Patent trolls are maligned for impeding innovation, but new research by Penn professor David Abrams suggests that they actually play a more complex and sometimes beneficial role.…Read More
Why Patent Trolls Are Not All Bad
Mack Institute News
Introducing the 2015-2016 Y-Prize Finalists
The finalists in this year’s Y-Prize Competition have proposed ideas that would bring drug manufacturing right to the patient’s bedside, accelerate the production process of beer, and take the needle out of vaccine delivery.…Read More
Darden-Wharton Collaboration Brings Together Innovation Scholars and Business Leaders
This year, the Mack Institute teamed up with Darden’s Batten Institute to co-host the bi-annual Product Innovation and Technology Management Mini-Conference. The sixth iteration of this one-day event attracted more than 30 scholars to the Wharton School for lectures, discussions, and camaraderie.…Read More
Team Paper Plane Launches Idea for More Impactful Banking
70 million Americans lack access to traditional banking services. Instead, those in a financially precarious position often must resort to predatory alternatives such as payday lenders. The winners of the 2015 Penn Design Challenge, sponsored by the Mack Institute, describe their approach to changing this system. …Read More
Penn Announces $100,000 President’s Innovation Prize
Information sessions for the President’s Innovation Prize will run in the Spring 2016 semester between Thursday, January 14 and Tuesday, February 9.…Read More
Will Dell’s Big Leap into the Cloud Pay Off?
After years of making incremental changes to transform itself from a personal computer and server player into a company that could offer a wider array of products and services, Dell is punting its piecemeal approach in favor of a system-wide repositioning of its business by acquiring storage behemoth EMC for $67 billion — the largest M&A deal ever between technology firms.…Read More
Your Regulatory Strategy IS Your Innovation Strategy
As the Internet penetrates more and more aspects of day-to-day life, a company’s regulatory strategy has an increasingly significant impact on its innovation outcomes.…Read More
In the VC World, Collective Wisdom Isn’t Always So Wise
New research indicates that individuals’ investment decisions may outperform those of the group. How can firms make better decisions?…Read More
Can We Predict Predictability?
Wendy Ham’s research asks whether there’s a better way to make predictions. By examining event characteristics and forecasting methods, she argues that it’s possible to create a cheat sheet that tells us which forecasting approach is the best for a given problem.…Read More
Volkswagen’s Scandal and the Bumpy Road to Redemption
Wharton management professor and PVMI director John Paul MacDuffie analyzes the fallout after automotive giant Volkswagen admitted to cheating on EPA admissions tests.…Read More
Bridging the Gap for Mental Health Professionals
Wharton MBA student Mariam Malik has long had an interest in mental health care. Through the Mack Institute Student Research Fellowship, she crafted a business plan to help service providers deliver improved care through greater coordination.…Read More
George Day Now Faculty Emeritus in Residence
Mack Institute Co-Director George Day has retired from The Wharton School, but remains as involved as ever with the Mack Institute.…Read More
How Much Is Web Traffic Changing the News You Read?
If you’ve ever thought that the quest for more clicks is affecting the sorts of articles that get published in the media, Wharton marketing professor Pinar Yildirim wants you to know that you’re right. But it’s not quite the overarching impact that you might expect. …Read More
Cooking Up New Business Opportunities in Nutrition
MBA Research Fellow Neil Assur tackled the nebulous challenge of finding new opportunities for business innovation in the nutrition space. Here’s what he learned about entrepreneurship and the unexpected places it can lead.…Read More
Five Things to Tell Your CEO about APIs
APIs have been strictly part of IT’s “inside game,” providing the glue for data and software integration within the enterprise. No more. Tyson Whitten of CA Technologies offers five key points that C-level leadership needs to understand.…Read More
Wharton Researchers on Chinese Business Leadership
New research by Wharton faculty Harbir Singh, Peter Cappelli, and Michael Useem reveals how Chinese business leaders are learning from their Western counterparts, and how they’re forging their own paths. …Read More
The First Step to Successful Innovation? Choosing the Right Partners
Wharton management professor Exequiel Hernandez searches for the optimal mix of domestic and foreign partners in a firm’s network. The answer depends on what type of innovative solution a firm is trying to produce.…Read More
“All Effective Innovations are Derived from a Profound Understanding of the User”
The “experience engineering” approach to innovation encourages designers to think about the series of emotions a user needs to feel in order to buy a product. Elisa Jagerson, CEO of Speck Design, argues that managers need to adopt a similar approach when trying to establish a culture of innovation.…Read More
To Create a Culture of Innovation, Learn to Celebrate Failure
To be more innovative, organizations need to adopt the practice of testing and experimenting with new ideas. Nate Fink of Microsoft Yammer explains why abolishing the fear of failure is essential to this process.…Read More
Leadership, Talent, and Culture: How to Win the Long Game in Innovation
Our most recent conference examined the intangible factors that can make or break a company’s innovation outcomes.…Read More