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New research on innovation from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including encouraging creativity, managing teams, and problem solving.
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Do Companies Really Need Chief Experience Officers to Know Their Customers?

by James Heskett

Does it take a CXO or chief customer officer to bring executives closer to the customer experience? James Heskett ponders the value of this increasingly popular role. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

When Kathy Fish became Procter & Gamble’s Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady stream of disruptive innovations. In addition, intensifying competition from direct-to-consumer companies convinced Fish that P&G needed to renew its value proposition to make all aspects of the consumer experience “irresistibly superior.” But making this change would require wholesale transformation from within. Can Fish bring lean innovation to scale at Procter & Gamble? Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Emily Truelove discusses the challenges of bringing this established company back to an innovative mindset in her case, “Kathy Fish at Procter & Gamble: Navigating Industry Disruption by Disrupting from Within.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

A Simple Question That Can Guide Companies to Epic Success

by Danielle Kost

Will that big idea create value? In Better, Simpler Strategy, Felix Oberholzer-Gee shows how even the most innovative companies adhere to one basic principle. He delves further into his framework in a new video. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The High Cost of the Slow COVID Vaccine Rollout

by Michael Blanding

Aggressive investment in COVID-19 vaccine production earlier on could have saved lives and prevented $700 billion in global economic losses, says research by Scott Duke Kominers and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most

by Lane Lambert

Companies that prize innovation should keep employees out of soul-crushing transit, even after the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests new research by Andy Wu. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

by Danielle Kost

Companies are testing everything from website features to compensation strategies, but five common mistakes can undermine their efforts, says Michael Luca. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Private and Social Returns to R&D: Drug Development and Demographics

by Efraim Benmelech, Janice Eberly, Dimitris Papanikolaou, and Joshua Krieger

Research and development (R&D) by pharmaceutical firms focuses disproportionately on medical conditions afflicting the elderly. The proportion of R&D spending targeting older age groups is increasing over time. Even though these investments in R&D prolong life expectancy and improve quality of life, they have little effect on measured productivity and output growth.

The Evolutionary Nature of Breakthrough Innovation: Re-Evaluating the Exploration vs. Exploitation Dichotomy

by Dominika K. Sarnecka and Gary P. Pisano

Analyzing more than 2,500 firm-level innovation histories spanning 30 years, this study shows that breakthrough innovation requires organizational capabilities for both exploration and exploitation. Managers should therefore question the frequent advice to put exploration- and exploitation-related innovative efforts into different organizational units.

The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers

by Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli

Analytics are descriptive when they describe what happened. Descriptive-analytics solutions are popular among marketers and retailers. This paper provides a benchmark for the benefits of using a descriptive dashboard and illustrates how to potentially extract these benefits.

Is A/B Testing Effective? Evidence from 35,000 Startups

by Kristen Senz

A/B tests help startup founders capitalize on good ideas—and move on from duds—faster, says research from Rembrand Koning. How can established companies benefit? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

by Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

Shareholder-driven “short-termism,” as evidenced by increasing payouts to shareholders, is said to impede long-term investment in EU public firms. But a deep dive into the data reveals a different story.

Accounting for Product Impact in the Consumer Finance Industry

by George Serafeim and Katie Trinh

A framework and method for measuring and monetizing product impact across industries, applying it to two competitors in the consumer finance space.

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

by Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend, and Yulia Zhestkova

This study of foreign corporate investment transactions from 32 countries between 1976 and 2015 finds these investments pose a trade-off: While they support young firms in pursuing innovations they could not otherwise afford, they also generate knowledge for the foreign investors.

Centrino and the Restructuring of Wi-Fi Supply

by Roberto Fontana and Shane Greenstein

This study examines Intel’s launch of Centrino and interprets it as a platform leader’s attempt to restructure a supply chain.

What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?

by Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts

This essay discusses the role of market frictions and "missing medicines" in drug innovation and highlights how frameworks and toolkits of economists can help our understanding of the determinants and effects of Alzheimer's disease on health.

Recessions Push Some Entrepreneurs to Launch Too Soon

by Sean Silverthorne

Research by Maria Roche looks at how past economic downturns forced job-insecure, high-tech entrepreneurs to rush their ventures to market. Will COVID-19 do the same? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

When Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? The Role of Negative Information in Expert Evaluations for Novel Projects

by Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani

Evaluators of early-stage scientific proposals tend to systematically focus on the weaknesses of proposed work rather than its strengths, according to evidence from two field experiments.

From the Plow to the Pill: How Technology Shapes Our Lives

by Dina Gerdeman

Many technologies have upended long-held beliefs about love, sex, marriage, and reproduction, says Debora Spar in a new book, Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Is a Pandemic the Best Time To Try Out a New Idea?

Singapore's new nationwide, Bluetooth-based contact tracing program TraceTogether must overcome privacy issues to be effective. Would Singaporeans adopt TraceTogether? Professor Mitch Weiss discusses his new case study. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Inventing the Endless Frontier: The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Post-War Innovation

by Daniel P. Gross and Bhaven N. Sampat

Investments made in World War II by the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development powered decades of subsequent innovation and the take-off of regional technology hubs around the country.