Publications

Article

Understanding Demand-Side Innovation

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Keywords: Marketing, Technology, Digital, Services, And Strategy; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Marketing

Article

Intermediary Functions and the Market for Innovation in Meiji and Taisho Japan

By: Tom Nicholas and Hiroshi Shimizu

Japan experienced a transformational phase of technological development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We argue that an important, but so far neglected, factor was a developing market for innovation and a patent attorney system that was... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Patents; Innovation and Invention; Japan

Find at Harvard

2016
Book

The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation

By: Vijay Govindarajan

How to Innovate and Execute. Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership

Find at Harvard

July 2013
Article

Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity

By: C. Fritz Foley and William R. Kerr

This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the... View Details

Keywords: Technology Transfer; Innovation; Ethnic Networks; Patents; Diasporas; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Research and Development; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; United States

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

Keywords: Innovation; Innovation Management; Crowdsourcing; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Research and Development; Information Technology; Energy Industry; Health Industry; Green Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

October 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

The Brigham and Women's Hospital Innovation Hub: Driving Internal Innovation

By: Ariel D. Stern and Robert S. Huckman

Keywords: Healthcare; Innovation; Hospital; Health; Health Care

Educators

August 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 2: Building a Successful Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading describes the basics of building a successful strategy. Topics in this module include a discussion of the distinction between corporate and business strategy; how to conduct a SWOT analysis of market dynamics and internal capabilities; the use of... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Business Strategy; Five Forces; Distinctive Capabilities; Emergent Strategy; Mission Statements; Strategy; SWOT Analysis; Competitive Advantage

January 2018
Supplement

Transformation at ING (B): Innovation

By: William R. Kerr, Federica Gabrieli and Emer Moloney

Supplement to HBS No. 818-077. Together with the agile methodology, innovation at ING was an enabler for the company’s purpose of empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and business. The case explores ING's innovation priorities and strategy as well as the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Agile; Fintech; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Technological Innovation; Banking Industry

February 2015
Article

'Open' Disclosure of Innovations, Incentives and Follow-on Reuse: Theory on Processes of Cumulative Innovation and a Field Experiment in Computational Biology

By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Most of society's innovation systems―academic science, the patent system, open source, etc.―are "open" in the sense that they are designed to facilitate knowledge disclosure among innovators. An essential difference across innovation systems is whether disclosure is of... View Details

Keywords: Open Innovation; Cumulative Innovation; Incentives; Search; Disclosure And Access; Knowledge Sharing; Motivation and Incentives; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

SSRN

Find at Harvard

01 May 2013
News

The Performance Frontier: Innovating for a Sustainable Strategy

December 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 15: Using the Levers of Control to Implement Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading pulls together key concepts and techniques from the Strategy Execution series into an integrated model—the levers of control. The four levers are: (1) belief systems, (2) boundary systems, (3) diagnostic control systems, and (4) interactive control... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Levers Of Control; Balancing Innovation And Control; Managing Growing Businesses; Turn Around Management; Human Behavior; Organizational Life Cycle; Strategy; Management Systems; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Behavior

2019
Report

Peer Review of the Danish Research & Innovation System: Ten Steps, and a Leap Forward: Taking Danish Innovation to the Next Level

By: Christian H.M. Ketels, Magareta Drzeniek Hanouz, Jackie Hunter, Stefan Kuhlmann, Tony Raven, Pieter Heringa, Uri Gabai, Göran Marklund and Christopher Palmberg

This report provides recommendations to the Danish government on improving the country's research and innovation system. It was prepared by a group of international peers under the umbrella of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Research And Development; Public Policy; Innovation and Invention; Research; Denmark

2020
Working Paper

Immigration Policy Levers for U.S. Innovation and Startups

By: William R. Kerr and Sari Pekkala Kerr

Immigrants account for about a quarter of U.S. invention and entrepreneurship despite a policy environment that is not well suited for these purposes. This chapter reviews the U.S. immigration policy environment that governs how skilled migrants move to America for... View Details

Keywords: Invention; Innovation; Startups; High-tech; Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Venture Capital; United States

SSRN

7 Mar 2013
Keynote Speech

Positive Risk and the Innovation Commons

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

August 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Background Note

Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture

By: Jill Avery

While companies choose to brand their products and services in many different ways, there are some central tenets that help define an optimal brand portfolio and associated brand architecture. Brand portfolio strategy involves the design, deployment, and management of... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Portfolio; Brand Extension; Brand Portfolio Strategy; Brand Architecture; Consumer Behavior; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy

Educators

Research Summary

Institutions and Innovation

Henry Chesbrough's research interests lie at the intersection of organizations and innovation. His research to date falls into two tracks.

The first track examines the effect of the firm's institutional environment upon its ability to respond to innovation... View Details

March–April 2013
Article

Unlocking Innovation Through Business Experimentation

By: Stefan Thomke

There is a downside to businesses that focus heavily on standardization, optimization, and driving out variability: Such organizations leave themselves vulnerable to underinvesting in experimentation and variation, which are the lifeblood of innovation. Good... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Innovation Management; Learning And Development; Research; Innovation and Management; Business Processes