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CM J31 - Flash-of-genius: From creative insight to successful innovation*

Faculty
Lee Davis, Robin Herr, and invited speakers
Course Coordinator
Lee Davis
Prerequisite/progression of the course
The course is open to students from all CBS masters programs
Course content, structure and teaching
The creative flash-of-genius has always been central to the innovation process. Consider the following examples, which led to billion dollar businesses:
  • Post-It Notes: 3M chemical engineer Art Fry was searching for applications for a weak adhesive developed in his company. He also sang in the local church choir. Irritated that his hymnal bookmarks kept fluttering to the floor, he suddenly realized that the adhesive could be applied to bookmarks to attach them to the page. The resulting “sticky notes” were acclaimed by Time Magazine as “one of the most significant inventions of the past 25 years.”
  • Apple Computer: Steve Wozniak, a computer engineer at Hewlett Packard, had his main inspiration while conversing during his leisure time with Captain Crunch, a local California cult hero who used a teletype machine to communicate with a computer in Boston over ARPA-net. He combined this insight with his own version of the arcade game PONG and microprocessor technology to create Apple I.
  • Pierre Omidyar had his creative vision to create eBay after watching his fiancé’s irritation trying to use local classified ads to locate hard-to-find products.
But not all creative insights lead to profitable innovations. To generate value, either the inventor, or his/her boss, must identify those insights that can lead to commercial success, and then effectively protect and develop them. Which inventions to pursue, and which to reject, may not be at all clear at the time. 3M supported Fry’s proposal; HP rejected Wozniak’s – who then left the company, and with Steve Jobs, founded Apple.
This course explores the key management challenges involved in generating value from inventive insights. We take students through the innovation process progressively, from the initial flash-of-genius through commercial development. At each stage, students will reflect on the relevant management choices and learn the economic, legal, and managerial skills to facilitate informed decisions. The course consists of three modules.
  • Creativity and Corporate Opportunity: How can inventors know when to move forward with their creative flashes? How can managers identify creative employees – and persuade them to reveal their inventive insights? How effective are incentive contracts in retaining such employees? When should the employee inventor consider leaving the firm and create a new venture?
  • From Drawing Board to Development: What criteria can inventors – and/or their managers – use to pick the winners, and reject the losers? How can creative insights best be protected via IP rights like patents, copyrights, trademarks? When might facilitating open access be preferable?
  • Creating Commercial Value: How can management best utilize firm intellectual capital and find the best combinations of knowledge that lead to successful commercial performance? When might it make sense to engage in R&D joint ventures, or license out the rights?
As a supplement to the lectures, students will form groups and select a case company, which will form the basis for their mini-project.
The course's development of personal competences
Working from theories on the sources of invention, technology management, defining corporate commercial objectives, and the use of law, this course aims to develop personal managerial competencies both by introducing students to the relevant literature, and progressively taking them through the successive stages of corporate invention and innovation. Students will learn how to recognize the conditions under which the flash-of-genius might arise, how to identify and develop valuable creative insights, how to obtain effective IP rights at all stages (including managing the contracting process and drawing up a contract), and how to achieve technology transfer within and without the company. Classroom case discussions and simulations will integrate theory with practice.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, students should demonstrate that they can:
  • Understand the theories, concepts, tools and cases covered in the course
  • Recognize the management challenges that arise at each stage of the innovative process from the “flash of genius” to successful commercialization
  • Apply different theories and concepts in strategic analysis of concrete company cases
  • Discuss legal problems that may arise in attempting to protect and promote a firm’s innovation strategy
  • Critically assess the scope, limits and complementarities of applying the theories, concepts and principles to issues covered in the course
Type of examination, exam aids and assessment
Students will form groups and write a mini-project based on the experiences of a specific company. The mini-project provides the basis for an individual oral exam. Students may take their mini-project to the exam.
Recommended literature
Creativity and Corporate Opportunity:
  • Amabile, T.M. & Mueller J.S. 2007. Studying creativity, its process and its antecedents: An exploration of the componential theory of creativity, in J. Zhou and C. Shalley (Eds.) Handbook of Organizational Creativity Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • Dahlin, K,. Taylor M & Fichman, M. 2004 Today’s Edisons or weekend hobbyists: Technical merit and success of invention by independent inventors, Research Policy, 33(8), 1167-1183.
  • Davis, L.N., Davis, J. and Hoisl, K. (2009). What Inspires Leisure Time Invention? Paper presented to the DRUID Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark (June).
  • Elsbach, K.D. / Hargadon, A.B. (2006). Enhancing Creativity Through “Mindless” Work: A Framework of Workday Design, Organization Science, 17(4), pp. 470-483.
  • Fleming, L. 2006. Lone Inventors are the Source of Technological Breakthroughs; Myth or Reality?.HBS Working Paper, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA.
  • Excerpts from Miller, Roger and William E. Hollowell, Business Law: Text and Exercises (West Legal Studies in Business, latest edition).
From Drawing Board to Development:
  • Chiesa, V, Mazini, R.(1996). Managing knowledge transfer within multinational firms International Journal of Technology Management 12(4), pp.462-476
  • Cohen, H, Keller, S, Streeter, D. (2001) The transfer of technology from research to development, in Burgelman, R A./ Maidique, M A./ Wheelwright, St. C., eds. Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation Boston: McGraw-Hill, 605-613.
  • Cohendet, P, Llerena, P (2003) Routines and incentives: the role of communities in the firm Industrial and Corporate Change 12(2), pp.271-297.
  • Firth, A. and Phillips, J. (2001). Introduction to Intellectual Property Law. Fourth edition (Butterworths).
  • Garud, R, Nayyar, P.R.(1994). Transformative Capacity: Continual Structuring by Intertemporal Technology Transfer, Strategic Management Journal, 51, pp. 365-385.
  • Quinn, J.B. (2000). Strategic outsourcing of innovations. Sloan Management Review Summer, pp. 13-28.
  • Souder, W.E. (1987) Technology Transfer From the Lab to the Customer Managing New Product Innovations (Lexington Books), pp. 217-238
Creating Commercial Value
  • Arora,A, Fosfuri,A, and Gambardella, A.(2001). Markets for Technology and Their Implications for Corporate Strategy, Industrial and Corporate Change 10(2), pp. 419-451
  • Bontis, N. 1999. Managing organizational knowledge by diagnosing intellectual capital: framing and advancing the state of the field, International Journal of Technology Management, 18 (5/6). Pp 433-464.
  • Cooper, R.G. (2008), Perspective: The Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process-Update,What's New and NexGen Systems, Journal of .Product Innovation Management, 25 (3),May 2008,pp 213–232
  • Davis, L.N. (2008). “Licensing Strategies of the New ‘Intellectual Property Vendors,” California Management Review, Winter, 50 (2), pp. 6-30.
  • Edvinsson L and Sullivan, P (1996) Developing a Model for Managing Intellectual Capital. European Management Journal,14(4), pp. 356-364
  • Gans, Joshua S. and Stern, Scott (2003). “The Product Market and the Market for ‘Ideas’: Commercialization Strategies for Technology Entrepreneurs,” Research Policy 32, pp. 333-350.
  • Latham, D.A. (2008). International Considerations in Intellectual Property Licensing, The Licensing Journal (March), pp. 1-6
  • Shapiro, C and Varian, H. (1999). Information Rules. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press
  • Teece, D. T. (2006). Reflections on “Profiting from Innovation” Research Policy.35, pp. 1131-1146

Last updated by The Electives Office 20/10/2010