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Technology & Innovation

Technology & Innovation

    • December 2014
    • Article

    The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization

    By: Nicholas Bloom, Luis Garicano, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

    Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the "information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically that this is problematic. Information and communication technologies have very different effects on the decisions taken at each level of an organization. Better information access pushes decisions down, as it allows for superior decentralized decision making without an undue cognitive burden on those lower in the hierarchy. Better communication pushes decisions up, as it allows employees to rely on those above them in the hierarchy to make decisions. Using an original dataset of firms from the U.S. and seven European countries we study the impact of ICT on worker autonomy, plant manager autonomy, and span of control. Consistent with the theory, we find that better information technologies (Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, for plant managers and CAD/CAM for production workers) are associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control. By contrast, communication technologies (like data networks) decrease autonomy for both workers and plant managers. Treating technology as endogenous using instrumental variables (distance from the birthplace of ERP and heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from different regulatory regimes) strengthens our results.

    • December 2014
    • Article

    The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization

    By: Nicholas Bloom, Luis Garicano, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

    Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the "information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically that this is problematic. Information and communication technologies have very different effects on the decisions taken at each level of an organization. Better...

    • 2014
    • Working Paper

    Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships

    By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih

    Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster the translational processes from public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, to private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. Yet questions about the efficacy and the efficiency with which funds are used are subject to frequent debate. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation (DNATF), an agency that funds partnerships between universities and private companies to develop technologies important to Danish industry. We assess the effect of a unique mediated funding scheme that combines project grants with active facilitation and conflict management on firm performance, comparing the likelihood of bankruptcy and employee count as well as patent count, publication count and their citations and collaborative nature between funded and unfunded firms. Because randomization of the sample was not feasible, we address endogeneity around selection bias using a sample of qualitatively similar firms based on a funding decision score. This allows us to observe the local effect of samples in which we drop the best recipients and the worst non-recipients. Our results suggest that while receiving the grant does bring an injection of funding that alleviates financing constraints, its core effect on the firm's innovative behavior is in fostering collaborations and translations between science and technology and encouraging riskier projects rather than purely increasing patenting.

    • 2014
    • Working Paper

    Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships

    By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih

    Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster the translational processes from public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, to private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. Yet questions about the...

    • April 2014
    • Article

    Botsourcing and Outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German Workers Are for Thinking—Not Feeling—Jobs

    By: Adam Waytz and Michael I. Norton

    Technological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of "botsourcing"—the replacement of human jobs by robots—while examining how understanding botsourcing can inform the psychology of outsourcing—the replacement of jobs in one country by humans from other countries. We test four related hypotheses across six experiments: (1) Given people's lay theories about the capacities for cognition and emotion for robots and humans, workers will express more discomfort with botsourcing when they consider losing jobs that require emotion versus cognition; (2) people will express more comfort with botsourcing when jobs are framed as requiring cognition versus emotion; (3) people will express more comfort with botsourcing for jobs that do require emotion if robots appear to convey more emotion; and (4) people prefer to outsource cognition-oriented versus emotion-oriented jobs to other humans who are perceived as more versus less robotic. These results have theoretical implications for understanding social cognition about both humans and nonhumans and practical implications for the increasingly botsourced and outsourced economy.

    • April 2014
    • Article

    Botsourcing and Outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German Workers Are for Thinking—Not Feeling—Jobs

    By: Adam Waytz and Michael I. Norton

    Technological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of "botsourcing"—the replacement of human jobs by robots—while examining how understanding botsourcing can inform the psychology of outsourcing—the replacement of jobs in one country by humans...

    • Article

    Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business

    By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

    When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of business opportunities and threats. The digitization of tasks and processes has become essential to competition. General Electric, for example, was at risk of losing many of its top customers to nontraditional competitors—IBM and SAP on the one hand, big data start-ups on the other—offering data-intensive, analytics-based services that could connect to any industrial device. So GE launched a multibillion-dollar initiative focused on what it calls the industrial internet: adding digital sensors to its machines; connecting them to a common, cloud-based software platform; investing in software development capabilities; building advanced analytics capabilities; and embracing crowd-based product development. With all this, GE is evolving its business model. Now, for example, revenue from its jet engines is tied to reduced downtime and miles flown over the course of a year. After just three years, GE is generating more than $1.5 billion in incremental income with digitally enabled, outcomes-based business models. The company expects that number to double in 2014 and again in 2015.

    • Article

    Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business

    By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

    When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and connection are spreading across even the most traditional industrial segments and creating a staggering array of business opportunities and threats. The digitization of tasks and processes has...

    • 2014
    • Working Paper

    The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors

    By: Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson

    While the Internet's first wave of disruption was marked by the unbundling of digital content, the second wave, decoupling, promises to generate more casualties in an even broader array of industries. Digital start-ups are disrupting traditional businesses by inserting themselves at every juncture in the customer's consumption chain. By decoupling—the act of separating activities that people are used to co-consuming—new digital businesses are disrupting retailing, telecom and other industries. Decoupling allows consumers to benefit from the value created at a lower cost or effort compared to what is delivered by traditional businesses. For those companies, the only solutions are to either recouple activities or rebalance to create and capture value (i.e., revenues) from both activities separately. Here, digital technologies can be seen as an instrument that will both disrupt traditional business models and potentially preserve them.

    • 2014
    • Working Paper

    The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors

    By: Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson

    While the Internet's first wave of disruption was marked by the unbundling of digital content, the second wave, decoupling, promises to generate more casualties in an even broader array of industries. Digital start-ups are disrupting traditional businesses by inserting themselves at every juncture in the customer's consumption chain. By...

The early works of William Abernathy on roadblocks to innovation and Richard Rosenbloom on technology and information transfers in the 1960's and 1970's started the Technology Strategy field and helped pave the path for our research today, which focuses on value creation of platforms and two-sided markets; use of open architecture and leverage of its collective value; development and execution of innovation strategies; innovative attributes of executives and firms; development of new markets through the creation of disruptive innovations that displace earlier technologies; development of innovations in sectors; and the impact of innovation on economic growth.

Recent Publications

Balancing Digital Safety and Innovation

By: Tomomichi Amano and Tomomi Tanaka
  • May–June 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Designers of consumer-facing digital products have tended to focus on novelty and speed (“move fast and break things”). They’ve spent more effort on innovating than on anticipating how customers—and bad actors—might engage with products. But as digital products become a primary way in which consumers connect with others, pay for things, and store private information, that view needs to change. The authors contend that companies must embed safeguards into the core of their digital products—starting during the earliest parts of the design process. They must also establish a road map for continued improvement and a dialogue with customers. The safety-by-design model can facilitate innovation rather than constrain it by providing a principled approach to product development.
Keywords: Technological Innovation; Cybersecurity; Demand and Consumers; Safety
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Amano, Tomomichi, and Tomomi Tanaka. "Balancing Digital Safety and Innovation." Harvard Business Review 103, no. 3 (May–June 2025): 120–127.

Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond

By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni
  • June 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Consumer Research
The use of large language models (LLMs) in consumer research is rapidly evolving, with applications including synthetic data generation, data analysis, and more. However, their role in creative ideation—a cornerstone of consumer research—remains underexplored. Drawing on the human creativity literature, we propose that ideation with LLMs is facilitated by their productivity and semantic breadth, which are psychologically analogous to the dual pathways of persistence and flexibility in human ideation. Further, we distinguish between the utility of LLMs as key ideators versus humans as key ideators, conceptualized through the LLM ideation roles of Designer and Writer and of Interviewer and Actor. While LLMs excel in generating incremental improvements, their potential for groundbreaking innovation could be unlocked by leveraging their ability to prompt human creativity. This paper advances the theoretical and practical understanding of LLMs in ideation for consumer research, offering numerous practical strategies for integrating generative AI into research while emphasizing human-AI collaboration to achieve radical insights.
Keywords: Large Language Model; AI and Machine Learning; Creativity; Innovation Strategy
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De Freitas, Julian, G. Nave, and Stefano Puntoni. "Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond." Journal of Consumer Research 51, no. 1 (June 2025): 18–31.

Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra and Radhika Kak
  • May 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In April 2025, the founding team of Windsurf, an AI start-up specializing in code generation gathered in Mountain View, California, to assess its remarkable year of growth. The company had scaled from a niche GitHub Copilot alternative to a breakout player with over 700,000 individual users, 1,000 enterprise customers, and more than $40 million in ARR. Yet, as the AI code assistant market became increasingly crowded with tech giants, well-funded startups, and rapidly evolving user expectations, Windsurf faced three key strategic questions. First: Who should Windsurf serve? Should it continue to serve highly regulated enterprises demanding on-premise deployments, or shift focus entirely toward a broader base of cloud-first enterprises, including both technical and non-technical users adopting its new AI-native IDE, the Windsurf Editor? Second: How could Windsurf build a durable moat? Would long-term defensibility come from building a proprietary foundation model, from advanced context retrieval, or from delivering the most intuitive user experience? And third: How should Windsurf grow? Should it continue pursuing top-down enterprise sales or lean into the bottom-up, developer-led momentum that had already propelled it to eight-figure ARR within a month of launching a paid plan? This case examines strategic trade-offs in AI-first product companies, evaluate paths to defensibility in a fiercely competitive space, and how generative AI is reshaping the economics of software development.
Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; United States
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Srinivasan, Suraj, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra, and Radhika Kak. "Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market." Harvard Business School Case 125-111, May 2025.

The Diffusion of New Technologies

By: Aakash Kalyani, Marcela Carvalho, Nicholas Bloom, Tarek Hassan, Josh Lerner and Ahmed Tahoun
  • May 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Quarterly Journal of Economics
We identify phrases associated with novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls, enabling us to identify four stylized facts on the diffusion of jobs relating to new technologies. First, the development of economically impactful new technologies is geographically highly concentrated, more so even than overall patenting: 56% of the most economically impactful technologies come from just two U.S. locations, Silicon Valley and the Northeast Corridor. Second, as the technologies mature and the number of related jobs grows, hiring spreads geographically. But this process is very slow, taking around 50 years to disperse fully. Third, while initial hiring in new technologies is highly skill biased, over time the mean skill level in new positions declines, drawing in an increasing number of lower-skilled workers. Finally, the geographic spread of hiring is slowest for higher-skilled positions, with the locations where new technologies were pioneered remaining the focus for the technology’s high-skill jobs for decades.
Keywords: Technology; Geography; Innovation; R&D; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Employment; Geographic Location
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Kalyani, Aakash, Marcela Carvalho, Nicholas Bloom, Tarek Hassan, Josh Lerner, and Ahmed Tahoun. "The Diffusion of New Technologies." Quarterly Journal of Economics 140, no. 2 (May 2025): 1299–1365. (Earlier version distributed as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 28999 and Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 21-114. Related discussion published as “How Disruptive Technologies Diffuse,” VoxEU, 2021.)

Kleiner Perkins (2019)

By: Jo Tango and Srimayi Mylavarapu
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Kleiner Perkins, founded in 1972, quickly rose to prominence as one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, earning a reputation for early investments in industry giants like Google, Amazon, and Citrix. However, a bold, strategic pivot to cleantech investing in the mid-2000s, combined with leadership turnover and internal cultural tensions, challenged the firm’s performance and identity. By the 2010s, Kleiner shifted its focus back to technology, this time through growth-stage investments, marking a departure from the early-stage focus that had defined the firm's initial success. Furthermore, a proposed acquisition of Social Capital exposed deeper questions around succession and the firm's long-term strategy. In an increasingly competitive VC landscape, where peers had continued to make strides, would Kleiner be able to reclaim its status as a leading tech investor and successfully navigate its next chapter?
Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Funds; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance
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Tango, Jo, and Srimayi Mylavarapu. "Kleiner Perkins (2019)." Harvard Business School Case 825-193, April 2025.

Lisa Su and AMD (A)

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This multimedia case study focuses on CEO Lisa Su’s turnaround and subsequent transformation of the technology company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). When Su accepted the top position in 2014, AMD was on the verge of collapse. Su focused the company’s culture, simplified its product roadmap, repaired relationships with key stakeholders, and placed a big bet on innovations in high performance computing and Artificial Intelligence to make AMD a tech powerhouse by late 2023. Lisa Su and AMD (A) and Lisa Su and AMD (B) are not standalone case studies. They are designed to be taught together. Lisa Su and AMD (A) explores AMD’s successes and challenges prior to Lisa Su becoming CEO. Lisa Su and AMD (B) helps students understand the key elements of the transformation, and how Su is positioning the company for the future.
Keywords: Turnaround; Artificial Intelligence; Semiconductors; Change Management; Transformation; Decision Making; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government and Politics; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Leadership; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Product Design; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategic Planning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Computer Industry; United States; California; Texas
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Margolis, Joshua D., Matthew Preble, and Dave Habeeb. "Lisa Su and AMD (A)." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 425-704, April 2025.

Sharon Goldberg and BastionZero

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, James Barnett and Maxim Pike Harrell
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In December 2023, BastionZero co-founder and CEO Sharon Goldberg considered her startup’s future. Established in 2017 as a blockchain company focused on improving the security of cryptocurrency trading, in March 2020 the VC-backed startup shifted focus to a new technology for secure cloud infrastructure access using advanced cryptographic methods. After initial customer traction and a strong financing round raised in 2022, the startup faced a series of financial setbacks in 2023, including the collapse of its banking partner, Silicon Valley Bank. Goldberg considered grinding it out but also saw the appeal in an acquisition if the right opportunity presented itself.
Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurial Finance; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Business Exit or Shutdown
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Bussgang, Jeffrey J., James Barnett, and Maxim Pike Harrell. "Sharon Goldberg and BastionZero." Harvard Business School Case 825-102, April 2025.

Breezm: Innovative 3D-Printed Eyewear (A)

By: Juan Alcácer, Brian Mao Fu and Adina Wong
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In 2023, Breezm, a South Korean startup, faced a strategic decision about how to grow its innovative 3D-printed, custom-fit eyewear business. Co-founded in 2017 by Zenma Park and Wooseok Sung, Breezm combined facial scanning, AI, and in-house production to solve the problem of ill-fitting glasses. With $4.5 million in 2022 revenue and a vertically integrated direct to consumer (DTC) model, the company aimed to go public by 2027. The founders now had to decide whether to optimize operations in Seoul, expand across Korea, or pursue international growth to reach scale and profitability. Each path presented different risks and opportunities. Domestic optimization could improve margins but limit long-term growth. National expansion would tap into new Korean markets, but face intense price competition. Global expansion offered the largest potential, yet required overcoming regulatory hurdles and investing in brand-building abroad. The choice would shape Breezm’s path to becoming a global leader in personalized eyewear.
Keywords: 3D Printing; Eyeyewear; Growth; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; South Korea
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Alcácer, Juan, Brian Mao Fu, and Adina Wong. "Breezm: Innovative 3D-Printed Eyewear (A)." Harvard Business School Case 725-376, April 2025.

Hurtigruten: Sea Zero

By: Christian Kaps and Michael W. Toffel
  • March 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Hurtigruten was deciding whether the next ship they built should be fully electric. But such a vessel's battery, the size of electric cars, needed to be charged on the ship's multi-day voyage along the Norwegian coast. Before making such a $250 million investment, the company needed to understand where en route it needed charging infrastructure and how it could access sufficient power at ports. These considerations had to be balanced against the uncertainty around the government's emissions targets for Hurtigruten's fleet, and customers' desire for sustainable tourism.
Keywords: Energy Sources; Alternative Energy; Ship Transportation; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Management; Green Technology; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Shipping Industry; Tourism Industry; Transportation Industry; Travel Industry; Battery Industry; Norway; Europe
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Kaps, Christian, and Michael W. Toffel. "Hurtigruten: Sea Zero." Harvard Business School Case 625-100, March 2025.

The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise

By: Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Charles Ayoubi, Hila Lifshitz, Raffaella Sadun, Ethan Mollick, Lilach Mollick, Yi Han, Jeff Goldman, Hari Nair, Stew Taub and Karim R. Lakhani
  • 2025 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
We examine how artificial intelligence transforms the core pillars of collaboration— performance, expertise sharing, and social engagement—through a pre-registered field experiment with 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, a global consumer packaged goods company. Working on real product innovation challenges, professionals were randomly assigned to work either with or without AI, and either individually or with another professional in new product development teams. Our findings reveal that AI significantly enhances performance: individuals with AI matched the performance of teams without AI, demonstrating that AI can effectively replicate certain benefits of human collaboration. Moreover, AI breaks down functional silos. Without AI, R&D professionals tended to suggest more technical solutions, while Commercial professionals leaned towards commerciallyoriented proposals. Professionals using AI produced balanced solutions, regardless of their professional background. Finally, AI’s language-based interface prompted more positive selfreported emotional responses among participants, suggesting it can fulfill part of the social and motivational role traditionally offered by human teammates. Our results suggest that AI adoption at scale in knowledge work reshapes not only performance but also how expertise and social connectivity manifest within teams, compelling organizations to rethink the very structure of collaborative work.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Teamwork; Human-machine Interaction; Productivity; Skills; Innovation; Field Experiment; AI and Machine Learning; Groups and Teams; Competency and Skills; Performance Productivity; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Product Development
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Dell'Acqua, Fabrizio, Charles Ayoubi, Hila Lifshitz, Raffaella Sadun, Ethan Mollick, Lilach Mollick, Yi Han, Jeff Goldman, Hari Nair, Stew Taub, and Karim R. Lakhani. "The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-043, March 2025.
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Karim R. Lakhani
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Michael L. Tushman
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Elie Ofek
Linda A. Hill
→See All

Harvard Business Publishing

    • May–June 2025
    • Article

    Balancing Digital Safety and Innovation

    By: Tomomichi Amano and Tomomi Tanaka
    • April 2025
    • Case

    Lisa Su and AMD (A)

    By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb
→More Harvard Business Publishing
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