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New research on disruption from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including how disruptive innovation is remaking businesses, health care organizations, and universities; insights from observations by the theory's founder, Clayton Christensen; and how to use disruption to your advantage.
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The Importance of Trust for Managing through a Crisis

Re: Sandra J. Sucher

In March 2020, Twiddy & Company, a family-owned vacation rental company known for hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless, remote customer service. With the upcoming vacation season thrown into chaos, President Clark Twiddy had a responsibility to the company’s network of homeowners who rented their homes through the company, to guests who had booked vacations, and to employees who had been recruited by Twiddy’s reputation for treating staff well. Who, if anyone, could he afford to make whole and keep happy? Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher, author of the book The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It, discusses how Twiddy leaned into trust to weather the COVID-19 pandemic in her case, “Twiddy & Company: Trust in a Chaotic Environment.”

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

Is your company reaping the rewards of digital transformation yet? Linda Hill and colleagues offer seven guiding principles for transformations at any stage—nascent, progressing, or stalled. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

Digital transformation seems like a journey without end, but many companies are forging ahead. Linda Hill and colleagues reveal six qualities that set digitally mature organizations apart. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Best Buy: How Human Connection Saved a Failing Retailer

by Michael Blanding

In The Heart of Business, former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly shares how he revived the ailing electronics chain, offering a guide to leaders facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Lessons for Retailers from the Rebirth of Indie Bookstores

by Michael Blanding

Independent bookstores are resurging. Their strategies offer lessons for many disrupted industries to compete against Amazon and other digital retailers, says Ryan Raffaelli. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Manager's Guide to Leveraging Disruption

by Sean Silverthorne

Clayton M. Christensen's seminal book, The Innovator's Dilemma, helped ignite the idea of innovative disruption. His Harvard Business School colleagues have been adding to innovation research ever since. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Are Paywalls Saving Newspapers?

by Kristen Senz

Newspapers with reputable brands and unique content are finding success behind paywalls. For most papers, however, the future is not so clear, says Doug J. Chung. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

What’s Really Disrupting Business? It’s Not Technology

by Danielle Kost

Technology doesn't drive disruption—customers do. In a new book, marketing professor Thales Teixeira argues that successful disruptors are faster to spot and serve emerging customer needs than larger competitors. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Big Companies Can Outrun Disruption

by Martha Lagace

Large companies can be easy targets for disruption, but Gary Pisano says there are steps that can keep them ahead of the innovation curve. Rule 1: Don't emulate startup cultures. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within

Re: Karen Mills

When Eastern Bank decided to battle a threat from new competitors, it hired a fintech executive to set up Eastern Labs and start innovating. Karen Mills discusses her case study on what happened next. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

by Dina Gerdeman

Target is one big-brand retailer that seems to have survived and even thrived in the apocalyptic retail landscape. What's its secret? Srikant Datar discusses the company's relentless focus on online data. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Executive Education in the Digital Vortex: The Disruption of the Supply Landscape

by Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas

The competitive landscape of executive education is feeling a tectonic shift even as demand grows for managerial skills. This study maps and analyzes the major providers of executive education programs, including business schools, consultancies, and corporate universities, to better understand and explain the industry’s present and future dynamics.

The Three Types of Leaders Who Create Radical Change

by Carmen Nobel

Every successful social movement requires three distinct leadership roles: the agitator, the innovator, and the orchestrator, according to institutional change expert Julie Battilana. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Retail Reaches a Tipping Point—Which Stores Will Survive?

by Sean Silverthorne

Part 1: The new book Retail Revolution: Will Your Brick and Mortar Store Survive? argues that ecommerce is about to deal severe blows to many familiar store-based brands—even including Walmart. Here's how retailers can fight back, according to Rajiv Lal, José Alvarez, and Dan Greenberg. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University

by Clayton M. Christensen & Henry J. Eyring

In The Innovative University, authors Clayton M. Christensen and Henry J. Eyring take Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation to the field of higher education, where new online institutions and learning tools are challenging the future of traditional colleges and universities. Key concepts include: A disruptive innovation brings to market a product or service that isn't as good as the best traditional offerings, but is less expensive and easier to use. Online learning is a disruptive technology that is making colleges and universities reconsider their higher education models. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

HBS Cases: iPads, Kindles, and the Close of a Chapter in Book Publishing

by Julia Hanna

Book publishing is changing before our very eyes, even if the industry itself is fighting the transition with every comma it can muster. Harvard Business School professor Peter Olson, former CEO of Random House, wonders if books themselves may be in jeopardy. Key concepts include: The traditional book publishing and distribution system is under pressure to change to digital e-books. Publishers should consider a strategy of cooperation rather than competition with online retailers. Adding video and other multimedia capabilities will make e-books more attractive in the textbook industry. The fundamental question to be asked in the Internet age is, how popular will books remain? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship

by James E. Austin & Ezequiel Reficco

Accelerated organizational transformation faces a host of obstacles well-documented in the change management literature. Because corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) expands the core purpose of corporations and their organizational values, it constitutes fundamental change that can be particularly threatening and resisted. Furthermore, it pushes the corporation's actions more broadly and deeply into the area of social value creation where the firm's experiences and skill sets are less developed. The disruptive social innovations intrinsic to the CSE approach amplify this zone of discomfort. Fortunately, the experiences of innovative companies such as Timberland and Starbucks show how these challenges may be overcome. Key concepts include: Values-based leadership, the synergistic generation of social and economic value, and strategic cross-sector alliances are key ingredients to achieving a sustainably successful business. For companies to move their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to the next level, they need to rethink their current approaches to CSR, tapping into the creativity of each individual. Like all entrepreneurship, CSE is about creating disruptive change in the pursuit of new opportunities. It combines the willingness and desire to create joint economic and social value with the entrepreneurial redesign, systems development, and action necessary to carry it out. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Clayton Christensen on Disrupting Health Care

by Deborah Blagg

In The Innovator's Prescription, Clayton Christensen and his coauthors target disruptive innovations that will make health care both more affordable and more effective. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage

by Lynda M. Applegate

Fostering innovation in a mature company can often seem like a swim upstream—the needs of the existing business often overwhelm attempts to create something new. Harvard Business School professor Lynda M. Applegate shows how one of the forces that threatens established companies can also be a source of salvation: disruptive change. Plus: Innovation worksheets. Key concepts include: Jumpstarting innovation is a critical business imperative. Executives realize that radical change is needed but do not feel equipped to make such change. Disruptions in the business environment allow new entrants or forward-thinking established players to introduce innovations that transform the way companies do business and consumers behave. Disruptive changes that might serve as the source of innovation include technology shifts, new business models, industry dynamics, global opportunities, and regulatory changes. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

The Lessons of New-Market Disruption

by Clark Gilbert

Teradyne was successful. Hewlett-Packard was not. Professor Clark Gilbert writes about how two companies had such different results with disruptive innovation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.