Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(426)
- Faculty Publications (175)
- August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
- Background Note
Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging
By: Willy Shih
Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details
Keywords: Technology Transitions; Competency-destroying; Digital; Analog; Digital Transition; Modular; Modularity; Technological Change; Radical Innovation; Incremental Innovation; Architectural Innovation; Modular Innovation; Sustaining Innovation; Competency-enhancing; Noise Propagation; Perfect Copying; Digital Music; Digital Media; Consumer Electronics; Kodak; Sony; Panasonic; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Adoption; Transition; Change Management; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property
By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih
In this paper we explain how firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, we introduce the concept... View Details
- April 2012
- Case
Renesas Electronics and the Automotive Microcontroller Supply Chain (A)
By: Willy Shih and Margaret Pierson
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011 caused extensive damage to Renesas Electronics wafer fabrication facility, a critical link in the global automotive supply chain. Many OEMs sole-sourced customized microprocessors from the fab, so its... View Details
- March 2012
- Article
Does America Really Need Manufacturing?
By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih
Too many U.S. companies base decisions about where to locate production largely on narrow financial criteria. They don't consider whether keeping manufacturing at home makes more sense strategically or take into account the impact it might have on their ability to... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear!
By: Willy Shih
This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details
- July 2011
- Teaching Note
Digital microscopy is making me crazy! (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 612-002. 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
- October 2010 (Revised May 2012)
- Background Note
Reverse Engineering, Learning, and Innovation
By: Willy C. Shih
This background reading looks at reverse engineering in the context of piracy and knock-offs in emerging markets like China. It first considers legal aspects of reverse engineering in strong property rights regimes like the United States as a way of unpacking the legal... View Details
- October 2010
- Teaching Note
From Imitation to Innovation: Zongshen Industrial Group (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 610057. View Details
- September 2010 (Revised October 2010)
- Teaching Note
Assembling Smartphones: Takt Time =/= Cycle Time? (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 611012. View Details
Keywords: Electronics Industry
- September 2010 (Revised July 2013)
- Case
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals: Building Value from the IP Estate
By: Willy C. Shih and Sen Chai
The learning objective of this case is to help students recognize the interplay between intellectual property (IP) rights and corporate strategy. We do this by examining what is a fairly atypical circumstance today in which a single firm is able to secure what it... View Details
- September 2010
- Teaching Note
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals: Building Value from the IP Estate (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 611009. View Details
- July 2010
- Teaching Note
Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 610081. View Details
- June 2010 (Revised October 2010)
- Course Overview Note
Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise
By: Willy C. Shih
This Module Note for Instructors outlines the structure and content of the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise MBA second year elective course at the Harvard Business School. The course focuses on giving students a solid grounding in the construction of... View Details
- June 2010
- Supplement
Chet Huber on OnStar, video
By: Willy C. Shih
Chet Huber, general manager of GM's OnStar unit, givbes an update on how OnStar is doing, talks about the job OnStar does for consumers, and reflects on assembling the OnStar team. The video is organized into three chapters so that instructors may use then... View Details
- May 2010 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
Delta Electronics Hybrid Power Train
By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang
Delta Electronics, the world's largest manufacturer of switching power supplies, hoped to enter the market for gasoline-electric hybrid power trains for automobiles by being a major component and subsystem supplier. While most public awareness of hybrid vehicles fell... View Details
- May 2010
- Supplement
Tim Westergren of Pandora Radio
By: Willy C. Shih and Halle Alicia Tecco
Pandora Radio is at a crossroads. Founder Tim Westergren has just been told by a well known VC to get rid of his unprofitable customers in order to get his costs down, but Westergren is not sure that such actions are consistent with his company's business model.... View Details
- April 2010
- Supplement
Interview with Jonney Shih, Chairman, ASUSTeK Computer, Inc.
By: Willy C. Shih
Keywords: Computer Industry
- April 2010
- Teaching Note
Carrot or Stick? Getting Paid for Innovation at Tessera Technologies (TN)
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for 610085. View Details
- April 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market
By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Jyun-Cheng Wang
The term "white box" is often used to describe products without a brand name. Such products are assembled from standardized parts, and they became a very popular category of desktop PCs. Hsinchu, Taiwan based MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company that unleashed a... View Details