MIT Sloan Management Review

It’s not easy to develop a breakthrough innovation in an established company and bring it to market successfully — and even more challenging to do so more than once. In their new book, Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms, authors Abbie Griffin, Raymond L. Price and Bruce A. Vojak describe several years of research they have conducted about a type of employee who can do just that.

Research in innovation and creativity shows that giving employees unstructured time — on company time — pays off.

Since Digital Equipment Corp. founder (and MIT alumnus) Ken Olsen died earlier this month at 84, much has been written about him and the computer company he cofounded.
 
The story of Digital Equipment Corp.

From Apple to Twitter, some of the most successful businesses are not what their inventors originally envisioned.

A new book examines the challenges — and potential benefits — of government programs designed to foster entrepreneurship.

“What will be the long-term impact of the crisis on technological innovation?” Joshua Gans examines that question in the new Spring 2009 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.

Is there a corporate culture of innovation that transcends national differences? That’s one of the suggestions of a study called “Radical Innovation Across Nations: The Pre-eminence of Corporate Culture” that was published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Marketing. Gerard J. Tellis, Jaideep C.

Fallout from the financial crisis could hinder innovation—by limiting options for technology start-ups.

What’s “crowd funding”? It involves consumers investing small amounts of money (as little as $1) in the businesses of musicians or fashion designers whose products they fancy.

Some say the root cause of the global financial crisis was a few regional financiers selling risky mortgages to poor people. How can that be? The subprime mortgage market is a fraction of the U.S. mortgage market, which is a fraction of the U.S.

Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso had a lot in common. They each had a distinctive style of painting that has become immediately identifiable. Think of “The Starry Night” or “Three Musicians.&

Building an engine that produces a steady stream of innovative growth businesses is difficult, but companies that are able to do it differentiate themselves from competitors.

Process improvements don’t grow on trees, say three business school professors, but they might be native to cities.Take productivity-boosting intranets, for example, the private Internet capabilities that enable companies to improve information sharing and collaboration within a company.

To tap fully into the swarm creativity of innovative customers and employees, companies must adopt a completely new mindset for doing business.

A study of Nokia’s venturing program revealed eight important lessons that can help companies benefit from their investments in new ventures.

Companies with a restricted view of innovation can miss opportunities. A new framework called the “innovation radar” helps avoid that.

Although most companies undertake acquisitions with an eye toward fueling growth, the resulting infusion of new ideas, perspectives and processes can produce lasting benefits that are broader and deeper.

Companies too often vacillate in their commitment to internal corporate venturing activities, leading to less than optimal outcomes. Executives need to better understand — and manage — the factors that drive cyclicality in internal corporate venturing.

With increased competition and globally maturing markets, relationship marketing has emerged as the new mantra. Although companies are successfully using customer satisfaction to create closer and more profitable relationships with customers, the myopic pursuit of such relationships often backfires. Consider a U.S.-

As entrepreneurs are considering international expansion earlier and earlier, it is crucial that they structure their ventures to anticipate and mitigate the tensions that can arise from the ongoing need to match perceived opportunities to available resources.