish it? We investigate this question through a field experiment with 228 evaluators screening 48 early-stage innovations under three conditions: human-only, black-box AI recommendations without... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Models; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Invention; Decision Making

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2010
Report

State of the Region Report 2010: The Top of Europe Recovering—Regional Lessons from a Global Crisis

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The 2010 State of the Region Report, the seventh in this series of annual evaluations of competitiveness and cooperation across the Baltic Sea Region, takes the Region's economic temperature in the first year after the full onslaught of the global crisis. The focus of... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Policy; Performance Effectiveness; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Baltic Countries

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2008
Book

Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz

Marketing has a greater purpose, and marketers, a higher calling, than simply selling more widgets, according to John Quelch and Katherine Jocz. In "Greater Good", the authors contend that marketing performs an essential societal function—and does so democratically.... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government and Politics; Marketing; Practice; Welfare

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2004
Chapter

Measuring the Value of Political Connections After Liberalization: Some Thoughts on Theoretical Constructs and Improved Research Design

By: Jordan I. Siegel

Scholars have recently begun to focus heightened attention on how firms in emerging economies react and even thrive during deep liberalization. Yet one fundamental question remains less than satisfactorily answered. How much in terms of scarce resources should firms in... View Details

Keywords: Liberalization; Emerging Economies; Political Connections; Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets; Strategy

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31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

challenger mindset and willingness to disrupt Digitally mature companies encourage employees to challenge the status quo—even if this means fundamentally rethinking the core business. Everyone in the organization is responsible for... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

Web

Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

Andrei Shleifer SEP 2021 The financial crisis of 2007–2008 has revived academic interest in price bubbles. The authors introduce diagnostic expectations into a standard setting of price formation in which investors learn about the View Details

27 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

Religion in the Workplace: What Managers Need to Know

to be clear from a brand perspective about the profile they’re putting forward in terms of whom they hire,” van Bever says. “But employers need to understand that where that runs into trouble is when their business prerogative conflicts with a person’s View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage; Apparel & Accessories

24 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by James E. Austin & Ezequiel Reficco

31 Aug 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Innovation through Global Collaboration: A New Source of Competitive Advantage

Keywords: by Alan MacCormack, Theodore Forbath, Peter Brooks & Patrick Kalaher

December 2024
Case

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM): The AI Journey

By: Shikhar Ghosh

In early 2024, Bill Fandrich, Executive VP and CIO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), faced a critical decision about AI adoption within the organization. Fandrich had championed AI implementation at BCBSM. After successfully developing three AI... View Details

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2013
Book

Constructing Green: The Social Structures of Sustainability

By: Rebecca Henn and Andrew J. Hoffman

Buildings are the nation's greatest energy consumers. Forty percent of all our energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting, and powering machines and devices in buildings. And despite decades of investment in green construction technologies, residential and... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Green Building; Transition; Social Issues

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March 2004 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Newell Rubbermaid: Strategy in Transition

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Rhonda Kaufman and Carole Winkler

Describes the transformation of a company's corporate-level strategy. Begins by laying out the strategy that brought the Newell Co. stunning success for nearly three decades. The highly integrated, internally consistent strategy was tailored for manufacturing and... View Details