Karim R. Lakhani

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.[1] He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI).[2] Lakhani is known for his original scholarship on open source communities and innovation contests and has pioneered the use of field experiments to help solve innovation-related challenges.[3]

His digital transformation research investigates the role of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in reshaping business and operating models.[4] This research is complemented through his leadership as co-founder and chair of The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard and as co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard Business Analytics Program, a university-wide online program transforming mid-career executives into data-savvy leaders.[5] Lakhani has over 150 published peer-reviewed papers in leading journals in economics, management and natural science, executive-oriented articles in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, and has authored several Harvard Business School case studies.[6]

Lakhani has taught extensively in Harvard Business School’s MBA, executive, doctoral and online programs.[7] Prior to coming to HBS, he served as a Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.[8] He has also worked in sales, marketing and new product development roles at GE Healthcare and was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.[9]

Education

Lakhani earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Management from McMaster University in 1993 and a Master of Science in Technology and Policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999. He was awarded a Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. His dissertation was titled ‘The Core and the Periphery in Self-Organizing and Distributed Innovation Systems’ and was advised by Eric von Hippel (Chair), Tom Allen and Wanda Orlikowski.

Academic Career

Lakhani started off his career working at General Electric Medical Systems, Canada in 1993 for four years where he was involved in radiological systems sales, marketing and new product development roles. After that, he was employed as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group from 1999 to 2006 where his clients ranged from industries such as pharmaceuticals, technology & communications, financial services and the consumer goods sector.

He started off as an Assistant Professor at the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School in 2006 where he is now a Professor of Business Administration since 2017. Lakhani has taught various digital innovation courses at Harvard Business School’s MBA, executive, doctoral and online programs and is serving as co-chair of the Harvard Business Analytics Program. Lakhani founded the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard in 2017 and has been serving as its co-chair ever since. Furthermore, he is a co-founder of the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative where the focus is at the intersection of technology and organizations.

He has been a member of the board of directors at Mozilla Corporation since 2016. Being an academic partner at Flagship Pioneering since 2021, Lakhani works with Flagship Founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan, helping design and implement digital and machine learning strategies within Flagship Pioneering and its companies. Lakhani provides strategic guidance on recruiting talent for artificial intelligence and machine learning along with forming new partnerships.

Motivation in Open Source Software

Lakhani has greatly contributed towards the literature on open source software and why users contribute to an open source software project. Lakhani and Eric von Hippel established the top three motives as to why users contribute to improving open source software in their paper, “How Open Source Software Works: “Free” User-to-User Assistance”. In their paper, they state a user’s direct need for software improvements, enjoyment of the work itself and the enhanced reputation that follows after making high-quality contributions to an open source project as the top incentives as to why users contribute to open source projects.

Contrary to academic theorizing for individual motivation to participate in free/ open source software (FOSS) projects, Lakhani along with Robert G. Wolf found out that enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic benefits in the shape of career advancement is the biggest motivation for users to contribute to free/ open source software projects in their paper, “Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects”.

Later research builds on Lakhani’s work which has been instrumental in reaching the conclusion that there is a perception amongst individuals on extra-organizational electronic networks that answering smartly and repeatedly will result in a gaining status. His work also established that committed members taking part in knowledge sharing on electronic networks do so because they think it is best for the community. Therefore, individuals intrinsically motivated to participate in knowledge sharing will help their counterparts. Some researchers perceive Lakhani’s work in the context of individuals that are not spatially collocated developing shared knowledge stocks and cultures that are difficult to access for outsiders.

“Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation”, a book for which Lakhani is both an editor and contributor, talks about the fundamentals of user innovation, communities and innovation, new roles for user innovators and user innovation in practice. The book provides a comprehensive and multidisciplinary view of the field of user and open innovation, reflecting advances in the field over the last several decades. “Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software”, edited by Lakhani discusses the motivation of highly skilled software developers to devote large amounts of time to the creation of "free" products and services on free and open source softwares. The book also sheds light on tools used in specific projects such as Apache, GNOME, and Mozilla along with the economic and business models that reflect the changing relationships between users and firms.

Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run The World

Lakhani and Marco Iansiti’s book, “Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run The World”, shows how reinventing the firm around analytics and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have constrained business growth for hundreds of years.[10] The book clarifies the rules and likely outcomes of a new strategy when traditional operating constraints are removed.[11] According to a Forbes article: “The authors argue that creating an “AI factory” at the core of the firm consists of four components: data pipeline, algorithms, experimentation to test these algorithms and infrastructure to connect these technical processes.”

The book presents a framework for rethinking business and operating models and explains how collisions between AI-driven and traditional firms are reshaping competition and altering the structure of the economy.[12] The book is an essential guide for rethinking how a firm can compete in the era of AI with its examples of the most powerful and innovative global, AI driven competitors, based on research in hundreds of firms across many sectors.[13]

The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella remarked about the book, “Iansiti and Lakhani have written an important book that explains what’s required to rethink the firm and become an AI-first company. Anyone interested in the impact of AI should read this book.”[14]

Role of Marginality in Problem-Solving Effectiveness

Lakhani along with Lars Bo Jeppesen investigated the role of technical and social marginality in individual success in solving problems in their paper, “Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search”. They measured technical marginality as the distance of the solver’s field from the problem field while social marginality was measured by gender as females are known to be in the “outer circle” of the scientific establishment. The provision of a winning solution was positively related to increasing distance between the solver's field of technical expertise and the focal field of the problem. Moreover, female solvers performed significantly better than men in developing successful solutions.

Research Interests

Lakhani’s research is centered around distributed innovation systems and the penetration of innovation into organizations and communities. Lakhani’s research interests include distributed and technological innovation, disruptive technology, intellectual property and technological change amongst others. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Research

Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard

Lakhani is the founder and one of the principal investigators of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH).[15] One of his research aspects focuses on the emergence of open-source software communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies.[16] Additionally, he has performed extensive research into how critical knowledge can be sourced from outside the organization through innovation contests.[17] Currently, he is investigating incentives and behavior in contests and the mechanisms behind scientific team formation through field experiments on the Topcoder platform and the Harvard Medical School.[18]

Digital, Data, and Design Institute

Lakhani is the co-founder and chair of The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard, an initiative that aims to reinvent the future of business through digital transformation and data proliferation. The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute has a number of areas of impact including business model transformation, organizational transformation, performance and metrics amongst others. The institute comprises twelve labs that focus on digital disruption and its use in improving outcomes for companies, its impact on people’s emotional well-being and how it can lead to better decision-making.

The digital, data and design institute at Harvard has adopted a scaled research model, a lab model borrowed from engineering and the life and natural sciences.[19] The lab is focused on solving problems in the world. Over 30 faculty collaborate within these labs to generate research and actionable knowledge that solves big, real-world problems.[20] The Institute centers around cutting-edge faculty research, organized into twelve labs that fit into six initial areas of impact.[21] These are business model, operating model, organizational and workforce transformation, among performance & metrics, algorithms & ethics and societal impact.

Harvard Business Analytics Program

Lakhani is a co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard Business Analytics Program, an online program that aims to transform mid-career executives into data-savvy leaders.[22] The Harvard Business Analytics Program (HBAP) is an designed by the top minds in AI and data analytics and offered jointly by three renowned Harvard schools: Harvard Business School (HBS), the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).[23] The online business analytics program is built to ensure that data-driven professionals across the globe benefit from a rigorous program that transforms them into next-level leaders.[24]

Selected publications
  • Lakhani, Karim R., and Eric Von Hippel. "How open source software works:"free" user-to-user assistance." Research policy 32.6 (2003): 923-943.
  • Lakhani, Karim R. and Wolf, Robert G., Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects (September 2003).
  • Jeppesen, Lars Bo, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search." Organization Science 21: 1016–1033.
  • Von Krogh, Georg, Sebastian Spaeth, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Community, joining, and specialization in open source software innovation: a case study." Research Policy 32.7 (2003): 1217-1241.
  • Kevin J. Boudreau, Nicola Lacetera, Karim R. Lakhani. "Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis." Management Science 57.5 (2011): 843-863.
  • Joel West and Karim R. Lakhani. "Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation." Industry & Innovation 15.2 (2009): 223-231.
  • Lakhani, Karim R., and Jill A. Panetta. "The Principles of Distributed Innovation." Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 2, 3: 97–112.
  • Lane et al. "Conservatism Gets Funded? A Field Experiment on the Role of Negative Information in Novel Project Evaluation." Management Science 68.6 (2022): 4478-4495.
  • Jacqueline N. Lane, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani. "Engineering serendipity: When does knowledge sharing lead to knowledge production?." Strategic Management Journal 42.6 (2020): 1215-1244.

References
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  2. "Karim R. Lakhani". Harvard Business School, Faculty & Research. 2023. Archived from the original on 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  3. "Karim R. Lakhani". Harvard Business School, Faculty & Research. 2023. Archived from the original on 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
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  14. "Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World". Amazon. 2023. Archived from the original on 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  15. "Karim R. Lakhani". Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. 2023. Archived from the original on 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
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  19. "Karim R. Lakhani". Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard. 2023. Archived from the original on 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
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