Publications

October 14, 2019
Article

The Truth About Open Offices: There Are Reasons Why They Don't Produce the Desired Interactions

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber

It’s never been easier for workers to collaborate—or so it seems. Open, flexible, activity-based spaces are displacing cubicles, making people more visible. Messaging is displacing phone calls, making people more accessible. Enterprise social media such as Slack and... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Technology; Design; Human Resources; Performance Productivity; Organizational Design

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10 Jan 2022
News

How to Get Companies to Make Investments that Benefit Everyone

2017
Book

HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Find, acquire, and run your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: you can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small... View Details

July 2004 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Novell: CEO-led Turnaround and Growth Strategy

By: Richard L. Nolan and Robert D. Austin

Novell CEO Jack Messman tried to return the company to its leadership position in the software industry through a strategy that embraces Linux and other open source software. This case serves as an introduction to open source software and strategies based on open... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Value Creation; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Intellectual Property; Business Strategy; Information Technology Industry

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

Keywords: Modularity; Value Appropriation; Distributed Innovation; Open Innovation; Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Value; Complexity; Intellectual Property

SSRN

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January 5, 2014
Article

Seven Things You Need to Know about CEO Lou Shipley

By: Lou Shipley and Michael B. Farrell

Globe reporter Michael B. Farrell recently spoke with Lou Shipley, the newly appointed chief executive of Black Duck Software Inc., a growing Burlington open source software company. Here's what he found out. View Details

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16 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 16, 2019

against the backdrop of a turbulent industry and consider the implications for the anesthesiologist. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55974 March 2019 Management Science Open View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

December 2005
Case

IBM and Eclipse (A)

IBM faces a collective action problem: It open sourced its $40 million application platform and has to convince other companies to contribute. Explores the events leading up to IBM's decision to make the Eclipse platform available as an Open Source project. In 1998,... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Open Source Distribution; Cooperation; Adoption; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

22 Apr 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Government Technology Policy, Social Value, and National Competitiveness

Keywords: by Frank Nagle

13 Jan 2011
News

Untangling Code

Article

Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology under Network Effects

By: Deishin Lee and Haim Mendelson

We study how a commercial firm competes with a free open source product. The market consists of two customer segments with different preferences and is characterized by positive network effects. The commercial firm makes product and pricing decisions to maximize its... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Product Launch; Network Effects; Open Source Distribution; Adoption; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

14 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2006

Working PapersThe Business of Free Software: Enterprise Incentives, Investment, and Motivation in the Open Source Community Authors:Marco Iansiti and Gregory L. Richards Abstract In this paper, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2018 (Revised December 2018)
Case

SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command

By: Herman Leonard, Mitchell Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

James “Hondo” Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command, was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. The questions had a common theme: how... View Details

March 2019
Teaching Note

Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI

By: David B. Yoffie

This teaching notes accompanies the Numenta case, HBS No. 716-469. The focus is how to scale a new artificial intelligence technology, how to build a platform and overcome chicken-or-the-egg problems, and how to utilize open source software and licensing. View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Strategy; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning

November 2005 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Trolltech (Norway) - Will Cenapio Steal Christmas?

Describes the creation of an open source software venture in Norway, Australia, and the United States that lands a strategic OEM deal with a leading Japanese manufacturer of embedded devices (PDAs in this instance). Details the evolution of the two companies'... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Conflict and Resolution; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Open Source Distribution; Information Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Information Technology Industry; Australia; Japan; Norway; United States

Research Summary

Competing business models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Building on the literatures on competitive positioning and the theory of industrial organization, my work seeks to tackle previously unaddressed questions by studying situations where firms compete in dissimilar ways. Some examples of these questions include:View Details

May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens

By: Willy Shih

This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details

October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean... View Details

February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup

By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney

The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details