Publications

Educators

2017
Working Paper

Elite Ideas and Incremental Policy Change: The Expansion of Primary Education in India

By: Akshay Mangla

This paper analyzes India’s recent enactment of universal primary education. Given the clientelistic features of Indian democracy, this programmatic policy change presents a puzzle. Drawing on interviews and official documents, I find that committed state elites... View Details

Keywords: India; Political Economy; Ideas; Institutional Change; Education; Change Management; India

01 Jan 1986
Conference Presentation

Idea Generation and Issue Analysis in Organization Planning

By: L. M. Applegate, J. Nunamaker and B. R. Konsynski

Keywords: Planning; Innovation and Invention

20 Aug 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Best Ideas

Keywords: by Miguel Antón, Randolph B. Cohen, and Christopher Polk; Financial Services

Aug 2005 - 2005
Conference Presentation

The Innovative Capacity of Institutional Entrepreneurs: Mechanisms for Generating Alternative Ideas

By: Julie Battilana and E. Boxenbaum

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Cognition and Thinking

2016
Working Paper

Markets for Ideas: Prize Structure, Entry Limits, and the Design of Ideation Contests

By: Pavel Kireyev

Contests are a popular mechanism for the procurement of innovation. In marketing, design, and other creative industries, firms use freelance marketplaces to organize contests and obtain high-quality ideas for ads, new products, and even business strategies from... View Details

Keywords: Idea Generation; Crowdsourcing; Contest Design; Structural Estimation; Motivation and Incentives; Competition; Innovation and Invention

SSRN

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

SSRN

01 Dec 1986
Conference Presentation

A Group Decision Support System for Idea Generation and Issue Analysis in Organization Planning

By: L. M. Applegate, B. R. Konsynski and J. F. Nunamaker

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Planning; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

01 Mar 2014
News

Generation Next

generated an operational loss. "My feedback was, 'You're in trouble,'" recalls Kahn. By the spring, Kahn was in Mumbai, part of a team tasked with turning Agrovet around—the first foreigner the Godrej Group had ever hired in a leadership... View Details

Keywords: Mark Bergen; Godrej Group; Management

January 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

General Scanning, Inc. (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Sean McClenaghan and Charles Tillen

General Scanning, Inc. was founded by Jean Montagu and Pierre Brosens, two MIT mechanical engineers with an interest in developing innovative products based on the early application of lasers. They invented proprietary technology for laser beam positioning and scanning... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Entrepreneurship; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Research and Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Commercialization; Manufacturing Industry

October 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Jack Welch: General Electric's Revolutionary

By: Joseph L. Bower and Jay Dial

Describes the work of Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 1992, focusing particularly on his transformation of the company's portfolio through extensive dispositions and acquisitions and the company's culture through a mandated process called "work out."... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Transformation; Investment Portfolio; Leadership Style; Management; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career

Educators

Jul 24 2018
Testimonial

Bringing education ideas to Brazil

November 2019
Article

Conversations and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

When do conversations lead people to generate better ideas? We conducted a field experiment at a startup boot camp to evaluate the impact of informal conversations on the quality of product ideas generated by participants. Specifically, we examine how the personality... View Details

Keywords: Peer Effects; Field Experiment; Interpersonal Communication; Creativity; Personal Characteristics; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

March 2024
Exercise

'Storrowed': A Generative AI Exercise

By: Mitchell Weiss

"Storrowed" is an exercise to help participants raise their capacity and curiosity for generative AI. It focuses on generative AI for problem understanding and ideation, but can be adapted for use more broadly. Participants use generative AI tools to understand a... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Problems and Challenges

11 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Women Entrepreneurs Usher in the Next Generation

most important." I spend my life trying to make the next generation a little less neurotic about money.— Joline Godfrey, Independent Means, Inc. As the founder and CEO of Independent Means, Inc., a financial education company aimed... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2010
Book

Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down

By: John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead,... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Cost vs Benefits; Problems and Challenges; Interests; Value

20 Jun 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Conversational Peers and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Keywords: by Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

15 Dec 2015
News

The Year in Ideas 2015

From social media to the grocery store to the corner office and all the way to the stratosphere, the research and entrepreneurial adventures HBS faculty, doctoral students and alumni undertook this year have changed the way we understand and operate in the business... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna, Christine Lejeune, Dan Morrell, and April White

September 2007
Article

Collaborative Brokerage, Generative Creativity, and Creative Success

Analyzing data on utility patents from 1975 to 2002 in the careers of 35,400 collaborative inventors, this study examines the influence of brokered versus cohesive collaborative social structures on an individual's creativity. We test the hypothesis that... View Details

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Patents; Personal Development and Career; Creativity; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks