Publications

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01 Sep 2020
News

Ink: The Habit of Innovation

Habit Inside Your Organization. The book, co-authored by Innosight partners Andy Parker and Natalie Painchaud, as well as Paul Cobban of DBS Bank in Singapore, suggests there is a better way. The authors present a roadmap for making View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

November 2010
Article

The Litigation of Financial Innovations

By: Josh Lerner

This paper examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services. I show that these grants are being litigated at a rate 27 to 39 times greater than that of patents as a whole. The patents being litigated are disproportionately those issued to... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Finance

Article

Frame Flexibility: The Role of Cognitive and Emotional Framing in Innovation Adoption by Incumbent Firms

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Mary Ann Glynn and Michael Tushman

Why do incumbent firms frequently reject nonincremental innovations? Beyond technical, structural, or economic factors, we propose an additional factor: the degree of the top management team's (TMT) frame flexibility, i.e., their capability to cognitively expand an... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Adoption; Cognition; Framing; Emotional Resonance; Incumbent Inertia; Innovation and Invention; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management

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May 29, 2018
Article

A Study of NASA Scientists Shows How to Overcome Barriers to Open Innovation

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Michael Tushman and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Open Innovation; Nasa

Program

Leading and Building a Culture of Innovation

Summary Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response to quantum shifts in how we work and live. In the midst of economic, societal, and technological disruptions,... View Details

2001
Other Unpublished Work

Clusters of Innovation Initiative: Wichita

By: Michael E. Porter

This study contains a conceptual framework for assessing the competitiveness of regional economies, an analysis of the Wichita region overall, as well as detailed assessments of two representative clusters—aerospace vehicles and defense and plastics. The report... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Economics; Industry Clusters; Economy; Growth and Development; Industrial Products Industry; Aerospace Industry; Kansas

As the Alfred D. Chandler Jr. International Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School in 2023, I had the unique opportunity to delve into the history of the life sciences industry in the Cambridge-Boston area. My research focused on how... View Details

2015
Chapter

Design Thinking and Innovative Problem Solving

By: Srikant Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

In 2012 we set out to answer two key questions. Can anyone, including MBAs and executives with superb analytical skills, learn to think more innovatively? If so, how might we go about developing these skills? Through close collaboration with individuals from major... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Problem Solving; Innovation; Design; Innovation and Invention; Cognition and Thinking

Artificial intelligence promises to greatly increase the efficiency of the economy. But it may have an even larger impact on the economy by serving as a new general-purpose “method of invention” that can reshape the nature of the... View Details

Article

What Evolution Can Teach Us About Innovation

By: Noubar Afeyan and Gary P. Pisano

Many people believe that the process for achieving breakthrough innovations is chaotic, random, and unmanageable. But that view is flawed, the authors argue. Breakthroughs can be systematically generated using a process modeled on the principles that drive evolution in... View Details

Keywords: Breakthrough Innovation; Variance Generation; Selection Pressure; Emergent Discovery; Innovation and Invention; Value Creation; Innovation Leadership

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February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Background Note

Accidental Innovation

Describes the role accident has historically played in invention and discovery, and raises questions about the importance of variation in business innovation processes. View Details

Keywords: Business Processes; Innovation and Invention

Educators

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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

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

September 2015 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Emdeon's Acquisition of Change Healthcare: Innovating Transparency Solutions for Health Care Consumers

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Jeet Guram and Aanchal Raj

Case describes acquisition of Change Healthcare, which provides health care cost and quality information, by Emdeon, a health information exchange, and discusses health care transparency. Emdeon is a billion-dollar company that has grown through acquisitions; at its... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Industry; Healthcare Innovation; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Integration; Analytics and Data Science; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States

Educators

January–February 2014
Article

The New Patterns of Innovation

By: Rashik Parmar, Ian Mackenzie, David Cohn and David Gann

The search for new business ideas—and models—is hit-or-miss at most firms. Tackling the problem systematically, of course, will improve the odds of success. Traditional ways of framing this search examine competencies, customer needs, and shifts in the landscape. This... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Information Technology; Innovation and Invention

Article

Breakthroughs and the 'Long Tail' of Innovation

The largely erroneous perception that breakthroughs are impossible to predict arises from the tendency to focus on just the breakthroughs while ignoring the iterative process of invention and its distribution of outcomes. When all inventions are considered, they... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Independent Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Business Processes; Performance Capacity; Performance Improvement