Companies that contribute to (and use) open source software can gain a competitive advantage—even though they may be helping their competitors in the short run. The reason? Contributing to crowdsourced “public goods” that benefit other firms or industries can enable companies to gain valuable insights and compete more effectively in the long term. Call it the “Linux effect.”
When Professor Ethan Bernstein used wearable technology to track workers around their open office, he discovered many who were trying to avoid collaboration rather than engage in it. This research throws a wrench in the much-hyped claims that open office plans increase productivity and collaboration.
It’s a declaration we’ve all heard before: “We need more collaboration! We need to break out of our silos and build integrated, cross-functional teams!” But what if — when it comes to collaboration — there can be too much of a good thing? This is the hypothesis Professor Jeff Polzer set out to test with his research on collaborative overload, that is how the amount of collaboration relates to organizational productivity. Using digital trace data to analyze organizational productivity at scale, Professor Polzer finds some answers that may surprise you.
It makes sense that born-digital educational products like MOOCs would have robust data capabilities, but what about the schools and teachers that are, as they always have been, in charge of training children in the earlier stages of their education journey? Harvard Director of Education and Communication Miriam Greenberg makes the case for establishing a new profession in K-12 education: the data strategist.
The explosion of available data and subsequent renaissance in data-driven decision making is poised to open up 2.7 million new jobs in analytics by 2020. To meet this growing demand, Harvard is taking an interdisciplinary approach to help professionals upskill their business analytics mastery.
What does it take to capture the devotion of a fickle fan base in a fiercely competitive industry? How can you capitalize on the viral popularity of a game within the ‘freemium’ model? How should a company strategically scale following one massive blockbuster hit? Professor Jeffrey Rayport looks to Candy Crush for the answers to these questions in this Cold Call podcast.
When then relative HBS newcomer Professor Bill Sahlman introduced the idea of an Entrepreneurial Finance course, he received little to no encouragement. Fast forward 30 years, and not only was Sahlman’s course hugely successful and popular among the students, but he succeeded in developing an entirely new framework to think about finance in entrepreneurial ventures that still rings true today.
