Publications

June 2016
Case

Aggressive Growth Plans For Zimmer Spine

By: Kevin Schulman and Miranda Shaw

Steve Healy, the President of Zimmer Spine, has to transform his organization into a market leader. Zimmer is a major medical device firm, but the Spine division has underperformed, and its core technology did not get the expanded FDA label that had been expected. The... View Details

Keywords: Medical Device; Organizational Innovation; Organizational Growth; Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Article

Beyond Magic Bullets: True Innovation in Health Care

By: Vaibhav A. Narayan, Marco Mohwinckel, Gary Pisano, Michael Yang and Husseini Manji

The molecular medicine revolution—based on advances in fields such as genomics and network modeling in the decade since the human genome sequence was completed—has changed the way we think about, study, and approach the development of novel therapies. However, these... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Business Model; Organizational Structure; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Pharmaceutical Industry

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Research Summary

Building Bridges: The Social Structure of Interdependent Innovation

Multidivisional firms often fail to take advantage of innovations that involve combining resources from distinct divisions. This failure of cross-line-of-business innovation is a consequence of design choices employed to execute the firm’s strategy: in organizing... View Details

1965
Book

Product Innovation and Organization

By: J. W. Lorsch

Keywords: Product; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Structure

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March 2006
Background Note

Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Course Overview Note

By: Alan D. MacCormack

The Harvard Business School Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome them. The course emphasizes multiple levels of analysis--from creating and executing... View Details

Keywords: Curriculum and Courses; Innovation and Management; Projects; Opportunities; Perspective; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Risk and Uncertainty; Problems and Challenges; Managerial Roles

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

"In the end, Enron was at the center of a truly delinquent society. Once Enron's ethical drift took hold, its collapse was only a matter of time," says HBS professor emeritus Malcolm S. Salter. As he explains in this Q&A and in his new book, View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

May 2020
Case

M-Lab: Enabling Innovation at Mitsubishi Corporation

By: Krishna Palepu and Allison M. Ciechanover

M-Lab’s founding goals were to infuse an innovation mindset into Mitsubishi Corporation; to catalyze new business opportunities; and to enable a dialogue between Japanese business and Silicon Valley. M-Lab housed representatives from each of Mitsubishi Corporation’s... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Disruption; Transformation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Japan; United States

September 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Bill Connors and The Farm, a Comcast NBCUniversal Innovation Hub (Powered by Boomtown)

By: Linda A. Hill and Eric Mankin

In 2017, Bill Connors, the President of Comcast’s Central Division, launched a startup accelerator in Comcast’s new Atlanta Regional headquarters. Comcast was America's largest cable and internet service provider, having built a profitable business bundling television... View Details

27 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the Mirroring Hypothesis

Keywords: by Alan D. MacCormack, John Rusnak & Carliss Y. Baldwin

1996
Chapter

Innovation at 3M Corporation

By: S. Thomke and A. Nimgade

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Change and Adaptation

July–September 2024
Article

Psychological Ownership for Overcoming Departmental Barriers to Innovation: A Study of Innovation Handoffs

By: Alf Steinar Sætre, Amy C. Edmondson, Oda Dregelid and Sofie Rud Zimmer

Effective collaboration across departments in an organization is critical to innovation success. Our purpose was to investigate factors contributing to successful innovation involving multiple organizational departments. We employed a multiple-case design with three... View Details

Keywords: Psychological Ownership; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Management; Groups and Teams; Organizational Design