Publications

27 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?

Business School, Emerita, who has studied workplace creativity for more than 40 years. “Those breakthroughs will be made by collaborative groups of ‘ordinary people,’ by open innovation contests and other open innovation processes, by... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2019
Working Paper

Breaking and Reconfiguring the Boundaries Between Domain Experts and Crowds to Solve Complex R&D Problems through Partial Decomposition

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Zoe Szajnfarber

The need for domain experts is all but universally assumed when organizing for scientific and technological innovation. In contrast, we are witnessing a burgeoning of citizen science, crowdsourcing, and other “open” methods based on the opposite assumption that crowds... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Problem Solving; Expertise; Crowdsourcing; Nasa; Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Research and Development

2019
Working Paper

Why Do User Communities Matter for Strategy?

By: Sonali K. Shah and Frank Nagle

User communities represent a unique organizing structure for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. They are organizations composed primarily of users working collaboratively, voluntarily, and with minimal oversight to freely and openly develop and exchange knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Management; Knowledge Sharing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Strategy

SSRN

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June 2005 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Hale and Dorr (A)

Highlights how word-of-mouth is crucial in the acquisition of new customers. Specifically, it shows the existence of both internal (to the firm) and external markets for customer leads. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Social and Collaborative Networks; Sales; Service Industry

July 2004
Tool

Developmental Network Questionnaire (CW)

By: Monica C. Higgins, John Galvin and Denis Saulnier

Solicits information about the network of people who provided career developmental assistance for respondents and presents information about the structure and diversity of the developmental network. View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Social and Collaborative Networks

August 2022
Teaching Note

BTS & ARMY

By: Doug J. Chung and Kay R. Koo

Industry leaders must define a particular outcome of interest (i.e., an objective) to establish an organization’s strategy. BTS’s initial objective was to increase brand recognition and to acquire a solid fanbase. The proliferation of social network platforms... View Details

Keywords: Cultural Diversity; Brand Equity; Go-to-market Strategy; Social Network; Entertainment Industry; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Music Industry

March 2011
Teaching Note

TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing (TN)

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Eric Lonstein

Teaching Note for 610032. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Applications and Software; Product Development; Competition; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Perspective; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry

April 2022
Case

Marsha Simms: Trailblazer in Corporate Law

By: Robin Ely, Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman and Olivia Hull

Follows the journey of lawyer Marsha Simms from her childhood in racially-segregated St. Louis to the upper echelons of the New York legal community. Describes her education, career choices, accomplishments, and setbacks. Highlights significant moments such as her... View Details

18 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘Collective Genius’

have developed an integrated framework for understanding, describing, and pre¬scribing how leaders build organizations capable of consistent innovation by focusing on these essential abilities. Leaders Create Collaborative Organizations... View Details

Keywords: by Linda Hill; Entertainment & Recreation

16 Sep 2015
Op-Ed

The Real Duty of the Board of Directors

first published in Chapter 5: “Materiality” in author Eccles’ recent book, The Integrated Reporting Movement: Meaning, Momentum, Motives, and Materiality (Wiley, 2014), to which Youmans was a significant contributor. They are research View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & Tim Youmans

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Productivity; Field Experiments; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Human Resources; Leadership; United States; Europe; China; Japan

June 2014
Supplement

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (B)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Bethany Gerstein and Melissa Valentine

In 2006, the leadership team at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. had to decide whether to keep its R&D organization in functional departments or restructure it into interdisciplinary teams. This case follows the outcomes of this decision from 2006 to mid-2014, and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

22 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 22, 2007

advantage, leading companies are now using an advanced form of outsourcing, called global collaboration, to drive new revenue, quicken time-to-market, and increase innovation. Global collaboration impacts their top as well as bottom... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

27 Mar 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Will Startup Fishbowl Become the Social Media App for Your Industry?

Keywords: Re: Leslie K. John; Consulting

2024
Working Paper

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting—Impossible to Routine: Case Histories of Transformational Advances

By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant M. Datar and Fabio Villa

We describe how Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG, or more popularly, “bypass”) operations revolutionized the treatment of coronary disease (that can produce fatal heart attacks and debilitating angina). Specifically, we chronicle the: 1) development of the... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Technology Adoption; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Invention; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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January 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Background Note

Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Students

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Provides an overview for students of the MBA elective course Managing Networked Businesses (MNB). MNB focuses on management challenges in businesses that exhibit network effects. The first section of the note explains that such businesses comprise a large and growing... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Capital Structure; Business or Company Management; Network Effects; Organizational Design; Business and Government Relations; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competitive Strategy

2017
Working Paper

Cross-Boundary Teaming for Innovation: Integrating Research on Teams and Knowledge in Organizations

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

Cross-boundary teaming, within and across organizations, is an increasingly popular strategy for innovation. Knowledge diversity is seen to expand the range of views and ideas that teams can draw upon to innovate. Yet, case studies of practice reveal that teaming... View Details

Keywords: Teams; Knowledge; Innovation; Groups and Teams; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

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2007
Other Unpublished Work

Mind Over Matter? Similarities and Differences Between Perceived and Observed Networks

In spite of the rapid development of new methods for network analysis—relying on electronic data sources and sophisticated computational analysis—organizational scholars continue to rely largely on more traditional survey-based methods. We believe that the... View Details

Keywords: Surveys; Organizations; Social and Collaborative Networks