Publications

Educators

05 Aug 2014
First Look

First Look: August 5

available. Purchase this case: http://hbr.org/product/Oceanbulk-Maritime-S-A---/an/914416-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 414-044 Houston We Have A Problem: NASA and Open Innovation (A) Jeff Davis,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

In America, Immigrants Really Do Get the Job Done

helps drive innovation and growth—and could even become more vital to global competitiveness in the future. “The debate is red-hot right now, but in the background, the workforces are rapidly aging in most advanced countries, and public... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Technology; Service

05 Apr 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Transforming Deloitte’s Approach to Consulting

Keywords: Re: Michael L. Tushman; Consulting

2017
Working Paper

In Pursuit of Everyday Creativity

By: Teresa M. Amabile

Creativity researchers have long paid careful attention to individual creativity, beginning with studies of well-known geniuses and expanding to personality, biographical, cognitive, and social-psychological studies of individual creative behavior. Little is known,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Behavior; Innovation and Invention

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Article

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

By: Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science

Article

In Pursuit of Everyday Creativity

By: Teresa M. Amabile

Creativity researchers have long paid careful attention to individual creativity, beginning with studies of well-known geniuses and expanding to personality, biographical, cognitive, and social-psychological studies of individual creative behavior. Little is known,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Behavior; Innovation and Invention

May–June 2018
Article

The Surprising Power of Questions

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John

Much of an executive’s workday is spent asking others for information—requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, or questioning a counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, who are taught... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Information; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Effectiveness

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2024
Working Paper

The Crowdless Future? Generative AI and Creative Problem Solving

By: Léonard Boussioux, Jacqueline N. Lane, Miaomiao Zhang, Vladimir Jacimovic and Karim R. Lakhani

The rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) open up attractive opportunities for creative problem-solving through human-guided AI partnerships. To explore this potential, we initiated a crowdsourcing challenge focused on sustainable, circular economy... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Models; Crowdsourcing; Generative Ai; Creative Problem-solving; Organizational Search; AI-in-the-loop; Prompt Engineering; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Invention

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2024
Working Paper

Old Moats for New Models: Openness, Control, and Competition in Generative AI

By: Pierre Azoulay, Joshua L. Krieger and Abhishek Nagaraj

Drawing insights from the field of innovation economics, we discuss the likely competitive environment shaping generative AI advances. Central to our analysis are the concepts of appropriability—whether firms in the industry are able to control the knowledge generated... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning; Open Source Distribution; Policy

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2012
Book

The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited

By: Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

While the importance of innovation to economic development is widely understood, the conditions conducive to it remain the focus of much attention. This volume offers new theoretical and empirical contributions to fundamental questions relating to the economics of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Nonprofit Organizations; Resource Allocation; Economic Growth; Research and Development

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September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Blenheim Chalcot

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; United Kingdom; United States; India

Educators

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

Educators

02 Jun 2010
What Do You Think?

How Do You Weigh Strategy, Execution, and Culture in an Organization’s Success?

sustainable without a framework of cultural values and rules." Drew Williamson pictured the relationship as "a virtuous circle that can break at any of the three points. It starts with a happy, innovative culture that generates... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

09 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

For Better Ideas, Bring the Right People to the Brainstorm

innovators conversing with extroverts generate much better ideas Open innovators collaborating with introverts generate worse ideas, on average The traits of both View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

December 2008
Article

Which Kind of Collaboration Is Right for You?

By: Roberto Verganti and Gary P. Pisano

Nowadays, virtually no companies innovate alone. Firms team up with a variety of partners, in a wide number of ways, to create new technologies, products, and services. But what is the best way to leverage the power of outsiders? To help executives answer that... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Framework; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Strategy