Synopses & Reviews
Find the right innovation modelInnovation is a much-used buzzword these days, but when it comes to creating and implementing a new idea, many companies miss the markplans backfire, consumer preferences shift, or tried-and-true practices fail to work in a new context. So is innovation just a low-odds crapshoot?
In The Architecture of Innovation, Harvard Business School professor Josh Lernerone of the foremost experts on how innovation workssays innovation can be understood and managed. The key to success? Incentives.
Fortunately, new research has shed light on the role incentives can play in promoting new ideas, but these findings have been absent from innovation literatureuntil now. By using the principles of organizational economics, Lerner explains how companies can set the right incentives and time horizons for investments and create a robust innovation infrastructure in the process.
Drawing from years of experience studying and advising companies, venture capital firms, and an assortment of governments around the globe, Lerner looks to corporate labs and start-ups, and argues that the best elements of both can be found in hybrid models for innovation. While doing so, he uses a wide range of industry-rich examples to show how these models work and how you can put them into practice in your own organization.
Practical and thought-provoking, The Architecture of Innovation is the missing blueprint for any company looking to strengthen its innovation competence.
Review
Josh Lerner provides an authoritative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the American system.”
The Financial TimesThe Architecture of Innovation is a must read for R&D managers and CTOs whose mission is to innovate. Research-Technology Management
ADVANCE PRAISE for The Architecture of Innovation:
Paul Romer, Professor of Economics, New York University Stern School of Business; Founder, Aplia
In his latest book, Josh Lerner shows that by following a few basic principles, any organization can innovate more successfully. You couldnt ask for a better guide to the solid knowledge about what works, or a better antidote to the misleading parts of conventional wisdom.”
Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google
Which is a better model for innovation: corporate labs or venture-funded start-ups? Josh Lerner argues convincingly for a hybrid model that combines the best of both approaches. The Architecture of Innovation offers practical advice for those in both the public and private sectors who seek to stimulate innovation.”
Scott Anthony, Managing Director, Innosight Asia-Pacific; author, The Little Black Book of Innovation
An important contribution whose lucid and thorough analysis provides practical guidance for leaders trying to transform innovation intent into substantial and sustainable impact.”
Pontus Braunerhjelm, Chair, 2010 Global Award for Entrepreneurship
Josh Lerner is a superstar, a contemporary giant of entrepreneurship scholarship in the domain of VC-backed business venturing. His empirical research on the interrelationships between venture capital, innovation, and entrepreneurship has greatly extended and improved our understanding of one of the engines of modern economic growth.”
Synopsis
Most companies struggle with how to generate and commercialize innovative ideasfull stop. In many cases, bad approaches to innovation can cause plans to backfire or prevent you from creating a new product or service that anticipates changing market preferences. And some practices that work in one context arent going to work in anothersomething that many companies discover far too late (just ask Motorola).
In The Architecture of Innovation, Harvard Business School professor Josh Lernerone of the worlds foremost experts on how innovation worksexplains how to avoid such blunders. Lerner introduces the tools and principles of organizational economics and shows how to use them to build an innovation infrastructure, including establishing the right incentives and time horizons for your investments.
Drawing from years of experience studying and advising venture capital firms, companies, and governments around the world, Lerner weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional open and venture-capital-backed innovation systems. He reveals how to exploit the best elements of these systems through a hybrid third way.” And he provides a wealth of detailed examples of how it all works in practicefrom successful companies in an array of industries around the world.
Practical and compelling, The Architecture of Innovation provides the missing blueprint for any company seeking to strengthen its innovation prowess.
About the Author
Josh Lerner is the Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School and co-director of the Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is recognized worldwide as an expert on how innovation works. His books include
The Venture Capital Cycle,
The Money of Invention (with Paul Gompers),
Innovation and Its Discontents (with Adam Jaffe), and
Boulevard of Broken Dreams.