Summary Decision-making on sustainability investment faces two challenges. First, appraisal methods are based on a narrow view of shareholder value and require extensions to support decisions that involve valuable outcomes for society. Second, the consequences of climate change are uncertain. However, firms have real options to adapt, which helps them realize the energy transition. An extended net

Large-scale, mission-critical initiatives are increasingly deployed through major programs or assemblies of projects that span and situate across sectors, industries, and/or geographies. To better track risk propagation within major programs, this article reconceptualizes them as temporary ecosystems or interlinked organizations whose project-based interdependencies last until the program’s conclusion

Summary Mega infrastructure projects in liberal democracies often encounter significant cost overruns and delays. These challenges arise from tensions between mandated stakeholder engagement and shareholder-focused decision making. Legal frameworks require broad stakeholder involvement, yet investors prioritize cost efficiency, frequently omitting collaboration expenses from initial budgets. This misalignment

Grand challenges call for innovation and collaboration across sectors. Yet, many cross-sector and multi-stakeholder initiatives often fall short of achieving their intended goals, and creating the expected value. Addressing this issue requires a better understanding of how to develop and design emergent multi-stakeholder programs with actual societal value. This article leverages an in-depth case study

As the access, sharing, and transfer of intellectual property (IP) are central to open innovation (OI) projects, preventing the leakage of IP is critical. The emergence of blockchain has prompted organizations to seek support from this technology to protect IP. However, the potential applications, challenges, and benefits for OI projects at the technology/legal interface are not well understood. This

When many of today’s deepest problems are intractable, how can public, private, and nonprofit actors collaborate to mitigate negative local effects? Given the open-endedness of any collective effort to “chip away” at a grand challenge, these intersectoral collaborations must align the scope of a shared goal with the governance arrangements distributing decision-making authority. By juxtaposing insights

Net zero by 2050 requires significant capital deployment through innovative climate finance and supportive policies. Policymakers and capital markets face the challenge of generating returns, driving economic growth, and ensuring sustainability. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates existing technologies can achieve 80% of the emissions reductions needed by 2030, but mobilizing capital to

Responding to climate change requires rapid changes in corporate practices. This article assesses how Amazon, known for its speed and innovation, has leveraged internal processes to transition toward “Net Zero Carbon” by 2040. It argues that industrial decarbonization has primarily involved “sustaining innovations” and then examines how Amazon’s internal mechanisms have been applied to sustainability—including

Novel bottom-up forms of organizing, such as agile, have become increasingly prevalent in companies. While such organizing forms emphasize bottom-up employee involvement, they also require commitment from top-level executives. However, knowledge about how companies can move from piloting to scaling agile and top-level executives’ role in managing this transition is currently limited. This article’s

Physical goods producers routinely collaborate with digital platforms to extend their distribution capabilities. They usually realize that digital platform firms differ from them in their strategies and capabilities, and that significant opportunities arise from innovating digital platforms being able to collect, analyze, and leverage behavioral customer data related to the consumption experience.

Drawing on data from white-collar inmates in a United States Federal Prison, this article explains what causes individuals to commit misconduct. Flawed intuition captures the consistent pattern of instinctive, muddled logic by individuals who are influenced by a toxic mix of individual behavioral triggers, organizational context, and the wider industry environment. Combined with limited reflection

In an era of catastrophic climate change, businesses that are sustainable will be more likely to survive and thrive. The same is true of business schools. This article discusses different business school approaches to this transformation, touching on both successes and ongoing challenges. While its focus is on Berkeley Haas, it also draws on a 2022 benchmarking survey of other business schools. Mainstreaming

This article investigates how livestreaming content can be integrated into influencer marketing to effectively engage Generation Z—a demographic increasingly wary of traditional marketing techniques. Livestreaming is an interactive marketing channel that enhances influencer credibility, audience engagement, and brand authenticity. Through a conceptual model, this article explores the core dynamics

To address climate change, firms are increasingly forming sustainability alliances. Pursuing sustainability via such alliances is challenging as it means working with multifaceted and not necessarily compatible goals. Moreover, it often requires collaboration among heterogeneous partners outside traditional industrial contexts as well as dealing with wicked problems. This article presents a multiple-case

Highly regulated industries such as healthcare can reap significant benefits from new digital technologies. However, due to institutional constraints, adopting such technologies is a slow and difficult process. Technology providers need to legitimize their underlying technologies to the customers and other stakeholders in the field. Drawing on multiple case studies in the healthcare industry, this

This study explores the dynamics between the extremes of open innovation (OI)—from inclusive co-creation to exclusive vertical integration (VI). This analysis addresses the management issues of how Tesla and Porsche manage value capture and value distribution in the e-mobility industry through their contrasting approaches and strategic shifts between OI and VI. It develops a novel theoretical model

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance, enable, or replace traditional open innovation (OI) practices, changing the scope and efficiency of both outside-in and inside-out OI. This article provides a comprehensive framework to analyze AI’s influence on OI, supported by illustrative examples, and outlines the key implications for organizations and researchers. The co-evolutionary relationship between

Open Innovation (OI) has become a key part of corporate strategy, and many firms have adopted dedicated organizational functions to leverage OI. However, current literature lacks insights into how firms deploy such functions and what they do. To address this issue, this article provides insights from interviews with senior managers in dedicated OI functions in 20 different firms. The findings reveal

Disruptions often call for rapid innovation at scale. Open innovation (OI) is critical in such contexts because it allows organizations to access resources beyond the firm’s boundaries. Yet, many OI projects fail, posing significant risks during disruptions. This article examines 12 ventilator development projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, of which only seven succeeded. Fifty-five interviews were

SummaryI have been invited to discuss the prospects for Open Innovation (OI) as part of this special issue of the California Management Review. To organize my discussion, I will examine three phases of the evolution of this concept: the antecedents of OI, some of the main findings from OI (including both successes and failures), and prospects for the future of OI.

SummaryPublic organizations are embracing open innovation (OI) to better serve their societal mission. This study presents a “Strategy Perimeter Framework,” developed and validated at the European Space Agency, to integrate OI into their strategy development. The framework helps manage stakeholder engagement within the strategy perimeter, thereby fostering collaborative innovation. It enables the alignment

SummarySince the 1970s, telecommuting has generated significant interest among academics and practitioners alike. However, the topic of flexible working arrangements has become more relevant lately, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As digital technologies continuously advance, immersive workplaces facilitated by technologies such as virtual reality (VR) become more appealing. This article

The rise of digital technologies and open innovation has revolutionized innovation practices, creating new opportunities for moving born-physical open innovation settings to metaverse-like virtual environments. This study explores a virtual corporate-startup collaboration program in the energy industry to understand how digital feature usage facilitates trusted relationships and enables successful

Since their beginnings, virtual worlds have experienced two major media hypes in their short lifetime—the first in 2003 after the launch of Second Life and the second in 2021, with Mark Zuckerberg announcing his strategy for the Metaverse. Most academic research on virtual worlds emerged between these two peaks of interest. This article delves into the enduring relevance of such research, contrasting

Legacy companies are firms that rely on stable business models, established internal processes, and familiar technologies. Existing research acknowledges that legacy companies need to explore new technologies, but scholars largely neglect to analyze how this process unfolds. This knowledge gap is particularly relevant when disruptive technological paradigms are about to modify the business arena, as

This study presents a metaverse flywheel model providing insights into how the emerging layered modular architecture of the metaverse can enable new types of value-creation opportunities for organizations. Based on interviews with early metaverse adopters and innovators, this article identifies three key metaverse affordances: prospection of future conditions, persistence of editable and evolving virtual

The metaverse, although yet to be fully realized, offers a compelling vision: a scalable and interoperable ecosystem of virtual worlds that can be simultaneously accessed by multiple users using continuous, user-generated, and embodied identities (i.e., avatars). Since the metaverse will likely achieve widespread user adoption once innovators and early adopters recognize its values, it must evolve

Metaverse architects face challenges akin to urban planners developing a new city: multiple stakeholders must coordinate on technical standards for interoperability and establish social consensus around specific choices. The article presents an analogy between the metaverse and the Las Vegas Strip in the unincorporated town of Paradise, NV, which arose in the mid-twentieth century as a focal destination

This article explores the effects of open innovation on innovation performance in military bureaucracies. While the understanding of how bureaucratic organizations can benefit from open innovation is still limited, this study discovered that open innovation can have a negative effect on innovation performance. However, leveraging an innovative culture can lead to improved innovation performance in

Digital platforms are often characterized as enablers of new ecosystems. However, platforms are sometimes introduced into pre-existing ecosystems, where a platform’s ability to harmonize with the ecosystem is critical for its success. This article draws on the case of digital healthcare platforms and introduces the concept of platform grafting, which denotes the process of integrating a new platform

This article explores Nordic countries’ and companies’ sustainability practices. It explores how nations like Denmark, Finland, and Sweden and companies such as Novo Nordisk and Ørsted achieve top sustainability rankings through their distinctive approach to stakeholder cooperation. It discusses the historical and cultural context that has shaped the Nordic approach, emphasizing the importance of long-term

Managing acquired subsidiaries can be daunting. Parent and affiliate executives strive to co-create value, but fixed mindsets around subsidiary autonomy can result in diverging interests and outcomes. Through a longitudinal study of Audi’s post-acquisition integration of supercar manufacturer Lamborghini, this article provides guidance on how to manage the level of acquired subsidiary autonomy as a

Several firms worldwide that attempted to penetrate the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) with digital service innovations have encountered disappointing returns. This article explores what capabilities firms should develop and how they should nourish them for value creation at the BOP. Using the multiple-case method, this study inductively derives persuasion, co-creation, adaptation, and self-sustainability

Two organizations that focus on tech-based health innovation have partnered to improve the mental health of young adults. In this “tech for good” project, Hopelab and Grit Digital Health worked together to create an app using human-centered product design. With the core needs of users at the forefront, the team developed an app both with and for college students to combat loneliness, a prevalent issue

This article analyzes the connection between gamification and business success, focusing on customer retention, new customer acquisition, and transforming user perceptions. Based on a qualitative comparative analysis of 40 high-profile gamification projects, it shows that a combination of three key features—virtualization, social comparison, and tangible rewards—explain the various pathways to success

Product innovation increasingly involves both human designers (engineers, developers, lead users, creative geniuses, and other innovators) and machine designers (algorithmically organized software ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are engaged in a harsh battle for market dominance. This article examines the emergence of a dominant design in terms of technology, service, and business ...

In the context of platforms, an open architecture is instrumental in enabling innovation by complementors. But as complementors increasingly deplete the innovation opportunities that the platform a...

Orchestrating an ecosystem requires coordination to create value, but prior research has tended to emphasize centralized ecosystem control over solutions involving distributed governance. By studyi...

SummaryCorporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often criticized for being overly broad and abstract, if not cynical and deceitful. This leaves many stakeholders frustrated or disengaged, including...

The ability to commercialize products based on distributed innovation is one of the critical challenges of large-scale open innovation. While this issue has been largely investigated in relation to...

Open innovation rests on the idea that not all the smart people work only for you, and managing human interaction across organizational boundaries is therefore central to open innovation. This arti...

Although corporate venture capital (CVC) has been studied as part of open innovation (OI), assumptions about knowledge flows crossing organizational boundaries between “the inside” and “the outside...

This article presents a strategic decision-making tool to assist corporate management in analyzing the trajectory of their business model portfolio. The tool provides a robust means of assessing th...

Digital technologies have become omnipresent in our professional and personal lives. While they provide numerous opportunities, they also cause tensions, many of which are paradoxical. They confron...

Many companies are implementing transparency initiatives to improve environmental and social impacts throughout their supply chains. Meaningful change, however, is elusive, and transparency efforts...

Corporate transparency is an aspirational ideal that is very difficult to achieve because organizations can never be completely transparent. As a result, effective management of transparency requir...

Calibrating environmental impacts and dependencies in financial metrics, known as natural capital accounting (natural capital valuations; assessments), is critical for transparency and effective de...

Two strategic factors of any business are customer interaction (how close you are to your customers) and customer participation (how involved customers are in producing the offering). In recent yea...

Materiality assessments play an important role in helping firms to select the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics to include in their sustainability report. This article presents the...

Research on prosocial entrepreneurship so far has focused either on ex-ante motives to create prosocial enterprises or on ex-post strategies to protect mission orientation. Surprisingly little is k...

Multisided platforms are new organizing forms that can boost innovation in the healthcare sector by empowering patients as innovators and facilitating the commercialization of innovations by and fo...

Multi-sided platforms (MSPs) are becoming increasingly important in contemporary economies. This special issue of California Management Review aims to stimulate collective discussion among research...

Many of the most successful firms—such as Alibaba, Google, and Uber—operate platforms. Electric vehicles (EVs) are platform goods as well because value comes from the vehicle plus complementary pro...

In the traditional offline context, the mental health industry suffers from poor local demand and a lack of trustworthy supply. Emerging digital platforms can solve this problem to a large extent b...

During the last decade, MedTech companies started to invest in building digital healthcare platforms to maintain their competitiveness in the Digital Economy. However, launching a new digital platf...