Karim R. Lakhani

Karim R. Lakhani is the Charles E. Wilson Professor of Business Administration and the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI). His innovation-related research is centered around his role as the founder and co-director of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard and as the principal investigator of the NASA Tournament Laboratory. Karim is known for his original scholarship on open source communities and innovation contests and has pioneered the use of field experiments to help solve innovation-related challenges while simultaneously generating rigorous research in partnership with organizations like NASA, Harvard Medical School, The Broad Institute, TopCoder, The Linux Foundation and various private organizations. His digital transformation research investigates the role of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in reshaping business and operating models. This research is complemented through his leadership as co-founder of the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative and as co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard Business Analytics Program, a university-wide online program transforming for mid-career executives into data-savvy leaders.

Karim has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers in leading management, economics and natural science journals, executive-oriented articles in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business School case studies. He is the co-editor of two books from MIT Press on open and distributed innovation models including Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities and Open Innovation (2016) and Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software (2005). He is the co-author of Competing in the Age of AI (2020) a book published by the Harvard Business Review Press. His research has been featured in BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc., MarketWatch, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Science, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WBUR, WGBH, and Wired.

Karim has taught extensively in Harvard Business School’s MBA, executive, doctoral and online programs. He has co-developed new courses on Digital Innovation & Transformation, Digital Strategy and Innovation, and Laboratory to Market. He co-chairs the HBS executive program on Competing with Big Data and Business Analytics, various custom executive education offerings and developed the HarvardX online course on Technology Entrepreneurship.

Karim was awarded his Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an SM degree in Technology and Policy from MIT, and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Management from McMaster University in Canada. He was a recipient of the Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship and a doctoral fellowship from Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council. Prior to coming to HBS he served as a Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Karim has also worked in sales, marketing and new product development roles at GE Healthcare and was a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.

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Books

Book | Forthcoming

Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

In industry after industry, data, analytics, and AI-driven processes are transforming the nature of work. While we often still treat AI as the domain of a specific skill, business function, or sector, we have entered a new era in which AI is challenging the very concept of the firm. AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value.
Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have constrained business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, drive massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and enable powerful opportunities for learning—to drive ever more accurate, complex, and sophisticated predictions.
When traditional operating constraints are removed, strategy becomes a whole new game, one whose rules and likely outcomes this book will make clear. The authors present a framework for rethinking business and operating models; explain how "collisions" between AI-driven/digital and traditional/analog firms are reshaping competition and altering the structure of our economy; show how these collisions force traditional companies to change their operating models to drive scale, scope, and learning; explain the risks involved in operating model transformation and how to overcome them; and describe the new challenges and responsibilities for the leaders of these firms.
Packed with examples—including the most powerful and innovative global, AI-driven competitors—and based on research in hundreds of firms across many sectors, this is the essential guide for rethinking how your firm competes and operates in the era of AI.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; Technological Innovation; Change; Competition; Strategy; Leadership; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

Citation:
Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, in press. View Details

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Book | 2016

Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation

Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani

The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary growth of new models of managing and organizing the innovation process, which emphasize users over producers. Large parts of the knowledge economy now routinely rely on users, communities, and open innovation approaches to solve important technological and organizational problems. This view of innovation, pioneered by the economist Eric von Hippel, counters the dominant paradigm, which casts the profit-seeking incentives of firms as the main driver of technical change. In a series of influential writings, von Hippel and colleagues found empirical evidence that flatly contradicted the producer-centered model of innovation. Since then, the study of user-driven innovation has continued and expanded, with further empirical exploration of a distributed model of innovation that includes communities and platforms in a variety of contexts and with the development of theory to explain the economic underpinnings of this still emerging paradigm. This volume provides a comprehensive and multidisciplinary view of the field of user and open innovation, reflecting advances in the field over the last several decades. The contributors—including many colleagues of Eric von Hippel—offer both theoretical and empirical perspectives from such diverse fields as economics, the history of science and technology, law, management, and policy. The empirical contexts for their studies range from household goods to financial services. After discussing the fundamentals of user innovation, the contributors cover communities and innovation; legal aspects of user and community innovation; new roles for user innovators; user interactions with firms; and user innovation in practice, describing experiments, toolkits, and crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Transformation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Harhoff, Dietmar and Karim R. Lakhani, eds. Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. View Details

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Book | 2005

Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software

Joe Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott Hissam and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Perspective; Software; Knowledge Sharing;

Citation:
Feller, Joe, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott Hissam and Karim R. Lakhani, eds. Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. View Details

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Journal Articles

Article | Research-Technology Management

Innovation Contests for High-Tech Procurement

Jin Hyun Paik, Martin Scholl, Rinat A. Sergeev, Steven Randazzo and Karim R. Lakhani

Innovation managers rarely use crowdsourcing as an innovative instrument despite extensive academic and theoretical research. The lack of tools available to compare and measure crowdsourcing, specifically contests, against traditional methods of procuring goods and services is one barrier to adoption. Using ethnographic research to understand how managers solved their problems, we find that the crowdsourcing model produces higher costs in the framing phase but yields savings in the solving phase, whereas traditional procurement is downstream cost intensive. Two case study examples with the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the United States Department of Energy demonstrate a potential total cost savings of 27% and 33%, respectively, using innovation contests. We provide a comprehensive evaluation framework for crowdsourcing contests developed from a high-tech industry perspective, which are applicable to other industries.

Keywords: open innovation; contests; crowdsourcing; nasa; evaluation; Acquisition; Technology; Innovation and Invention; Performance Evaluation; Framework;

Citation:

Hyun Paik, Jin, Martin Scholl, Rinat A. Sergeev, Steven Randazzo, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Innovation Contests for High-Tech Procurement." Research-Technology Management 63, no. 2 (March–April 2020): 36–45. View Details

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Article | MIT Sloan Management Review

From Disruption to Collision: The New Competitive Dynamics

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Citation:
Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "From Disruption to Collision: The New Competitive Dynamics." Special Issue on Disruption 2020. MIT Sloan Management Review 61, no. 3 (Spring 2020). View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

Competing in the Age of AI

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Today’s markets are being reshaped by a new kind of firm—one in which artificial intelligence (AI) runs the show. This cohort includes giants like Google, Facebook, and Alibaba, and growing businesses such as Wayfair and Ocado. Every time we use their services, the same thing happens: Rather than relying on processes run by employees, the value we get is delivered by algorithms. Software is at the core of the enterprise, and humans are moved off to the side. This model frees firms from traditional operating constraints and enables them to compete in unprecedented ways. AI-driven processes can be scaled up very rapidly, allow for greater scope because they can be connected to many kinds of businesses, and offer very powerful opportunities for learning and improvement. And while the value of scale eventually begins to level off in traditional models, in AI-based ones, it never stops climbing. All of that allows AI-driven firms to quickly overtake traditional ones. As AI models blur the lines between industries, strategies are relying less on specialized expertise and differentiation based on cost, quality, and branding and more on business network position, unique data, and the deployment of sophisticated analytics.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; algorithms; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Competition; Competitive Strategy;

Citation:

Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Competing in the Age of AI." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 1 (January–February 2020): 60–67. View Details

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Article | Academy of Management Perspectives

Crowdsourcing Memories: Mixed Methods Research by Cultural Insiders-Epistemological Outsiders

Tarun Khanna, Karim R. Lakhani, Shubhangi Bhadada, Nabil Khan, Saba Kohli Davé, Rasim Alam and Meena Hewett

This paper examines the role that the two lead authors’ personal connections played in the research methodology and data collection for the Partition Stories Project—a mixed-methods approach to revisiting the much-studied historical trauma of the Partition of British India in 1947. The Project collected survivors’ oral histories, a data type that is a mainstay of qualitative research, and subjected their narrative data to statistical analysis to detect aggregated trends. In this paper, the authors discuss the process of straddling the dichotomies of insider/outsider and qualitative/quantitative, address the “myth of informed objectivity,” and consider the need for hybrid research structures with the intent to innovate in humanities projects such as this. In presenting key learnings from the project, this paper highlights the tensions that the authors faced between positivist and interpretivist methods of inquiry, looks at the difference between “insider” and “outsider” categories of positionality and discusses in the quantification of qualitative oral history data. The paper concludes with an illustrative example from one of the lead authors’ past research experiences to suggest that the tensions of this project are general in occurrence and global in applicability, beyond the specifics of the Partition case study explored here.

Keywords: mixed methods; insider-outsiders; myth of informed objectivity; hybrid research; oral narratives; Research; India;

Citation:
Khanna, Tarun, Karim R. Lakhani, Shubhangi Bhadada, Nabil Khan, Saba Kohli Davé, Rasim Alam, and Meena Hewett. "Crowdsourcing Memories: Mixed Methods Research by Cultural Insiders-Epistemological Outsiders." Academy of Management Perspectives (in press). View Details

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Article | Strategy & Leadership

Overcoming Cultural Resistance to Open Source Innovation

John Winsor, Jin Hyun Paik, Michael Tushman and Karim R. Lakhani

Purpose: This article offers insight on how to effectively help incumbent organizations prepare for global business shifts to open source and digital business models.
Design/methodology/approach: Discussion related to observation, experience and case studies related to incumbent organizations and their efforts to adopt open source models and business tools.
Findings: Companies that let their old culture reject the new risk becoming obsolete if doing so inhibits their rethinking of their future using powerful tools like crowdsourcing, blockchain, customer experience-based connections, integrating workflows with artificial intelligence (AI), automated technologies and digital business platforms. These new ways of working affect how and where work is done, access to information, an organization’s capacity for work and its efficiency. As important as technological proficiency is, managing the cultural shift required to embrace transformative industry architecture – the key to innovating new business models -- may be the bigger challenge.
Research limitations/implications: Findings are based on original research and case studies. Insights are theoretically, based on additional study, interviews, and research, but need to be tested through additional case studies.
Practical implications: The goal is to make the transition more productive and less traumatic for incumbent firms by providing a language and tested methods to help senior leaders use innovative technologies to build on their core even as they explore new business models.
Social implications: This article provides insights that will lead to more effective ideas for helping organizations adapt.
Originality/value: This article is based on original research and case experience. That research and experience has then been analyzed and viewed through the lens of models that have been known to work. The result is original insights and findings that can be applied in new ways to further adoption within incumbent organizations.

Keywords: open source innovation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Winsor, John, Jin Hyun Paik, Michael Tushman, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Overcoming Cultural Resistance to Open Source Innovation." Strategy & Leadership 47, no. 6 (2019): 28–33. View Details

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Article | PLoS ONE

Advancing Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research Through Open Innovation Competitions

Andrea Blasco, Michael G. Endres, Rinat A. Sergeev, Anup Jonchhe, Max Macaluso, Rajiv Narayan, Ted Natoli, Jin H. Paik, Bryan Briney, Chunlei Wu, Andrew I. Su, Aravind Subramanian and Karim R. Lakhani

Open data science and algorithm development competitions offer a unique avenue for rapid discovery of better computational strategies. We highlight three examples in computational biology and bioinformatics research where the use of competitions has yielded significant performance gains over established algorithms. These include studying algorithms for antibody clustering, imputing gene expression data, and querying the Connectivity Map (CMap). Performance gains are evaluated quantitatively using realistic, albeit sanitized, data sets. The solutions produced through these competitions are then examined with respect to their utility and the prospects for implementation in the field. We present the decision process and competition design considerations that lead to these successful outcomes as a model for researchers who want to use competitions and non-domain crowds as collaborators to further their research.

Keywords: computational biology; bioinformatics; innovation competitions; Research; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Blasco, Andrea, Michael G. Endres, Rinat A. Sergeev, Anup Jonchhe, Max Macaluso, Rajiv Narayan, Ted Natoli, Jin H. Paik, Bryan Briney, Chunlei Wu, Andrew I. Su, Aravind Subramanian, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Advancing Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research Through Open Innovation Competitions." PLoS ONE 14, no. 9 (September 2019). View Details

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Article | Strategy & Leadership

Sustaining Open Innovation Through a 'Center of Excellence'

Elizabeth E. Richard, Jeffrey R. Davis, Jin Hyun Paik and Karim R. Lakhani

This paper presents NASA’s experience using a Center of Excellence (CoE) to scale and sustain an open innovation program as an effective problem-solving tool and includes strategic management recommendations for other organizations based on lessons learned.
This paper defines four phases of implementing an open innovation program: Learn, Pilot, Scale and Sustain. It provides guidance on the time required for each phase and recommendations for how to utilize a CoE to succeed. Recommendations are based upon the experience of NASA’s Human Health and Performance Directorate, as well as the experience at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard running hundreds of challenges with research and development organizations.
Lessons learned include the importance of grounding innovation initiatives in the business strategy, assessing the portfolio of work to select problems most amenable to solving via crowdsourcing methodology, framing problems that external parties can solve, thinking strategically about early wins, selecting the right platforms, developing criteria for evaluation, and advancing a culture of innovation. Establishing a CoE provides an effective infrastructure to address both technical and cultural issues.
The NASA experience spanned more than seven years from initial learnings about open innovation concepts to the successful scaling and sustaining of an open innovation program; this paper provides recommendations on how to decrease this timeline to three years.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; culture change; open innovation; Center of Excellence; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Change Management;

Citation:
Richard, Elizabeth E., Jeffrey R. Davis, Jin Hyun Paik, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Sustaining Open Innovation Through a 'Center of Excellence'." Strategy & Leadership 47, no. 3 (2019): 19–26. View Details

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Article | JAMA Oncology

Use of Crowd Innovation to Develop an Artificial Intelligence-Based Solution for Radiation Therapy Targeting

Raymond H. Mak, Michael G. Endres, Jin Hyun Paik, Rinat A. Sergeev, Hugo Aerts, Christopher L. Williams, Karim R. Lakhani and Eva C. Guinan

Importance: Radiation therapy (RT) is a critical cancer treatment, but the existing radiation oncologist work force does not meet growing global demand. One key physician task in RT planning involves tumor segmentation for targeting, which requires substantial training and is subject to significant inter-observer variation.
Objective: To determine whether crowd innovation could be used to rapidly produce artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that replicate the accuracy of an expert radiation oncologist in segmenting lung tumors for RT targeting.
Design: We conducted a 10-week, prize-based, online, three-phase challenge (prizes totaled $55,000). A well-curated dataset, including CT scans and lung tumor segmentations generated by an expert for clinical care, was used for the contest (CT scans from 461 patients; median 157 images/scan; 77,942 images in total; 8,144 images with tumor present). Contestants were provided a training set of 229 CT scans with accompanying expert contours to develop their algorithms and given feedback on their performance throughout the contest, including from the expert clinician.
Main Outcome: AI algorithms generated by contestants were automatically scored on an independent dataset that was withheld from contestants, and performance was ranked using quantitative metrics that evaluated overlap of each algorithm’s automated segmentations with the expert’s segmentations. Performance was further benchmarked against human expert inter-observer and intra-observer variation.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; AI algorithms; Health Care and Treatment; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:

Mak, Raymond H., Michael G. Endres, Jin Hyun Paik, Rinat A. Sergeev, Hugo Aerts, Christopher L. Williams, Karim R. Lakhani, and Eva C. Guinan. "Use of Crowd Innovation to Develop an Artificial Intelligence-Based Solution for Radiation Therapy Targeting." doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.0159. JAMA Oncology 5, no. 5 (May 2019): 654–661. View Details

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Article | Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence

Andrea Blasco, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael Menietti

Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for employees to submit project proposals for organizational improvement. In total, we analyze 1,237 employees, 118 proposals, and quality evaluations for more than 12,000 evaluator-proposal pairs. The analysis shows that solicitations offering a personal reward for top submissions boost participation rates without affecting submission quality. We show that this is due to workers partially internalizing the positive effects of their submissions on the other individuals in the workplace. We also find that offering employees project funding to implement their own proposals potentially backfires, undermining participation. And solicitations emphasizing mission-oriented goals, like improving patient care, are sensitive to the solicited person’s gender, with women responding more than men. These results shed light on the factors that drive employees’ engagement in organizational tasks, beyond regular duties, and provide insights on how to design incentives to foster contributions to public goods inside organizations.

Keywords: field experiment; innovation; contest; incentives; free-rider problem; healthcare organizations; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Performance Improvement; Perspective;

Citation:
Blasco, Andrea, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael Menietti. "Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 160 (April 2019): 214–229. View Details

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Article | MIT Sloan Management Review

What Problems Will You Solve with Blockchain?: Before Jumping on the Bandwagon, Companies Need to Carefully Consider how Ledger Technologies Fit into their Overall Strategy

Teppo Felin and Karim R. Lakhani

Distributed ledger technologies — collectively known as blockchain — have burst onto the business scene, accompanied by a significant amount of hype.They are widely expected to disrupt existing industries and lead to the creation of new types of companies. Some of the excitement may indeed be warranted, but only if organizations focus on how these technologies can be used to support their strategy. Without that lens, companies risk making large investments in initiatives that don’t create meaningful value. However, with careful planning, businesses can use blockchain to gain an edge over rivals in a number of ways. It can provide a foundation for powerful applications that will streamline core operations. Distributed ledger technologies can lower transaction costs and make intellectual property ownership and payments more transparent, seamless, and automated. But companies should resist jumping on the bandwagon until they first understand what specific problems they can solve with blockchain — and for whom. How will it help them reach new customers? How can it improve efficiency or transparency in their supply chains? And most important, what will blockchain enable them to do that competitors and new entrants can’t do? Answering these sorts of practical, targeted questions will allow businesses to cut through the hype and create a blockchain strategy that makes sense for them.

Keywords: Blockchain; Technology Adoption; Strategy; Business Processes; Innovation Strategy;

Citation:
Felin, Teppo, and Karim R. Lakhani. "What Problems Will You Solve with Blockchain? Before Jumping on the Bandwagon, Companies Need to Carefully Consider how Ledger Technologies Fit into their Overall Strategy." Reprint 60115. MIT Sloan Management Review 60, no. 1 (Fall 2018). View Details

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Article | Health Care Management Review

Innovation Contest: Effect of Perceived Support for Learning on Participation

Olivia Jung, Andrea Blasco and Karim R. Lakhani

Background: Frontline staff are well positioned to conceive improvement opportunities based on first-hand knowledge of what works and does not work. The innovation contest may be a relevant and useful vehicle to elicit staff ideas. However, the success of the contest likely depends on perceived organizational support for learning; when staff believe that support for learning-oriented culture, practices, and leadership is low, they may be less willing or able to share ideas. Purpose: We examined how staff perception of organizational support for learning affected contest participation, which comprised ideation and evaluation of submitted ideas. Methodology/Approach: The contest held in a hospital cardiac center invited all clinicians and support staff (n = 1,400) to participate. We used the 27-item Learning Organization Survey to measure staff perception of learning-oriented environment, practices and processes, and leadership. Results: Seventy-two frontline staff submitted 138 ideas addressing wide-ranging issues including patient experience, cost of care, workflow, utilization, and access. Two hundred forty-five participated in evaluation. Supportive learning environment predicted participation in ideation and idea evaluation. Perceptions of insufficient experimentation with new ways of working also predicted participation. Conclusion: The contest enabled frontline staff to share input and assess input shared by other staff. Our findings indicate that the contest may serve as a fruitful outlet through which frontline staff can share and learn new ideas, especially for those who feel safe to speak up and believe that new ideas are not tested frequently enough. Practice Implications: The contest’s potential to decentralize innovation may be greater under stronger learning orientation. A highly visible intervention, like the innovation contest, has both benefits and risks. Our findings suggest benefits such as increased engagement with work and community as well as risks such as discontent that could arise if staff suggestions are not acted upon or if there is no desired change after the contest.

Keywords: contest; innovation; employee engagement; organizational learning; health care; health care delivery; Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Learning; Employees; Perception; Health Care and Treatment;

Citation:
Jung, Olivia, Andrea Blasco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Innovation Contest: Effect of Perceived Support for Learning on Participation." Health Care Management Review (June 2018). View Details

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Article | Review of Economics and Statistics

A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations

Kevin Boudreau, Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan, Anthony Hollenberg and Karim R. Lakhani

We present the results of a field experiment conducted at Harvard Medical School to understand the extent to which search costs affect matching among scientific collaborators. We generated exogenous variation in search costs for pairs of potential collaborators by randomly assigning individuals to 90-minute structured information-sharing sessions as part of a grant funding opportunity. We estimate that the treatment increases the probability of grant co-application of a given pair of researchers by 75%. The findings suggest that matching between scientists is subject to considerable friction, even in the case of geographically proximate scientists working in the same institutional context.

Keywords: search costs; Cost; Marketplace Matching; Groups and Teams; Science; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:

Boudreau, Kevin, Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan, Anthony Hollenberg, and Karim R. Lakhani. "A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations." Review of Economics and Statistics 99, no. 4 (October 2017): 565–576. View Details

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Other Article | GigaScience

Stepwise Distributed Open Innovation Contests for Software Development: Acceleration of Genome-Wide Association Analysis

Andrew Hill, Po-Ru Loh, Ragu B. Bharadwaj, Pascal Pons, Jingbo Shang, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, Iain Kilty and Scott Jelinsky

BACKGROUND: The association of differing genotypes with disease-related phenotypic traits offers great potential to both help identify new therapeutic targets and support stratification of patients who would gain the greatest benefit from specific drug classes. Development of low-cost genotyping and sequencing has made collecting large-scale genotyping data routine in population and therapeutic intervention studies. In addition, a range of new technologies is being used to capture numerous new and complex phenotypic descriptors. As a result, genotype and phenotype datasets have grown exponentially. Genome-wide association studies associate genotypes and phenotypes using methods such as logistic regression. As existing tools for association analysis limit the efficiency by which value can be extracted from increasing volumes of data, there is a pressing need for new software tools that can accelerate association analyses on large genotype-phenotype datasets. RESULTS: Using open innovation (OI) and contest-based crowdsourcing, the logistic regression analysis in a leading, community-standard genetics software package (PLINK 1.07) was substantially accelerated. OI allowed us to do this in <6 months by providing rapid access to highly skilled programmers with specialized, difficult-to-find skill sets. Through a crowd-based contest a combination of computational, numeric, and algorithmic approaches was identified that accelerated the logistic regression in PLINK 1.07 by 18- to 45-fold. Combining contest-derived logistic regression code with coarse-grained parallelization, multithreading, and associated changes to data initialization code further developed through distributed innovation, we achieved an end-to-end speedup of 591-fold for a data set size of 6678 subjects by 645 863 variants, compared to PLINK 1.07's logistic regression. This represents a reduction in run time from 4.8 hours to 29 seconds. Accelerated logistic regression code developed in this project has been incorporated into the PLINK2 project. CONCLUSIONS: Using iterative competition-based OI, we have developed a new, faster implementation of logistic regression for genome-wide association studies analysis. We present lessons learned and recommendations on running a successful OI process for bioinformatics.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; genome-wide association study; logistic regression; open innovation; PLINK; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Hill, Andrew, Po-Ru Loh, Ragu B. Bharadwaj, Pascal Pons, Jingbo Shang, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, Iain Kilty, and Scott Jelinsky. "Stepwise Distributed Open Innovation Contests for Software Development: Acceleration of Genome-Wide Association Analysis." GigaScience 6, no. 5 (May 2017). View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

Managing Our Hub Economy: Strategy, Ethics, and Network Competition in the Age of Digital Superpowers

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

A small number of digital superpowers—Alibaba, Amazon, Microsoft, and others—have become “hub firms” because they control access to billions of mobile customers coveted by all kinds of product and service providers. These hubs drive increasing returns to scale and claim a disproportionate share of the value being created in the global economy. The authors argue that the hub economy will continue to spread across more industries, concentrating more power in the hands of a few. As an example, they take an in-depth look at the auto industry and how Apple and Alphabet/Google are poised to become the main beneficiaries as cars turn into digitally connected spaces for work, entertainment, and shopping. As hubs proliferate and expand their reach, the danger is that they will exacerbate economic inequality and threaten social stability. It is thus incumbent on all stakeholders—traditional companies, start-ups, institutions, and communities—to make certain changes in the ways they do business. Moreover, hub firms themselves must do a better job leading responsibly for the good of all, not just creating and capturing value but doing more to sustain other players in the ecosystem.

Keywords: Competition; Strategic Planning; Auto Industry; Technology Industry;

Citation:

Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Managing Our Hub Economy: Strategy, Ethics, and Network Competition in the Age of Digital Superpowers." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 5 (September–October 2017): 84–92. View Details

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Article | Strategic Organization

Firms, Crowds, and Innovation

Teppo Felin, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael L. Tushman

The purpose of this article is to suggest a (preliminary) taxonomy and research agenda for the topic of “firms, crowds, and innovation” and to provide an introduction to the associated special issue. We specifically discuss how various crowd-related phenomena and practices—for example, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, user innovation, and peer production—relate to theories of the firm, with particular attention on “sociality” in firms and markets. We first briefly review extant theories of the firm and then discuss three theoretical aspects of sociality related to crowds in the context of strategy, organizations, and innovation: (1) the functions of sociality (sociality as extension of rationality, sociality as sensing and signaling, sociality as matching and identity); (2) the forms of sociality (independent/aggregate and interacting/emergent forms of sociality); and (3) the failures of sociality (misattribution and misapplication). We conclude with an outline of future research directions and introduce the special issue papers and essays.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; innovation; open innovation; organization theory; strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Theory; Strategy;

Citation:
Felin, Teppo, Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael L. Tushman. "Firms, Crowds, and Innovation." Special Issue on Organizing Crowds and Innovation. Strategic Organization 15, no. 2 (May 2017): 119–140. (doi: 10.1177/1476127017706610.) View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

The Truth about Blockchain

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Contracts, transactions, and records of them provide critical structure in our economic system, but they haven’t kept up with the world’s digital transformation. They’re like rush-hour gridlock trapping a Formula 1 race car. Blockchain promises to solve this problem. The technology behind bitcoin, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that records transactions safely, permanently and very efficiently. For instance, while the transfer of a share of stock can now take up to a week, with blockchain it could happen in seconds. Blockchain could slash the cost of transactions and eliminate intermediaries like lawyers and bankers, and that could transform the economy. But, like the adoption of more Internet technologies, blockchain’s adoption will require broad coordination and will take years. The authors describe the path that blockchain is likely to follow and explain how firms should think about investments in it.

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Information Management; Information Technology Industry;

Citation:

Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "The Truth about Blockchain." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 1 (January–February 2017): 118–127. View Details

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Article | Information Systems Research

Online Community as Space for Knowledge Flows

Samer Faraj, Georg von Krogh, Eric Monteiro and Karim R. Lakhani

Online communities frequently create significant economic and relational value for community participants and beyond. It is widely accepted that the underlying source of such value is the collective flow of knowledge among community participants. We distinguish the conditions for flows of tacit and explicit knowledge in online communities and advance an unconventional theoretical conjecture: Online communities give rise to tacit knowledge flows between participants. The crucial condition for these flows is not the advent of novel, digital technology as often portrayed in the literature, but instead the technology’s domestication by humanity and the sociality it affords. This conjecture holds profound implications for theory and research in the study of management and organization, as well as their relation to information technology.

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Value Creation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:

Faraj, Samer, Georg von Krogh, Eric Monteiro, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Online Community as Space for Knowledge Flows." Information Systems Research 27, no. 4 (December 2016): 668–684. View Details

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Article | International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR)

Detecting Figures and Part Labels in Patents: Competition-based Development of Graphics Recognition Algorithms

Christoph Riedl, Richard Zanibbi, Marti A. Hearst, Siyu Zhu, Michael Menietti, Jason Crusan, Ivan Metelsky and Karim R. Lakhani

Citation:
Riedl, Christoph, Richard Zanibbi, Marti A. Hearst, Siyu Zhu, Michael Menietti, Jason Crusan, Ivan Metelsky, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Detecting Figures and Part Labels in Patents: Competition-based Development of Graphics Recognition Algorithms." International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR) 19, no. 2 (June 2016): 155–172. (Published online before print, February 2016.) View Details

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Article | RAND Journal of Economics

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the performance response to added contestants varies non-monotonically across contestants of different abilities, most respond negatively to competition, and highest-skilled contestants respond positively. In counterfactual simulations, we interpret a number of tournament design policies (number of competitors, prize allocation and structure, divisionalization, open entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another.

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy;

Citation:

Boudreau, Kevin J., Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael E. Menietti. "Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design." RAND Journal of Economics 47, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 140–165. View Details

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Article | Management Science

Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance and Resource Allocation in Science

Kevin J. Boudreau, Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani and Christoph Riedl

Selecting among alternative innovative projects is a core management task in all innovating organizations. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of frontier scientific research projects. We argue that the "intellectual distance" between the knowledge embodied in research proposals and an evaluator's own expertise systematically relates to the evaluations given (and consequent resource allocation). We empirically evaluate effects in data collected from a grant proposal process at a leading research university in which we randomized the assignment of evaluators and proposals to generate 2,130 evaluator-proposal pairs. We find evaluators systematically give lower scores to research proposals closer to their own areas of expertise and to highly novel research proposals. We interpret the empirical patterns in relation to a range of theoretical mechanisms and discuss implications for policy, managerial intervention, and allocation of resources in the ongoing accumulation of scientific knowledge.

Keywords: knowledge; innovation; novelty; evaluation; resource allocation; Resource Allocation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Innovation and Management; Science-Based Business; Experience and Expertise;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, and Christoph Riedl. "Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance and Resource Allocation in Science." Management Science 62, no. 10 (October 2016). View Details

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Article | Research Policy

'Open' Disclosure of Innovations, Incentives and Follow-on Reuse: Theory on Processes of Cumulative Innovation and a Field Experiment in Computational Biology

Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Most of society's innovation systems―academic science, the patent system, open source, etc.―are "open" in the sense that they are designed to facilitate knowledge disclosure among innovators. An essential difference across innovation systems is whether disclosure is of intermediate progress and solutions or of completed innovations. We present experimental evidence that links intermediate versus final disclosure not just with quantitative tradeoffs that shape the rate of innovation, but also with transformation of the very nature of the innovation search process. We find intermediate disclosure has the advantage of efficiently steering development towards improving existing solution approaches, but also the effect of limiting experimentation and narrowing technological search. We discuss the comparative advantages of intermediate versus final disclosure policies in fostering innovation.

Keywords: open innovation; cumulative innovation; incentives; search; disclosure and access; Knowledge Sharing; Motivation and Incentives; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "'Open' Disclosure of Innovations, Incentives and Follow-on Reuse: Theory on Processes of Cumulative Innovation and a Field Experiment in Computational Biology." Research Policy 44, no. 1 (February 2015): 4–19. View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

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

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.

Keywords: Digital Innovation; digitization; industrial internet; Technological Innovation; Production; Competitive Strategy; Engineering; Aerospace Industry;

Citation:

Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Digital Ubiquity: How Connections, Sensors, and Data Are Revolutionizing Business." Harvard Business Review 92, no. 11 (November 2014): 90–99. View Details

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Other Article | Nature Biotechnology

Prize-based Contests Can Provide Solutions to Computational Biology Problems

Karim R. Lakhani, Kevin J. Boudreau, Po-Ru Loh, Lars Backstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Eric Lonstein, Mike Lydon, Alan MacCormack, Ramy A. Arnaout and Eva C. Guinan

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Kevin J. Boudreau, Po-Ru Loh, Lars Backstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Eric Lonstein, Mike Lydon, Alan MacCormack, Ramy A. Arnaout, and Eva C. Guinan. "Prize-based Contests Can Provide Solutions to Computational Biology Problems." Nature Biotechnology 31, no. 2 (February 2013): 108–111. View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner

Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

More and more organizations are turning to crowds for help in solving their most vexing innovation and research questions, but managers remain understandably cautious. It seems risky and even unnatural to push problems out to vast groups of strangers distributed around the world, particularly for companies built on a history of internal innovation. How can intellectual property be protected? How can a crowdsourced solution be integrated into corporate operations? What about the costs? These concerns are all reasonable, but excluding crowdsourcing from the corporate innovation tool kit means losing an opportunity. After a decade of study, we have identified when crowds tend to outperform internal organizations (or not). We outline four ways to tap into crowd-powered problem solving—contests, collaborative communities, complementors, and labor markets—and offer a system for picking the best one in a given situation. We emphasize that crowds are complementary to internal innovation efforts and present a new capability for firms that want to accelerate their innovation outcomes.

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Research and Development;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner." Harvard Business Review 91, no. 4 (April 2013): 61–69. View Details

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Article | MIT Sloan Management Review

Experiments in Open Innovation at Harvard Medical School

Eva C. Guinan, Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Harvard Medical School seems an unlikely organization to open up its innovation process. By most measures, the more than 20,000 faculty, research staff and graduate students affiliated with Harvard Medical School are already world class and at the top of the medical research game, with approximately $1.4 billion in annual funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). But in February 2010, Drew Faust, president of Harvard University, sent an email invitation to all faculty, staff and students at the university (more than 40,000 individuals) encouraging them to participate in an ideas challenge that Harvard Medical School had launched to generate research topics in Type 1 diabetes. Eventually, the challenge was shared with more than 250,000 invitees, resulting in 150 research ideas and hypotheses. The goal of opening up idea generation and disaggregating the different stages of the research process was to expand the number and range of people who might participate. Today, seven teams of multi-disciplinary researchers are working on the resulting potential breakthrough ideas. In this article, we describe how leaders of Harvard Catalyst, an organization whose mission is to drive therapies from the lab to patients' bedsides faster and to do so by working across the many silos of Harvard Medical School, chose to implement principles of open and distributed innovation.

Keywords: Health Disorders; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Boston;

Citation:
Guinan, Eva C., Kevin J. Boudreau, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Experiments in Open Innovation at Harvard Medical School." Art. 3. MIT Sloan Management Review 54, no. 3 (Spring 2013): 45–52. View Details

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Article | MIT Sloan Management Review

Using Open Innovation to Identify the Best Ideas

Andrew King and Karim R. Lakhani

Which parts of your innovation processes should you open up to the wider world? To reap the benefits of open innovation, executives must understand what to open, how to open it, and how to manage the resulting problems. According to authors Andrew King of Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and Karim R. Lakhani of the Harvard Business School and the NASA Tournament Lab, many organizations "are finding that making open innovation work can be more complicated than it looks."

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
King, Andrew, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Using Open Innovation to Identify the Best Ideas." MIT Sloan Management Review 55, no. 1 (Fall 2013): 41–48. View Details

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Article | Management Science

Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis

Kevin J. Boudreau, Nicola Lacetera and Karim R. Lakhani

Contests are a historically important and increasingly popular mechanism for encouraging innovation. A central concern in designing innovation contests is how many competitors to admit. Using a unique data set of 9,661 software contests, we provide evidence of two coexisting and opposing forces that operate when the number of competitors increases. Greater rivalry reduces the incentives of all competitors in a contest to exert effort and make investments. At the same time, adding competitors increases the likelihood that at least one competitor will find an extreme-value solution. We show that the effort-reducing effect of greater rivalry dominates for less uncertain problems whereas the effect on the extreme value prevails for more uncertain problems. Adding competitors thus systematically increases overall contest performance for high-uncertainty problems. We also find that higher uncertainty reduces the negative effect of added competitors on incentives. Thus uncertainty and the nature of the problem should be explicitly considered in the design of innovation tournaments. We explore the implications of our findings for the theory and practice of innovation contests.

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Innovation and Invention; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Value; Software; Competition; Performance; Theory; Practice;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., Nicola Lacetera, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis." Management Science 57, no. 5 (May 2011): 843–863. View Details

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Article | Organization Science

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution submissions. We find that technical and social marginality, being a source of different perspectives and heuristics, plays an important role in explaining individual success in problem solving. The provision of a winning solution was positively related to increasing distance between the solver's field of technical expertise and the focal field of the problem. Female solvers—known to be in the "outer circle" of the scientific establishment—performed significantly better than men in developing successful solutions. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on open and distributed innovation by demonstrating the value of openness, at least narrowly defined by disclosing problems, in removing barriers to entry to non-obvious individuals. We also contribute to the knowledge-based theory of the firm by showing the effectiveness of a market mechanism to draw out knowledge from diverse external sources to solve internal problems.

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science;

Citation:
Jeppesen, Lars Bo, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search." Organization Science 21, no. 5 (September–October 2010): 1016–1033. View Details

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Article | Industry and Innovation

Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation

Joel West and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Civil Society or Community; Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
West, Joel, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation." Industry and Innovation 15, no. 2 (April 2008). View Details

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Article | Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization

The Principles of Distributed Innovation

Karim R. Lakhani and Jill A. Panetta

Keywords: Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Jill A. Panetta. "The Principles of Distributed Innovation." Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 2, no. 3 (Summer 2007). View Details

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Article | Harvard Business Review

Getting Unusual Suspects to Solve R&D Puzzles

Karim R. Lakhani and Lars Bo Jeppesen

Keywords: Research and Development;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Lars Bo Jeppesen. "Getting Unusual Suspects to Solve R&D Puzzles." Forethought. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 5 (May 2007). View Details

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Article | Research Policy

Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: A Case Study

Georg von Krogh, Sebastian Spaeth and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Civil Society or Community; Software; Information; Information Technology Industry;

Citation:
von Krogh, Georg, Sebastian Spaeth, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: A Case Study." Research Policy 32, no. 7 (July 2003): 1217–1241. View Details

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Article | Research Policy

How Open Source Software Works: "Free" User-to-User Assistance

Karim R. Lakhani and Eric von Hippel

Keywords: Technology; Software;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Eric von Hippel. How Open Source Software Works: "Free" User-to-User Assistance. Research Policy 32, no. 6 (June 2003): 923–943. View Details

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Book Chapters

Chapter | Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation | 2016

Managing Communities and Contests to Innovate with Crowds

Karim R. Lakhani

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "Managing Communities and Contests to Innovate with Crowds." Chap. 6 in Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation, edited by Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani, 109–134. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. View Details

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Chapter | Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation | 2016

Revolutionizing Innovation: Fundamentals and New Perspectives

Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani

Citation:
Harhoff, Dietmar, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Revolutionizing Innovation: Fundamentals and New Perspectives." Chap. 1 in Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation, edited by Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani, 1–24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. View Details

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Chapter | Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16 | 2016

Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions

Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

This paper discusses several challenges in designing field experiments to better understand how organizational and institutional design shapes innovation outcomes and the production of knowledge. We proceed to describe the field experimental research program carried out by our Crowd Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University to clarify how we have attempted to address these research design challenges. This program has simultaneously solved important practical innovation problems for partner organizations, like NASA and Harvard Medical School, while contributing research advances, particularly in relation to innovation contests and tournaments.

Keywords: Organizational Design; Research; Knowledge; Innovation and Invention;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions." In Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 16, edited by William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner, and Scott Stern, 135–167. National Bureau of Economic Research, and University of Chicago Press, 2016. View Details

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Chapter | Handbook of Economic Organization: Integrating Economic and Organization Theory | 2013

Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: Task Decomposition, Knowledge Distribution and the Locus of Innovation

Karim R. Lakhani, Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Michael Tushman

This chapter contrasts traditional, organization-centered models of innovation with more recent work on open innovation. These fundamentally different and inconsistent innovation logics are associated with contrasting organizational boundaries and organizational designs. We suggest that when critical tasks can be modularized and when problem-solving knowledge is widely distributed and available, open innovation complements traditional innovation logics. We induce these ideas from the literature and with extended examples from Apple, NASA, and LEGO. We suggest that task decomposition and problem-solving knowledge distribution are not deterministic but are strategic choices. If dynamic capabilities are associated with innovation streams, and if different innovation types are rooted in contrasting innovation logics, there are important implications for firm boundaries, design, and identity.

Keywords: innovation; organizational boundaries; Institutional Logics; modular innovation; open innovation; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Design; Boundaries; Collaborative Innovation and Invention;

Citation:

Lakhani, Karim R., Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, and Michael Tushman. "Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: Task Decomposition, Knowledge Distribution and the Locus of Innovation." Chap. 19 in Handbook of Economic Organization: Integrating Economic and Organization Theory, edited by Anna Grandori, 355–382. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013. View Details

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Chapter | The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited | 2012

The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort

Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Software development occurs in a patchwork or "confederacy" of different types of institutions (universities, small start-ups, multinational enterprises, government agencies, etc.) utilizing varied work approaches. Here we speculate on one possible explanation for this organizational heterogeneity: it may reflect inherent heterogeneity of the software workforce, in terms of which kinds of organizations individual workers prefer to work within ("institutional preference"). We take very preliminary steps towards investigating this possibility by devising a novel 10-day field experiment to estimate the differences in behavior that are created by sorting workers into their preferred institutional regimes versus having them unsorted. The experiment involved assigning 1,040 elite software developers to either a competitive or a cooperative work regime to create software for NASA's Space Life Sciences Directorate. Half of the subjects-the "sorted" group-were assigned according to their institutional preferences; the other half-the "unsorted" group-were assigned without regard to their preferences. Assignment was done in a manner where sorted and unsorted groups had identical distributions of raw problem-solving ability. We find a remarkably large effect of institutional preference-based sorting on the effort exerted. Sorting on institutional preferences roughly doubled effort within the competitive regime and increased effort by roughly half in the cooperative regime, while accounting for incentives. Our experimental approach and results indicate the importance of accounting for worker preferences in creative activities that drive the rate and direction of inventive activity in the economy.

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Software; Product Development; Organizations; Employees; Behavior; Competition; Cooperation; Creativity; Information Technology Industry;

Citation:
Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort." In The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited, edited by Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, 483–502. University of Chicago Press, 2012. View Details

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Chapter | Communities and Organizations | 2011

Organizations in the Shadow of Communities

Siobhan O'Mahony and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Organizations; Civil Society or Community;

Citation:
O'Mahony, Siobhan, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Organizations in the Shadow of Communities." In Communities and Organizations. Vol. 33, edited by Christopher Marquis, Michael Lounsbury, and Royston Greenwood, 336. Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Emerald Group Publishing, 2011. View Details

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Chapter | Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software | 2005

Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects

Karim R. Lakhani and Robert Wolf

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Software; Open Source Distribution; Attitudes;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Robert Wolf. "Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects." In Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software, edited by Joe Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott Hissam, and Karim R. Lakhani. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. View Details

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Working Papers

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

Recognition Incentives for Internal Crowdsourcing: A Field Experiment at NASA

Jana Gallus, Olivia S. Jung and Karim R. Lakhani

What might motivate employees to participate in internal crowdsourcing, a peer-based approach to innovation? Should organizations use incentives that are congruent with their established hierarchical structures, or should they use incentives that are aligned with the aspirational, peer-based approach to innovation? We partnered with NASA for a qualitative study and a field experiment (N=7,455) to understand the effectiveness of different incentives that may motivate its workforce to participate in crowdsourcing. First, we show that concerns about the legitimacy of peer-based innovation disincentivize employees to participate. Second, we find that managerial recognition, the incentive that is congruent with the established hierarchy, significantly increases engagement. It does so by alleviating legitimacy concerns and by offering managerial attention. Peer recognition, which is congruent with the aspirational, peer-based approach to innovation, is not found to have a significant overall effect. However, workers who are otherwise less visible were positively motivated by it. Our research provides guidance for hierarchical organizations that are seeking greater employee engagement in peer-based innovation, and it adds insights on motivational channels to the literature on organizational innovation.

Keywords: online platforms; employee engagement; managerial recognition; Innovation and Management; Employees; Motivation and Incentives;

Citation:
Gallus, Jana, Olivia S. Jung, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Recognition Incentives for Internal Crowdsourcing: A Field Experiment at NASA." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-059, November 2019. (Revised May 2020.) View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Engineering Serendipity: The Role of Cognitive Similarity in Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Production

Jacqueline N. Lane, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

This research considers the implications of knowledge sharing on knowledge production. We theorize that the “cognitive similarity” between two individuals’ prior knowledge is systematically related to the effectiveness of knowledge sharing on the knowledge production process. To estimate relationships, we designed and executed a natural field experiment at a medical symposium, in which exogenous variation was introduced to provide some of the 15,817 scientist pairs with opportunities for serendipitous, face-to-face encounters. Our data include direct observations of interaction patterns collected using sociometric badges, and detailed longitudinal data on the scientists’ publication records for six years following the symposium. We find both collaborative and competitive effects of cognitive similarity on knowledge production. Interacting scientists were more likely to transfer new knowledge concepts to each other if they shared some similarities in research interests, but were less likely to cite and diffuse each other’s knowledge if they worked in the same field or discipline of study. This suggests that knowledge sharing may boost organizational knowledge production when potential partners share some prior knowledge overlap, but too much overlap may impede it.

Keywords: cognitive similarity; knowledge creation; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Dissemination; Relationships;

Citation:
Lane, Jacqueline N., Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Engineering Serendipity: The Role of Cognitive Similarity in Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Production." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-058, November 2019. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Crowdsourcing Memories: Mixed Methods Research by Cultural Insiders-Epistemological Outsiders

Tarun Khanna, Karim R. Lakhani, Shubhangi Bhadada, Nabil Khan, Saba Kohli Davé, Rasim Alam and Meena Hewett

This paper examines the role that the two lead authors’ personal connections played in the research methodology and data collection for the Partition Stories Project—a mixed-methods approach to revisiting the much-studied historical trauma of the Partition of British India in 1947. The Project collected survivors’ oral histories, a data type that is a mainstay of qualitative research, and subjected their narrative data to statistical analysis to detect aggregated trends. In this paper, the authors discuss the process of straddling the dichotomies of insider/outsider and qualitative/quantitative, address the “myth of informed objectivity,” and consider the need for hybrid research structures with the intent to innovate in humanities projects such as this. In presenting key learnings from the project, this paper highlights the tensions that the authors faced between positivist and interpretivist methods of inquiry, looks at the difference between “insider” and “outsider” categories of positionality, and discusses in the quantification of qualitative oral history data. The paper concludes with an illustrative example from one of the lead authors’ past research experiences to suggest that the tensions of this project are general in occurrence and global in applicability, beyond the specifics of the Partition case study explored here.

Keywords: mixed methods; insider-outsiders; myth of informed objectivity; hybrid research; oral narratives; Research; India;

Citation:
Khanna, Tarun, Karim R. Lakhani, Shubhangi Bhadada, Nabil Khan, Saba Kohli Davé, Rasim Alam, and Meena Hewett. "Crowdsourcing Memories: Mixed Methods Research by Cultural Insiders-Epistemological Outsiders." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-038, September 2019. View Details

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? Field Experimental Evidence from Scientific Peer Review

Misha Teplitskiy, Hardeep Ranu, Gary Gray, Michael Menietti, Eva Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

Organizations in science and elsewhere often rely on committees of experts to make important decisions, such as evaluating early-stage projects and ideas. However, very little is known about how experts influence each other’s opinions and how that influence affects final evaluations. Here, we use a field experiment in scientific peer review to examine experts’ susceptibility to the opinions of others. We recruited 277 faculty members at seven U.S. medical schools to evaluate 47 early stage research proposals in biomedicine. In our experiment, evaluators (1) completed independent reviews of research ideas, (2) received (artificial) scores attributed to anonymous “other reviewers” from the same or a different discipline, and (3) decided whether to update their initial scores. Evaluators did not meet in person and were not otherwise aware of each other. We find that, even in a completely anonymous setting and controlling for a range of career factors, women updated their scores 13% more often than men, while very highly cited “superstar” reviewers updated 24% less often than others. Women in male-dominated subfields were particularly likely to update, updating 8% more for every 10% decrease in subfield representation. Very low scores were particularly “sticky” and seldom updated upward, suggesting a possible source of conservatism in evaluation. These systematic differences in how world-class experts respond to external opinions can lead to substantial gender and status disparities in whose opinion ultimately matters in collective expert judgment.

Keywords: social influence; expert judgment; evaluation; Performance Evaluation; Judgments; Gender; Status and Position; Power and Influence;

Citation:
Teplitskiy, Misha, Hardeep Ranu, Gary Gray, Michael Menietti, Eva Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? Field Experimental Evidence from Scientific Peer Review." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-107, April 2019. View Details

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Cases and Teaching Materials

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019

Nimbus Therapeutics

Peter Barrett, Karim Lakhani and Julia Kelley

This case focuses on Nimbus Therapeutics, a biotechnology startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as its leadership team tries to determine the company’s long-term strategy. The startup’s founders structured Nimbus as a limited liability company, which has given it more flexibility when it comes to funding and development partnerships. Does the operating structure still makes sense as Nimbus looks ahead to the future?

Keywords: Business Startups; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Biotechnology Industry;

Citation:
Barrett, Peter, Karim Lakhani, and Julia Kelley. "Nimbus Therapeutics." Harvard Business School Case 620-016, September 2019. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

Freelancer, Ltd.

Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes

Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500 companies—including Microsoft, Samsung, and General Electric—embraced digital labor solutions, enterprise adoption lagged far behind smaller businesses and startups. Despite the promising potential benefits, concerns persisted about navigating labor regulations, ensuring appropriate vetting, and guaranteeing the quality of work. Sarah Tang, the newly appointed Vice President of Enterprise at Freelancer, Ltd., took on the challenge of crafting the growth strategy, operations, and sales of Freelancer’s services to Fortune 500 companies. What it would take to convince more enterprises of the potential of on-demand freelance labor that could help them hire skilled freelancers in volume or in multiple countries simultaneously? What did the future hold for open work practices between enterprises and digital labor markets?

Keywords: freelancers; platforms; digital labor; Labor; Human Resources; Management; Online Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Industry; Australia; United States; Philippines;

Citation:
Stanton, Christopher, Karim R. Lakhani, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Jin Hyun Paik, and Nina Cohodes. "Freelancer, Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 820-075, January 2020. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2019

Kymera Therapeutics: Building a Biotech Execution Plan

Peter Barrett, Karim R. Lakhani and Kerry Herman

Citation:
Barrett, Peter, Karim R. Lakhani, and Kerry Herman. "Kymera Therapeutics: Building a Biotech Execution Plan." Harvard Business School Case 620-017, October 2019. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019 (Revised January 2020)

2U: Higher Education Rewired

Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Karim R. Lakhani

In its 2019 Partner Symposium, 2U, an online program management provider (OPM), showcased its new vision: “Career. Curriculum. Continuum. A construct for lifelong learning in the 21st century.” 2U, founded in 2008 and went public in 2014, was looking to expand beyond its current degree offerings to include a wider range of programs, such as short courses, bootcamps, and professional certificates. Led by co-founder and CEO Chip Paucek, 2U believed that they were the strongest partner in the OPM market that could enable universities’ digital transformation, allowing them to offer a variety of courses to a changing student profile. The universities, on the other hand, recognized that times were changing and that the appeal of a residential experience might be dwindling. Pressures of offering a more flexible learning format were mounting. Some schools were engaging in partnerships such as with 2U to get themselves online while others saw digital and online as the next evolution of instruction and that it was their responsibility to learn how to master it and own it. The case considers Paucek’s challenge of leading a for-profit OPM. Was 2U growing in a way that risked alienating their most important stakeholders, the brand-named universities themselves? Were the university leaders going to change their approach and start investing in the digital transformation themselves to avoid giving 2U a cut of their revenues?

Keywords: Digital Innovation; digital transformation; architectural innovation; make v. buy; Learning; Higher Education; Online Technology; Innovation Strategy; Transformation;

Citation:
Grushka-Cockayne, Yael, and Karim R. Lakhani. "2U: Higher Education Rewired." Harvard Business School Case 620-044, September 2019. (Revised January 2020.) View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2019

TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics (A) and (B)

Feng Zhu, Sascha L. Schmidt, Karim R. Lakhani and Shirley Sun

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 616-010 and 620-055.

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, Sascha L. Schmidt, Karim R. Lakhani, and Shirley Sun. "TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 620-067, November 2019. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | October 2019

TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics (B)

Feng Zhu, Sascha L. Schmidt, Karim R. Lakhani and Sebastian Koppers

Supplement for the (A) case (HBS No. 616-010).

Keywords: football; soccer; Bundesliga; analytics; innovation; innovation and strategy;

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, Sascha L. Schmidt, Karim R. Lakhani, and Sebastian Koppers. "TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 620-055, October 2019. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019

Synthetic Biology Investment Opportunity

Peter Barrett, Karim R. Lakhani, Julia Kelley and Kerry Herman

Using an overview of the emerging technology of Synthetic Biology, this case provides the basis for discussion on what questions one would ask in evaluating a potential investment in the field.

Keywords: synthetic biology; Investment;

Citation:
Barrett, Peter, Karim R. Lakhani, Julia Kelley, and Kerry Herman. "Synthetic Biology Investment Opportunity." Harvard Business School Case 620-015, August 2019. View Details

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Background Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2019 (Revised April 2020)

Note on Funding Deep Tech Startups

Karim Lakhani, Peter Barrett and Noubar Afeyan

This Background Note provides essential information on funding deep technologies—those technologies that were inherently capital intensive, time consuming, risky, and potentially disruptive. Both dilutive and non-dilutive sources of investment are highlighted, along with concrete empirical examples and figures.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Energy; Venture Capital; Corporate Finance; Initial Public Offering; Investment; Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Intellectual Property; Product Design; Product Development; Technology; Research and Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Technology Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States; North America; Europe; Asia;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, Peter Barrett, and Noubar Afeyan. "Note on Funding Deep Tech Startups." Harvard Business School Background Note 620-029, October 2019. (Revised April 2020.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019

Obsidian: Product or Platform?

Karim Lakhani, Kerry Herman and Julia Kelley

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, Kerry Herman, and Julia Kelley. "Obsidian: Product or Platform?" Harvard Business School Case 620-018, September 2019. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2019 (Revised August 2019)

KangaTech

Karim R. Lakhani, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo

On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders, Dave Scerri, Carl Dilena, and Nick Haslam (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused on injury prediction and prevention in elite sport, the Melbourne, Australia-based KangaTech prepared to launch a new model of their core product, an integrated exercise frame and software system that used strength exercises to identify and mitigate the risk of soft-tissue and ligament injuries (see Exhibit 2 for overview of product). The team was excited about the new product and was confident that it improved upon many of the features of the previous model. However, Saunders and his co-founders couldn’t help but think about the long-term strategy of the company.
Spun off in 2015 out of an internal R&D initiative at the North Melbourne Football Club, KangaTech spent the past four years squarely focused on product development and gaining early traction in the elite sports markets in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia (see Exhibit 3 for company timeline). As of 2019, KangaTech had users across 15 different sites, including professional teams in the National Basketball Association, the English Premier League, and the Australian Football League. The company also underwent a successful round of financing recently, and the proceeds of which were used to fund the new version of the KangaTech product.
Off the back of this recent success, the co-founders were focused on how they might be able to navigate the future ahead of them. Dilena explained, “We are going through a pretty robust strategy discussion at the moment. It is one of those decision points for us as to how we best proceed.” Dilena continued, “We’ve been largely product-based and product-development-based until now. How do we scale up? How do we take that next quantum leap as an organization? So part of that has been looking at where do we see the market opportunities?” Specifically, KangaTech weighed up three options for unlocking the full commercial value of the company’s technology: 1) Going deeper into the sports market; 2) Expanding into the allied health market; or, 3) Pursuing contracts in the defense industry. Evaluating the merits of each of these options was not clear. Which market had the greatest upside? Which market would expose the firm to the greatest risk? Which of these opportunities held the most promise for KangaTech?

Keywords: Startup; technology commercialization; prototype; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Sports; Health; Commercialization; Research and Development; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Sports Industry; Health Industry; Australia;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik, and Steven Randazzo. "KangaTech." Harvard Business School Case 619-049, February 2019. (Revised August 2019.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2019

Data.gov (Abridged)

Karim R. Lakhani, Robert D. Austin and Yumi Yi

This case presents the logic and execution underlying the launch of Data.gov, an instantiation of President Obama's initiative for transparency and open government. The process used by Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, and his team to rapidly develop the website and to make available high-value data sets for reuse is highlighted. The case recounts Kundra's experience at the state and local government levels in developing open data initiatives and the application of that experience to the federal government. The case demonstrates the benefits of making government data available in terms of both engaged citizens and the potential for new innovations from the private sector. Potential drawbacks of open access including security and privacy issues are illustrated. Issues related to the role of government in releasing data and the balance between accountability and private-sector innovation are explored.

Keywords: Safety; Rights; Data and Data Sets; Internet; Ethics; Cost vs Benefits; Innovation and Management; Information Management; Public Administration Industry; Information Industry; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Robert D. Austin, and Yumi Yi. "Data.gov (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 619-043, January 2019. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | December 2018

Bayern Munich in China

Karim Lakhani and Sascha L. Schmidt

Teaching Note for HBS No. 617-025.

Keywords: Market entry; football; soccer; Bundesliga; Digital technology; Sports; Global Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Online Technology; Sports Industry; Germany; China;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, and Sascha L. Schmidt. "Bayern Munich in China." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 619-037, December 2018. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018

EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

Karim R. Lakhani and Gamze Yucaoglu

EmQuest, Emirates Group’s travel distribution company, must decide what to do with its contract with the global distribution system it uses, Sabre. Since its founding in 1988, EmQuest was servicing travel agents in the MENA region by providing a connection to over 400 airlines as well as numerous other travel suppliers. EmQuest mainly relied on Sabre to provide this service to the agents, and its contract was coming to an end.
In the last decade years, since the beginning of EmQuest’s Sabre contract, while EmQuest grew, a lot happened in the travel industry: the Internet transformed customer habits, low-cost carriers emerged, and the Middle East experienced a boom in tourism. The conditions under which EmQuest had first signed its contract with Sabre a decade before were much different in 2017.
With change happening so rapidly and impacting the fundamentals of the travel business model so dramatically, it was a real challenge to predict where the industry would be in the next decade. Yet the management needed to make a decision regarding the Sabre contract in 2017, amidst such a whirlwind in the market.

Keywords: UAE; emerging markets; for-profit firms; business model; Business Strategy; competitive advantage; growth and development strategy; value creation; change management; decision; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Travel Industry; United Arab Emirates;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Gamze Yucaoglu. "EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era." Harvard Business School Case 618-040, February 2018. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2017

BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...

Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone

In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and competitive in the hyper competitive sharing economy sector. The co-founders felt that the time was now to capitalize on the trust that the platform had built with its members and explore adjacent opportunities. The options in front of them represented a wide variety of ways to grow, but how should the team prioritize and figure out which opportunities represented a viable business strategy for their company?

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet; Online Technology; Search Technology; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud, and Caroline Caltagirone. "BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead..." Harvard Business School Case 617-050, February 2017. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2017 (Revised August 2017)

Weathernews

Karim R. Lakhani and Akiko Kanno

Tomohiro Ishibashi (Bashi), chief executive officer for B to S, and Julia Foote LeStage, chief innovation officer of Weathernews Inc., were addressing a panel at the HBS Digital Summit on creative uses of big data. They told the summit attendees about how the Sakura (cherry blossoms) Project, where the company asked users in Japan to report about how cherry blossoms were blooming near them day by day, had opened up opportunities for the company's consumer business in Japan. The project ultimately garnered positive publicity and became a foothold to building the company's crowdsourcing weather-forecasting service in Japan. It changed the face of weather forecasting in Japan. Bashi and LeStage wondered whether the experience could be applied to the U.S. market.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; weather; operations; globalization; Weather; Forecasting and Prediction; Global Strategy;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Akiko Kanno. "Weathernews." Harvard Business School Case 617-053, January 2017. (Revised August 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2017

Aston Martin: A Second Century of Performance and Luxury

Vish V. Krishnan, Karim R. Lakhani and Amram Migdal

Following the March 2016 launch of DB11, Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd.’s first new sports car platform in over a decade, this case discusses the future strategy of the famed British luxury auto manufacturer. Since its founding in 1902, Aston Martin has been characterized by leading automotive design of bespoke luxury vehicles. In 2016, CEO Andy Palmer faced decisions about the company’s future direction in an automotive industry in the midst of a digital tornado with the arrival of autonomous, internetworked, clean-energy-propelled vehicles. Palmer’s Second Century Plan called for Aston Martin to diversify into new vehicle categories and increase overall production volume in an effort to boost earnings without compromising Aston Martin’s reputation for exclusivity, style, and engineering. As one of the few luxury car companies not backed by a larger automaker, Palmer and Aston Martin faced the challenge of funding the development of new vehicles and maintaining a position of leadership in automotive design. “The big question is whether the Second Century Plan has us departing from our traditional role as a sports car and luxury manufacturer and moving into new segments, new businesses,” said Palmer in late 2016. “Is that a wise choice? How does a high-end premium provider in any business grow without losing its exclusive reputation? That is the eternal business question.”

Keywords: luxury; auto brand; luxury auto; Growth; innovation; transformation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Operations; Product Design; Product Development; Production; Innovation and Invention; Transportation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Change; Transformation; Management; Marketing; Auto Industry; Europe; United Kingdom; England;

Citation:
Krishnan, Vish V., Karim R. Lakhani, and Amram Migdal. "Aston Martin: A Second Century of Performance and Luxury." Harvard Business School Case 617-033, February 2017. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2016

Bayern Munich in China

Karim Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt, Michael Norris and Kerry Herman

In 2015, German football club Bayern Munich is considering how to enter the Chinese market. Should it build its own infrastructure or rely on third-party partnerships to reach this massive football fan base?

Keywords: football; soccer; Bundesliga; Digital technology; Market entry; Sports; Global Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Online Technology; Sports Industry; Germany; China;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, Sascha L. Schmidt, Michael Norris, and Kerry Herman. "Bayern Munich in China." Harvard Business School Case 617-025, November 2016. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2015 (Revised October 2017)

Podium Data: Harnessing the Power of Big Data Analytics

Lynda M. Applegate, Karim R. Lakhani and Nicole Bucala

Citation:
Applegate, Lynda M., Karim R. Lakhani, and Nicole Bucala. "Podium Data: Harnessing the Power of Big Data Analytics." Harvard Business School Case 816-007, July 2015. (Revised October 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2015 (Revised May 2017)

TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics

Feng Zhu, Karim R. Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt and Kerry Herman

In 2015, Dietmar Hopp, owner of Germany's Bundesliga football team TSG Hoffenheim and co-founder of the global enterprise software company SAP, was considering how to ensure long-term sustainability and competitiveness for TSG Hoffenheim. While historically a small team from bottom rungs of the league, TSG Hoffenheim, with revenues of €60 million to €70 million, reached the top division of the Bundesliga in the 2008–2009 season thanks to a deliberate strategy focused on enhanced scouting, strong youth programs, and innovative technology and analytics that improved player development. In 2014 Hopp, who had personally invested €300 million in the club, built a "footbonaut," an automated training environment that collected data on players' skills and strengths. The tool, one of three in the world, helped scouts and coaches better assess and develop each player. Yet some managers felt the technology was a distraction, an investment too expensive for a team that was not yet cash-flow positive. The team finished the 2014–2015 season in eighth place, below the top division, and Hopp wondered whether the focus on technology and analytics was the right strategy to grow the club. He wondered if the "moneyball" approach—when a smaller team competed with wealthier teams by using statistical analysis to buy undervalued assets and sell overvalued assets—could work in football and if investments in technology could lead the team to financial independence.

Keywords: Technology; Measurement and Metrics; Sports; Sports Industry;

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, Karim R. Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt, and Kerry Herman. "TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics." Harvard Business School Case 616-010, August 2015. (Revised May 2017.) View Details

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Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | August 2015 (Revised January 2017)

From Correlation to Causation

Feng Zhu and Karim R. Lakhani

To make sound business decisions, managers must be comfortable with the concepts of correlation and causation. This background note provides an overview of correlation and causation using examples and explains why the former does not imply the latter. It also describes several methods for gaining insights into causal relations, including randomized experiments, panel data, matching, and regression discontinuity. The note is intended for a general audience and does not require advanced statistics knowledge.

Keywords: statistics; regression; Data Analytics; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Judgments;

Citation:
Zhu, Feng, and Karim R. Lakhani. "From Correlation to Causation." Harvard Business School Technical Note 616-009, August 2015. (Revised January 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2015 (Revised May 2016)

Aspiring Minds

Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively

By 2015, India-based employment assessment and certification provider Aspiring Minds had helped facilitate over 300,000 job matches through its assessment tools. Aspiring Minds' flagship product, the Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test (AMCAT), used machine learning algorithms to evaluate the abilities of job seekers and provide feedback by measuring not only skills and knowledge, but also personality and behavior traits. Since its founding in 2007, the company developed several new assessment products, including SVAR, a spoken-English evaluation, Automata, a programming skills evaluator, a customer service test, and TESLA, a suite of products that assessed and provided certification for vocational skills. The company had recently expanded into parts of Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines, the U.S., and most recently, China. Aspiring Minds had seen success as a business-to-business (B2B) entity, creating and selling technology products geared towards industry verticals. By 2015 the business-to-consumer (B2C) side of the business in India had been quite successful as well, generating revenues equal to that of the B2B side. As Aspiring Minds worked to establish a presence in China, co-founders Himanshu and Varun Aggarwal considered whether a B2B or B2C approach would best help the company achieve scale.

Keywords: Technology; Strategy; Higher Education; Technological Innovation; Employment; Technology Industry; India; China;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Christine Snively. "Aspiring Minds." Harvard Business School Case 616-013, November 2015. (Revised May 2016.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2015

BandPage (A)

Karim R. Lakhani, Colin Maclay and Greta Friar

BandPage CEO James "J" Sider is about to receive results from BandPage's targeted advertising campaign on music streaming service Rhapsody and learn whether BandPage's strategy to improve ad click through rates and generate revenue has succeeded. BandPage, which began as a Facebook app to help musicians build professional-looking pages and convert fan "likes" into revenue, has become a major hub in the online music network. BandPage has deals with upstream and downstream music partners, from streaming services to ticket sellers to merchandise companies, and has built relationships with artists by providing a one stop shop to update current band information across most major music sites simultaneously. BandPage's most recent project has been to differentiate fans by their behavior on streaming sites in order to target super fans with high priced, exclusive and/or personalized offers from artists. At a time when tensions are high between streaming services and artists who believe that they are not being fairly compensated for the use of their music, Sider is convinced that BandPage can help streaming services drive revenue growth for artists through ticket, merchandise and exclusive offer sales. If the Rhapsody data proves that BandPage's strategy is working, the potential revenue growth for BandPage and all of its partners is massive.

Keywords: Music industry; Digital Innovation; digital music; digital marketing; mobile marketing; Technological Innovation; Marketing Communications; Music Entertainment; Mobile Technology; Music Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Colin Maclay, and Greta Friar. "BandPage (A)." Harvard Business School Case 616-015, October 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

GE and the Industrial Internet

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "GE and the Industrial Internet." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-066, March 2015. View Details

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Module Note | March 2015

Innovating with the Crowd

Karim R. Lakhani

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "Innovating with the Crowd." Harvard Business School Module Note 615-072, March 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

Open Innovation at Siemens

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "Open Innovation at Siemens." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-058, March 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

Nivea (A) and (B)

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "Nivea (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-057, March 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

OpenIDEO

Karim R. Lakhani, Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina, and Greta Friar. "OpenIDEO." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-055, March 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015

Prodigy Network: Democratizing Real Estate Design and Financing

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "Prodigy Network: Democratizing Real Estate Design and Financing." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-045, March 2015. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2015 (Revised April 2015)

Havas: Change Faster

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "Havas: Change Faster." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-054, March 2015. (Revised April 2015.) View Details

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Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | December 2014

The Thermostat Industry: Transformation from Analog to Digital

Karim R. Lakhani, Kerry Herman and Christine Snively

This note examines the evolution of the thermostat industry as it transitioned from analog to digital technologies. It presents an overview of key industry participants and the shift in value creation and value capture models for firms.

Keywords: digital; digital convergence; business models; digital transformation; digital transition; technology change; technology strategy; Technology; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Kerry Herman, and Christine Snively. "The Thermostat Industry: Transformation from Analog to Digital." Harvard Business School Technical Note 615-038, December 2014. View Details

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Teaching Plan | HBS Case Collection | October 2014 (Revised April 2015)

Victors & Spoils: 'Born Open'

Karim Lakhani and Greta Friar

This teaching plan provides an 80 minute class plan for the case Victors & Spoils: "Born Open".

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, and Greta Friar. "Victors & Spoils: 'Born Open'." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 415-020, October 2014. (Revised April 2015.) View Details

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Teaching Plan | HBS Case Collection | October 2014

Havas: Change Faster

Karim Lakhani and Greta Friar

This teaching plan describes an 80 minute class plan for the case Havas: Change Faster.

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, and Greta Friar. "Havas: Change Faster." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 615-004, October 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2014

Victors & Spoils: 'Born Open'

Karim R. Lakhani and Michael L. Tushman

Victors & Spoils (V&S), located in Boulder, Colorado, was the first advertising agency built on open innovation and crowdsourcing principles from the ground-up. V&S was co-founded in 2009 by John Winsor, Claudia Batten and Evan Fry, all former members of the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B). V&S crowdsourced creative ideas for its ad campaigns through Agency Machine, its proprietary online platform. CEO John Winsor wanted to change the way that advertising was done, a difficult task in an industry entrenched in traditional models. The case follows Winsor as he prepares to scale his business and must determine the best way to do so. He has an offer from Havas, a leading global advertising company interested in acquiring V&S, which would give V&S access to unprecedented resources. However, Winsor and the V&S team have concerns about how their innovative processes may be affected by partnering with a large, traditional company.

Keywords: advertising agency; marketing; crowdsourcing; open innovation; Growth; Acquisitions; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Online Advertising; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Advertising Industry; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Michael L. Tushman. "Victors & Spoils: 'Born Open'." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 415-701, September 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2014

Havas: Change Faster

Karim R. Lakhani and Michael L. Tushman

As of 2013, Havas was the 6th largest global advertising, digital, and communications group in the world. Headquartered in Paris, France, the group was highly decentralized, with semi-independent agencies in more than 100 countries offering a variety of services. The largest unit of Havas was Havas Worldwide, an integrated marketing communications agency headquartered in New York, NY. CEO David Jones was determined to make Havas Worldwide the most future-focused agency in the industry by becoming a leader in digital innovation. The case explores the tensions within the company as David Jones attempts to change the company to compete in an industry undergoing digital transformation. The case uses the example of the acquisition of Victors & Spoils, a crowdsourcing advertising agency, to examine internal reactions.

Keywords: advertising agency; open innovation; advertising; commercials; digital marketing; digital media; digital transition; Advertising; Online Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Acquisition; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Advertising Industry; Communications Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Michael L. Tushman. "Havas: Change Faster." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 615-702, September 2014. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | September 2014

Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (B)

Karim R. Lakhani, Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa and Greta Friar

This supplemental case follows up on the Netflix Prize Contest described in Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (A). In the A case, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings must decide how to organize a crowdsourcing contest to improve the algorithms for Netflix's movie recommendation software. The B case follows the contest from the building of the platform in 2006 to the awarding of the highest prize in 2009. The B case also considers the aftermath of the contest, and the issues of successfully implementing a winning idea from a contest.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; Prizes; digitization; algorithms; recommendation software; Disruption; Transformation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Sharing;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa, and Greta Friar. "Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 615-025, September 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2014

Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (A)

Karim R. Lakhani, Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Greta Friar and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa

In 2006, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, was looking for a way to solve Netflix's customer churn problem. Netflix used Cinematch, its proprietary movie recommendation software, to promote individually determined best-fit movies to customers. Hastings determined that a 10% improvement to the Cinematch algorithm would decrease customer churn and increase annual revenue by up to $89 million. However, traditional options for improving the algorithm, such as hiring and training new employees, were time intensive and costly. Hastings decided to improve Netflix's software by crowdsourcing, and began planning the Netflix Prize, an open contest searching for a 10% improvement on Cinematch. The case examines the dilemmas Hastings faced as he planned the contest, such as whether to use an existing crowdsourcing platform or create his own, what company information to expose, how to protect customer privacy while making internal datasets public, how to allocate IP, and how to manage the crowd.

Keywords: crowdsourcing; Prizes; digitization; algorithms; recommendation software; Disruption; Transformation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Sharing; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Technology Industry; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Greta Friar, and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa. "Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (A)." Harvard Business School Case 615-015, August 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2014

Bioinspiration at the San Diego Zoo multimedia case

Karim R. Lakhani, Vish V. Krishnan and Ruth Page

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Vish V. Krishnan, and Ruth Page. "Bioinspiration at the San Diego Zoo multimedia case." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 614-703, June 2014. View Details

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Teaching Plan | HBS Case Collection | June 2014

Bioinspiration at the San Diego Zoo

Karim R. Lakhani and Greta Friar

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Greta Friar. "Bioinspiration at the San Diego Zoo." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 615-018, June 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2014 (Revised March 2015)

GE and the Industrial Internet

Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Kerry Herman

CEO Jeff Immelt considers whether GE is moving fast enough on its new Industrial Internet initiative. The undertaking includes building out an Industrial Internet, connecting machines and devices, collecting their data and operations, and providing services to clients based on analytics of this data and information. The case considers the implications of such an initiative across all 6 of GE's business units, and how best and how quickly to execute the strategy. The firm has committed $1b in investment, building out a new software center in California, and a commercial sales function at headquarters to deploy the new products and services.

Keywords: technology; operations management; strategy; big data; Business analysis; corporate strategy; Digital technology; Digital Innovation; general management; general strategy; Global Competitiveness; global strategy; innovation; Innovation and Management; industrial internet; GE; Innovation and Invention; Technology; Air Transportation Industry; Energy Industry; Health Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Rail Industry; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; North and Central America; Asia; Europe; Middle East; Latin America;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Kerry Herman. "GE and the Industrial Internet." Harvard Business School Case 614-032, April 2014. (Revised March 2015.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2014

Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for Mobility

Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Noah Fisher

Mark Fields, Ford Motor Company's COO, had to ensure the company's current business model of building cars and trucks remained strong, while concurrently navigating the company into the rapidly expanding industry of personal mobility. Personal mobility required new technologies and business models that were untraditional at Ford, and Fields had to evaluate the traditional business model colliding with the new business model.
To direct these new technologies and business models, Ford released its "Blueprint for Mobility," which established near-, mid- and long-term goals to make mobility accessible and affordable to all.
The case focuses on the launch of three mobility experiments (car sharing, parking, and on-demand ride sharing), and asks students to determine how Fields should balance these types of experiments with the company's traditional operations. Further, was Ford doing enough in the mobility space, and if so, was it moving fast enough? What new sources of revenue could Ford derive from mobility solutions?

Keywords: Automobiles; Automobile Manufacturing; Ford Motor Company; Mark Fields; Blueprint for Mobility; Dearborn; Michigan; Car Sharing; Parking; On-demand Ride Sharing; Strategy; Business Model; Auto Industry; Michigan; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Noah Fisher. "Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for Mobility." Harvard Business School Case 614-018, April 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2014 (Revised January 2015)

Prodigy Network: Democratizing Real Estate Design and Financing

Karim R. Lakhani, Katja Hutter and Greta Friar

This case follows Rodrigo Nino, founder and CEO of commercial real estate development company Prodigy Network, as he develops an equity-based crowdfunding model for small investors to access commercial real estate in Colombia, then tries out the model in the U.S. U.S. regulations, starting with the Securities Act of 1933, effectively barred sponsors from soliciting small investors for large commercial real estate. However, the JOBS Act of 2013 loosened U.S. restrictions on equity crowdfunding. Nino believes that crowdfunding will democratize real estate development by providing a new asset class for small investors, revolutionizing the industry. The case also follows Nino's development of an online platform to crowdsource design for his crowdfunded buildings, maximizing shared value throughout the development process. Nino faces many challenges as he attempts to crowdfund an extended stay hotel in Manhattan, New York. For example, crowdfunded real estate faces resistance from industry leaders, especially in regards to the concern of fraud, and SEC regulations on crowdfunding remain undetermined at the time of the case.

Keywords: innovation; real estate; crowdfunding; crowdsourcing; Digital Innovation; Commercial Real Estate; online platforms; Disruption; Transformation; Design; Assets; Equity; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Online Technology; Real Estate Industry; Latin America; New York (state, US); United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Katja Hutter, and Greta Friar. "Prodigy Network: Democratizing Real Estate Design and Financing." Harvard Business School Case 614-064, March 2014. (Revised January 2015.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2014 (Revised March 2015)

Samsung Electronics: TV in an Era of Convergence

Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Kerry Herman

From the late 1990s to 2006/2007, Samsung Electronics moved from one of 170 TV manufacturers to gain dominant TV market share year over year from 2007-2013. As digital technologies increasingly converged in 2013-2014, the industry faced new questions: What was the future of TV? The case considers Samsung Electronics TV Group's product development processes, as the company's mobile and TV offerings increasingly converged and consumer demands and behavior pushed the historically clear boundaries of product, content, engagement and interaction.

Keywords: Digital Innovation; technology; technology management; digital convergence; Digital technology; innovation; product development; korea; Samsung; television; Product design; Technological Innovation; Technology; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation and Management; Product Development; Product Design; Electronics Industry; Korean Peninsula; Asia;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Kerry Herman. "Samsung Electronics: TV in an Era of Convergence." Harvard Business School Case 614-034, March 2014. (Revised March 2015.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2014 (Revised August 2014)

3D Systems

Karim R. Lakhani and David Lane

In late 2013, Rajeev Kulkarni needed to decide how best to facilitate the emergence of a broad base of users and content to promote the sale of 3D Systems' consumer-focused 3D printers. As yet, neither the company nor users had identified an indispensable application for 3D printing for consumers, despite a plethora of potential opportunities.

Keywords: 3D printing; business ecosystems; 3D Systems; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Copyright; Two-Sided Platforms; Product Development; Customization and Personalization; Manufacturing Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and David Lane. "3D Systems." Harvard Business School Case 614-035, February 2014. (Revised August 2014.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2014 (Revised March 2014)

SAP 2014: Reaching for the Cloud

Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Noah Fisher

In May 2014, Bill McDermott will become the sole CEO of SAP AG, the world leader in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) field. The case occurs in January 2014 at SAP's investors meeting, at a time when the company's stock is near record high. A 2010 strategy committed the company to a transition to cloud computing. The main driver behind this transition was the development of SAP HANA, an in-memory computing technology that combined database, data processing, and application platform functionality. Ownership of cloud infrastructure was a key question. SAP could build, own, and operate its own data centers, or partner to locate SAP HANA and other products with other cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon, Microsoft, or IBM. McDermott also had to make decisions around the organization and leadership of the company's cloud efforts.

Keywords: information technology; Cloud Computing; platform; strategy and execution; strategy and leadership; enterprise resource planning; software; Information Technology; Technology Platform; Information Technology Industry; Germany;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Noah Fisher. "SAP 2014: Reaching for the Cloud." Harvard Business School Case 614-052, January 2014. (Revised March 2014.) View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | January 2014 (Revised January 2017)

Nivea (B)

Karim R. Lakhani, Johann Fuller, Volker Bilgram and Greta Friar

This supplementary case follows up on an innovative R&D approach by Beiersdorf,a skin care and cosmetics company. The case relates what happened to the product launched by Beiersdorf, to its Nivea line, following the events of the A case, and how the commercial success of the product informed thinking by leaders in R&D for the future.

Keywords: innovation; innovation management; Research and Development; marketing; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Research and Development; Product Design; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Johann Fuller, Volker Bilgram, and Greta Friar. "Nivea (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 614-043, January 2014. (Revised January 2017.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2014 (Revised January 2017)

Nivea (A)

Karim R. Lakhani, Johann Fuller, Volker Bilgram and Greta Friar

The case describes the efforts of Beiersdorf, a worldwide leader in the cosmetics and skin care industries, to generate and commercialize new R&D through open innovation using external crowds and "netnographic" analysis. Beiersdorf, best known for its consumer brand Nivea, has a rigorous R&D process that has led to many successful product launches, but are there areas of customer need that are undervalued by the traditional process? A novel online customer analysis approach suggests untapped opportunities for innovation, but can the company justify a launch based on this new model of research?

Keywords: innovation; innovation management; crowdsourcing; Research and Development; big data; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Research and Development; Social and Collaborative Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Johann Fuller, Volker Bilgram, and Greta Friar. "Nivea (A)." Harvard Business School Case 614-042, January 2014. (Revised January 2017.) View Details

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Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | January 2014

A Note on Funding Digital Innovation Startups

Karim Lakhani, Michael Norris and Andrew Otazo

This note provides information on the state of startup financing in Silicon Valley in 2013. It details different avenues startups have to raise funding, including venture capital, corporate venture capital, angel investors, incubators, and crowdfunding.

Keywords: Startup; innovation ＆ entrepreneurship; venture capital; angel investors; accelerator; crowdfunding; Silicon Valley; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; California;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim, Michael Norris, and Andrew Otazo. "A Note on Funding Digital Innovation Startups." Harvard Business School Technical Note 614-039, January 2014. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2014 (Revised March 2015)

Google Car

Karim R. Lakhani, James Weber and Christine Snively

By 2013, Google, while not a traditional manufacturer of automobiles, had invested millions of dollars in its self-driving cars which had logged over 500,000 miles of testing. The Google management team faced several questions. Should Google continue to invest in the technology behind self-driving cars? How could Google's core software-based and search business benefit from self-driving car technology? As large auto manufacturers began to invest in automotive technology themselves, could Google compete? Was this investment of time and resources worth it for Google?

Keywords: Digital Services; innovation; technology; auto industry; Technological Innovation; Online Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Transportation; Auto Industry; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., James Weber, and Christine Snively. "Google Car." Harvard Business School Case 614-022, January 2014. (Revised March 2015.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2013 (Revised March 2015)

Open Innovation at Siemens

Karim R. Lakhani, Katja Hutter, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa and Johann Fuller

The case describes Siemens, a worldwide innovator in the Energy, Healthcare, Industry, and Infrastructure & Cities sectors, and its efforts to develop and commercialize new R&D through open innovation, including internal and external crowdsourcing contests. Emphasis is placed on exploring actual open innovation initiatives within Siemens and their outcomes. These include creating internal social- and knowledge-sharing networks and utilzing third party platforms to host internal and external contests. Industries discussed include energy, green technology, infrastructure and cities, and sustainability. In addition, the importance of fostering a collaborative online environment and protecting intellectual property is explored.

Keywords: innovation; innovation management; crowdsourcing; information technology; Research and Development; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Research and Development; Energy Industry; Health Industry; Green Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Katja Hutter, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa, and Johann Fuller. "Open Innovation at Siemens." Harvard Business School Case 613-100, June 2013. (Revised March 2015.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2012 (Revised October 2013)

OpenIDEO

Karim R. Lakhani, Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa

The case describes OpenIDEO, an online offshoot of IDEO, one of the world's leading product design firms. OpenIDEO leverages IDEO's innovative design process and an online community to create solutions for social issues. Emphasis is placed on comparing the IDEO and OpenIDEO processes using real-world project examples. For IDEO this includes the redesign of Air New Zealand's long haul flights. For OpenIDEO this includes increasing bone marrow donor registrations and improving personal sanitation in Ghana. In addition, the importance of fostering a collaborative online environment is explored.

Keywords: Social Issues; Product Design; Social and Collaborative Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Ghana; New Zealand;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina, and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa. "OpenIDEO." Harvard Business School Case 612-066, February 2012. (Revised October 2013.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2012

Innovation at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

Karim R. Lakhani and Meredith L. Liu

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Education;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Meredith L. Liu. "Innovation at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools." Harvard Business School Case 612-065, February 2012. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | September 2011

TopCoder (B)

Karim R. Lakhani, Eric Lonstein and Stephanie Pokrywa

Metrology plays a key role in the manufacture of mechanical components. Traditionally it is used extensively in a pre-process stage where a manufacturer does process planning, design, and ramp-up, and in post-process off-line inspection to establish proof of quality. The area that is seeing a lot of growth is the in-process stage of volume manufacturing, where feedback control can help ensure that parts are made to specification. The Industrial Metrology Group at Carl Zeiss AG had its traditional strength in high precision coordinate measuring machines, a universal measuring tool that had been widely used since its introduction in the mid-1970s. The market faced a complex diversification of competition as metrology manufacturers introduced new sensor and measurement technologies, and as some of their customers moved towards a different style of measurement mandating speed and integration with production systems. The case discusses the threat of new in-line metrology systems to the core business as well as the arising new opportunities.

Keywords: Industry Growth; Forecasting and Prediction; Change Management; Production; Machinery and Machining; Planning; Quality; Competition; Diversification; Technology Adoption; Measurement and Metrics; Product Design; Manufacturing Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Eric Lonstein, and Stephanie Pokrywa. "TopCoder (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 612-044, September 2011. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | August 2011

InnoCentive.com (B)

Karim R. Lakhani and Eric Lonstein

InnoCentive.com enables clients to tap into internal and external solver networks to address various business issues. In 2008, InnoCentive introduced "InnoCentive@Work" (lC@W), which recognized clients' reluctance to share problems and solutions with an external network. Instead, IC@W enabled clients to foster open collaboration amongst its own employees. IC@W became the fastest growing product in InnoCentive's portfolio. In 2010, InnoCentive added "team project rooms" which allowed small groups of solvers from InnoCentive's community to openly add posts and discussion threads after agreeing to the confidentiality and IP transfer requirements of the client. The case raises the questions of how the team room concept could be improved and how clients could be convinced of its benefits.

Keywords: Market Platforms; Cost vs Benefits; Intellectual Property; Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Product; Groups and Teams; Communication Technology;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Eric Lonstein. "InnoCentive.com (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 612-026, August 2011. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | August 2011

InnoCentive.com (C)

Karim R. Lakhani and Eric Lonstein

InnoCentive.com enables clients to tap into internal and external solver networks to address various business issues. This case focuses on the outcome of InnoCentive's decision to post challenges related to environmental issues created by the Gulf Oil Spill. It reviews lessons learned from this experience and asks students to consider whether InnoCentive should post challenges in response to the nuclear crises resulting from the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Networks; Decisions; Outcome or Result; Pollutants; Natural Disasters; Natural Environment; Japan;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Eric Lonstein. "InnoCentive.com (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 612-027, August 2011. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2011

TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing (TN)

Karim R. Lakhani and Eric Lonstein

Teaching Note for 610032.

Keywords: Business Model; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Software; Product Development; Competition; Online Technology; Problems and Challenges; Perspective; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Eric Lonstein. "TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 611-071, March 2011. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2011

InnoCentive.com (A) (TN)

Karim R. Lakhani

Teaching Note for 608170.

Keywords: Research and Development; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; System; Open Source Distribution; Competition; Web Services Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "InnoCentive.com (A) (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 611-072, March 2011. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2011

Myelin Repair Foundation: Accelerating Drug Discovery Through Collaboration (TN)

Karim R. Lakhani

Teaching Note for 610074.

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "Myelin Repair Foundation: Accelerating Drug Discovery Through Collaboration (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 611-073, March 2011. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2010 (Revised May 2010)

Data.gov

Karim R. Lakhani, Robert D. Austin and Yumi Yi

This case presents the logic and execution underlying the launch of Data.gov, an instantiation of President Obama's initiative for transparency and open government. The process used by Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, and his team to rapidly develop the website and to make available high-value data sets for reuse is highlighted. The case recounts Kundra's experience at the state and local government levels in developing open data initiatives and the application of that experience to the federal government. The case demonstrates the benefits of making government data available in terms of both engaged citizens and the potential for new innovations from the private sector. Potential drawbacks of open access including security and privacy issues are illustrated. Issues related to the role of government in releasing data and the balance between accountability and private-sector innovation are explored.

Keywords: Safety; Rights; Data and Data Sets; Internet; Ethics; Cost vs Benefits; Innovation and Management; Information Management; Public Administration Industry; Information Industry; United States;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., Robert D. Austin, and Yumi Yi. "Data.gov." Harvard Business School Case 610-075, May 2010. (Revised May 2010.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2010 (Revised May 2012)

Myelin Repair Foundation: Accelerating Drug Discovery Through Collaboration

Karim R. Lakhani and Paul R. Carlile

This case presents the Myelin Repair Foundation's accelerated research collaboration model for drug discovery. It highlights the challenges of building a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research collaboration that is attempting to create a treatment for multiple sclerosis based on a novel scientific approach. The case provides details on how norms of academic research and intellectual property had to be updated to enable collaboration. The current dilemma facing the CEO and COO of the foundation relates to setting strategic priorities for research so that a treatment for MS can be ready in the next ten years. The strategic choices need to account for the complexities of drug discovery, the uncertainty of commercial partners' interest in the therapeutic approach and the constrained donor-based fundraising environment.

Keywords: Research and Development; Intellectual Property; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategic Planning; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Disorders; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Health Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Paul R. Carlile. "Myelin Repair Foundation: Accelerating Drug Discovery Through Collaboration." Harvard Business School Case 610-074, March 2010. (Revised May 2012.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2010 (Revised May 2012)

TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing

Karim R. Lakhani, David A. Garvin and Eric Lonstein

TopCoder's crowdsourcing-based business model, in which software is developed through online tournaments, is presented. The case highlights how TopCoder has created a unique two-sided innovation platform consisting of a global community of over 225,000 developers who compete to write software modules for its over 40 clients. Provides details of a unique innovation platform where complex software is developed through ongoing online competitions. By outlining the company's evolution, the challenges of building a community and refining a web-based competition platform are illustrated. Experiences and perspectives from TopCoder community members and clients help show what it means to work from within or in cooperation with an online community. In the case, the use of distributed innovation and its potential merits as a corporate problem solving mechanism is discussed. Issues related to TopCoder's scalability, profitability, and growth are also explored.

Keywords: Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Two-Sided Platforms; Motivation and Incentives; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Software; Technology Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., David A. Garvin, and Eric Lonstein. "TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing." Harvard Business School Case 610-032, January 2010. (Revised May 2012.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2008 (Revised October 2009)

InnoCentive.com (A)

Karim R. Lakhani

InnoCentive.com, a firm connecting R&D labs of large organizations to diverse external solvers through innovation contests, has to decide if it will enable collaboration in its community. Case covers the basics of a distributed innovation system works and the advantages of having external R&D. Links how concepts of open source are applied to a non-software setting. Describes the rationale for participation by solvers in innovation contests and the benefits that accrue to firms. Raises the issue if a community can be shifted to collaboration when competition was the basis of prior interaction.

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Open Source Distribution; Research and Development; Competition; Cooperation;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "InnoCentive.com (A)." Harvard Business School Case 608-170, June 2008. (Revised October 2009.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2009

SAP AG: Orchestrating the Ecosystem

Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Business ecosystems require careful orchestration and strategic choices regarding make/buy/partner decisions and membership access. This case examines the strategic and technological issues related to managing SAP's thriving ecosystem of user communities, software vendors, integration partners, and technology providers. It details how the ecosystem gets developed and the challenges in meeting the needs of the internal organization, large partners, and small up-and-coming firms. SAP executives, in this case, have to make a decision if a relatively small startup firm should be elevated to the highest strategic partnership level, normally reserved for very large firms.

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Structure; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Technology Industry;

Citation:
Iansiti, Marco, and Karim R. Lakhani. "SAP AG: Orchestrating the Ecosystem." Harvard Business School Case 609-069, April 2009. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2008

Threadless: The Business of Community

Karim R. Lakhani and Zahra Kanji

Threadless.com, the online, Chicago-based t-shirt company, was not your typical fashion apparel company. The company, run by Jake Nickell, Jacob DeHart, and Jeffrey Kalmikoff, turned the fashion business on its head by enabling anyone to submit designs for t-shirts and asking its community of more than 500,000 members to help select winning designs. Threadless encouraged community members to actively participate by critiquing submitted designs, blogging about their daily lives, posting songs and videos inspired by the designs, and, most important, purchasing t-shirts that have won the weekly design competitions. In 2007, Threadless was well on its way to selling more than a million and a half t-shirts. The success of Threadless has garnered significant media attention, the New York Times and USA's National Public Radio highlighting its unique community-based business model and has piqued the interest of large traditional retailers. Nickell, DeHart, and Kalmikoff were now faced with making a decision about a potentially lucrative offer from a major retailer offering to carry large volumes of select Threadless t-shirts in its retail stores. Should they accept?

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Apparel and Accessories Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Zahra Kanji. "Threadless: The Business of Community." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 608-707, June 2008. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2008

Threadless: The Business of Community (Instructor's Version)

Karim R. Lakhani and Zahra Kanji

The instructor version of Threadless includes the Threadless student version multimedia case as well as four additional videos that can be used to enhance class discussion. The first video presents community reaction to the proposal from the large retailer. The next two videos detail the rationale for the final decision and their future plans. The final video contains a discussion about community participation and questions of exploitation.

Keywords: Debates; Decisions; Strategic Planning; Society; Entertainment and Recreation Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Zahra Kanji. "Threadless: The Business of Community (Instructor's Version)." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 608-719, June 2008. View Details

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Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | June 2008

Threadless: The Business of Community (TN)

Karim R. Lakhani

Teaching Note for 608707

Keywords: Online Technology; Civil Society or Community; Competition; Blogs; Business Model; Decisions; Design; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Chicago;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R. "Threadless: The Business of Community (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 608-169, June 2008. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2008

Cambrian House

Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

Cambrian House builds internet-based products and services by relying entirely on its user community for all aspects of its innovation and new product development process. Users suggest ideas for new products and services and also participate in a monthly voting process to select the best ideas. The company is now considering the deployment of a prediction market to deepen user involvement and commitment in its innovation; however, it is not sure if it is an appropriate strategy for its community.

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Voting; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Management; Marketing Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Business and Community Relations; Internet;

Citation:
Coles, Peter A., Karim R. Lakhani, and Andrew P. McAfee. "Cambrian House." Harvard Business School Case 608-016, March 2008. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2007 (Revised August 2007)

Prediction Markets at Google

Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

In its eight quarters of operation, Google's internally developed prediction market has delivered accurate and decisive predictions about future events of interest to the company. Google must now determine how to increase participation in the market, and how to best use its predictions.

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Market Participation; Information Technology;

Citation:
Coles, Peter A., Karim R. Lakhani, and Andrew P. McAfee. "Prediction Markets at Google." Harvard Business School Case 607-088, May 2007. (Revised August 2007.) View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2007 (Revised February 2007)

Wikipedia (A)

Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

Wikipedia has emerged as a robust model for content production by volunteers working asynchronously on the Internet with a unconventional model for distributed decision making. The "Articles for Deletion" process in Wikipedia provides unique insight into the inner workings of a distributed community. Wikipedia administrators have to decide if an article on "Enterprise 2.0" should be deleted, kept or merged with some other article. The episode illustrates broader issues of IT-enabled community mobilization and engagement in distributed setting.

Keywords: Information Publishing; Information Management; Internet; Information Technology; Globalization; Service Delivery; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Management; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry;

Citation:
Lakhani, Karim R., and Andrew P. McAfee. "Wikipedia (A)." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 607-712, February 2007. (Revised February 2007.) View Details

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