Publications

Article

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

By: Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano

Many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including those in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers. A growing number of... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Diversity; Competency and Skills

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22 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition under Asymmetric Information

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Technology

Fall 2012
Article

Innovation Strategy and Entry Deterrence

By: Ozge Turut and Elie Ofek

We model an incumbent's decision to pursue radical or incremental innovation when facing a rival entrant. The radical innovation may yield lucrative financial returns but entails significant technological and market-related uncertainties. It is also particularly... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Mathematical Methods

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11 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

U.S. Tops Business Competitiveness Index 2006

by the World Economic Forum. The U.S., ranked number one in four of the last six years, scored high on business environment, financial markets, and innovative capacity. Germany, number two, benefited from its orientation on exports, the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2019 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Port Competition in the Pearl River Delta

By: Willy Shih

This case examines the competition between ports and port operators in the Pearl River Delta over the last four decades. The cities surrounding the Pearl River estuary are the "workshop of the world," and the development of manufacturing in the region was heavily... View Details

Keywords: Trade Links; Global Business; Globalization; Trade; Supply Chain; Logistics; Transportation Industry; Asia; Hong Kong; China

17 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Competition in Modular Clusters

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin & C. Jason Woodard; Consulting; Communications; Telecommunications; Pharmaceutical

16 Feb 2012
Op-Ed

Nitin Nohria: Why US Competitiveness Matters

American Competitiveness site where resources, commentary, and solutions are showcased. Harvard Business School's US Competitiveness Project is another must-visit-site to better understand the complex... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria

2020
Article

Why Do User Communities Matter for Strategy?

By: Sonali K. Shah and Frank Nagle

In this essay, we explore how strategic management research and practice could benefit from considering the benefits and challenges obtainable through working with user communities. User communities represent a unique organizing structure for the exchange of ideas and... View Details

Keywords: User Communities; Innovation; Open Source; Collaboration; Cooperative Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

01 Jun 2009
Lessons from the Classroom

The Challenges of Investing in Science-Based Innovation

In economic downtimes, businesses are apt to cut R&D projects that don't promise a speedy return on investment. But take a cue from smart science-based businesses, which view the recession as an opportunity to stoke up research and View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Auto; Pharmaceutical

March 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Fraunhofer: Innovation in Germany

By: Diego A. Comin, J. Gunnar Trumbull and Kerry Yang

Fraunhofer is one of the largest applied research organizations in the world. With 17,000 employees and a 1.6 billion euros budget, Fraunhofer has 60 institutes in Germany that cover most fields of science. The case examines the consequences that Fraunhofer has for the... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Entrepreneurship; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Labor; Markets; Outcome or Result; Research and Development; Competitive Strategy; Germany

August 2014
Case

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

09 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

A Diagnostic for Disruptive Innovation

Would-be innovators know that one of their biggest challenges is systematically identifying the innovations with the greatest likelihood of creating disruptive growth. Pick the wrong one, and squander a year... View Details

Keywords: by Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson & Matt Eyring

Forthcoming
Article

Trading Volume Manipulation and Competition Among Centralized Crypto Exchanges

By: Daniel Rabetti, Dan Amiran and Evgeny Lyandres

How competition affects manipulation by firms of information about important attributes of their products and how such information manipulation impacts firms’ short-term and long-term performance are open empirical questions. We use a setting that is especially... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Financial Markets; Performance; Competition

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2008
Simulation

Strategic Innovation Simulation: Back Bay Battery

By: Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen

This online simulation allows students to play the role of a business unit manager at Back Bay Battery Company who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery space. Players have to manage R&D... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Investment; Product Development; Research and Development; Battery Industry

16 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition Under Partial Belief Advantage

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Consumer Products

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Understanding the Process of Innovation

prostituted into something lackluster, or by which the wrong idea gets put forward." Break the innovative process down and analyze each component, Christensen recommends. That will help you understand "where the View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gray

Research Summary

Competitive Dynamics of the Textile-Apparel-Retail Channel

By: Janice H. Hammond

Janice H. Hammond established in 1991 (with Frederick H. Abernathy and John Dunlop of Harvard University and David Weil of Boston University) the Harvard Center for Textile and Apparel Research. Funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has supported the... View Details

14 Nov 2006
Other Presentation

Competitiveness and Economic Development: Where Does Texas Stand?

By: Michael E. Porter

This presentation draws on ideas from Professor Porter's articles and books, in articular, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (The Free Press, 1990), "Clusters and the New Competitive Agenda for Companies and Governments" in On Competition (Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development; United States

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2011
Book

Managing Knowledge Assets, Creativity and Innovation

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

This book pulls together for the first time works on knowledge and innovation, including the implementation of new processes and products, written by Dorothy A. Leonard over more than two decades. It consists of articles from journals in diverse fields (e.g. the... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Innovation and Invention