The Architecture of Innovation

Description

The developed world is struggling with unsustainable promises and unappealing choices, and sustained economic growth represents one of the few ways out. And over the centuries, growth in advanced economies has been strongly linked to innovation. 

Despite the vast amounts written about innovation over the years, understanding of its drivers remains surprisingly limited. This book, by top Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner, seeks to remedy this shortfall. It highlights that while organizational economists have made strides in understanding what combinations of incentives and organization structure can encourage innovative breakthroughs, many of these insights have not yet received the attention they deserve in the real world, or been developed in ways that can easily be applied in real situations. The author focuses on two models for encouraging innovation, the corporate research laboratory and the start-up. Each model, while proven and successful, also faces significant challenges and ambiguities. A central argument is that there remains considerable potential for hybrids between these two approaches.

This book draws on important research in economics and reviews different approaches to innovation, combining this with a series of case examples to explore the challenges that face start up firms, large firms, and nations. It is essential reading for anybody faced with the challenge of innovation.

About the Author

Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Finance and the Entrepreneurial Management Areas. He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research's Productivity, Research, and Innovation Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a non-profit devoted to encouraging data access to and research about venture capital and private equity. His research examines the structure and role of venture capital and private equity organizations, in books such as The Venture Capital Cycle, The Money of Invention, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and policies towards intellectual property protection, and how they impact firm strategies in high-technology industries, as discussed in Innovation and Its Discontents and The Comingled Code.

Table of contents

Foreword
1: The Search for Innovation and Growth
Part I: The Traditional Model
2: The Classic School
3: Critics and Change
Part II: The Venture Alternative
4: A New Approach
5: The Perils of Modernity
Part III: The Best of Both Worlds?
6: Postmodern Fusion
7: The Master Architect
8: Improving the Design