Kevin Boudreau
Assistant
Professor, Strategy
London Business School
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL Assistant Professor, Department of
Strategy and International Management, London United Kingdom, 2009-
HEC – PARIS
SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy and Business
Policy, Jouy-en-Josas France, 2006-present
EDUCATION
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Sloan School of
Management, Cambridge USA
Ph.D., Management (Strategy, Economics Track)
Thesis: How Open Should an Open
System Be?
Advisors: Rebecca Henderson
(MIT-Sloan), Michael Cusumano (MIT-Sloan), Marc Rysman
(Boston University, Economics)
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, Economics Dept – Toronto,
Canada
MA in Economics
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO – School of Engineering -
Waterloo, Canada
B.A.Sc. Engineering, minor in Management Science
NBER Mini-Course, Econometrics, 2007
RESEARCH
Dissertation:
How Open Should an Open
System Be? : Essays on Mobile Computing
““Systems”” goods——such as computers,
telecom networks, and automobiles——are made up of mul- tiple components. This
dissertation comprises three esssays that study the
decisions of system innovators in mobile computing to ““open”” development of their systems
to outside suppliers and the implications of doing so.
Opening the Platform
vs. Opening the Complementary Good? The Effect on Product Innovation in
Handheld Computing
(conditional acceptance, Management Science)
Some
open strategies involve giving up control over a core technology platform.
Others involve encouraging independent contributors to develop mix-and-matchable components. While these approaches often go
hand-in-hand, here I argue they should relate to different objectives,
instruments and economic mechanisms. This paper presents evidence on how
opening the platform and complementary development related to development rates
in a panel data set on handheld computing systems (1990-2004). The analysis
shows that the relationship qualitatively differed depending on the approach to
openness that was pursued. The central econometric concern is to purge
estimates of several possible sources of endogeneity
bias. While in principle opening may produce either an increase or decrease in
innovation, in this context opening complementary development positively
related to device development rates. It resulting in
up to five-times acceleration of development rates. Open licensing of complementors had the greatest effect, with intermediate
liberalness of licensing associated with fastest rates. Sharing technology with
complementors led to small, incremental effects above
and beyond this. Reducing control held by the platform owner or allowing
outsiders to contribute to platform development related to
much smaller, mostly insignificant effects (on the order of 10-20%).
Competition and Modular
Innovation: Evidence from an “App Store” on Variety and Quality
(R&R,
Organization
Science)
We now
have considerable theory to suggest there are benefits of having large numbers
of suppliers innovating in markets for modular components. In this article, I
empirically study how adding suppliers affected variety and quality in a
quintessential example, the thousands of third-party applications software
developers in handheld computing (1999-2004). I estimate causal effects by
exploiting changes in the labor market for software developers. I find that
adding suppliers increased the number of varieties available. At the same time,
adding suppliers had a net effect of slowing down the advance of quality, in
terms of the release of new versions. This retarding effect might have been
worthwhile had added suppliers contributed useful hit products, at least once
in a while. But, successive cohorts released less compelling products on
average, while also generating less variation than earlier-entering cohorts. I
use these results to better understand how precisely innovation works in cases
of modular components, and how it may sometimes function differently from that
in more traditional industries
How
to Manage Outside Innovation: “Communities” or “Markets” of External
Innovators?
with K. Lakhani (Harvard)
Sloan
Management Review 2009
Of
course, the fundamental concept of “open innovation” -- in the sense of
relying on outsiders both as a source of ideas and as a means to commercialize
them -- is hardly new, but companies have struggled with precisely how to open
up their product development to the external world. For starters, many
executives have little idea how to motivate and manage outside innovation.
Specifically, should external innovators be organized as a collaborative
community or as a competitive market? From our research, we have identified
three critical issues that managers should take into account when making that
decision. Specifically, the discussion must look at: 1) the type of innovation
that will be shifted to external innovators, 2) the motivations of those
individuals and 3) the nature of the platform business model.
Platform Rules: Multi-Sided Platforms as
Regulators, with
A. Hagiu (Harvard)
in Gawer, A. (ed)
(2009), Platforms,
Markets and Innovation, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, US: Edward
Elgar.
This
paper provides a basic conceptual framework for interpreting non-price
instruments used by multi-sided platforms (MSPs) by analogizing MSPs as
"private regulators" who regulate access to and interactions around
the platform. We present evidence on Facebook, TopCoder, Roppongi Hills and
Harvard to document the "regulatory" role played by MSPs. We find
MSPs use nuanced combinations of legal, technological, informational and other
instruments (including price-setting) to implement desired outcomes. Non-price
instruments were very much at the core of MSP strategies.
Racing
and Searching in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis with K. Lakani
(Harvard) and N. Lacetera (CWRU)
(R&R Management
Science)
A central concern in designing innovation contests is the
number of competing solvers that should be admitted. We show that traditional
concerns about diminished incentives with large numbers of contest participants
may be over-stated, at least when innovation involves uncertain search. Using a
unique data set on the solution of 645 software coding contests over a six year
period, we find that adding solvers to a contest activates two sets of
mechanisms, (1) a negative incentive or racing effect, whereby greater rivalry
reduces the effort expended by individual solvers, and (2) a parallel search
effect whereby a greater number of solvers advances innovation by broadening
the search for solutions. We show that the former effect dominates for less
uncertain problems, the latter effect for more uncertain problems. Our findings
emphasize the importance of problem type when designing innovation contests and
open innovation systems.
Governing
the Creatives: Field Experimental Evidence on the
Role of Worker Sorting in Driving Innovative Performance with K. Lakani
(Harvard)
In this paper we present novel field experimental evidence
to show that individuals have different preferences for cooperative and
competitive institutions for innovation---and these preferences have large,
economically significant performance, implications. In the experiment,
individuals could choose between a competitive and a cooperative regime to
solve computational-engineering problem faced by NASA’s Space Life Sciences
Directorate. The experiment mimicked “open innovation” institutional regimes
where individuals can participate in either competitive or cooperative problem
solving with both pecuniary and non-pecuniary reward structures. Here we
compare the performance of individuals who chose to be in the competitive regime
versus those that were assigned to the regime, controlling for their skill
level. First we find that those who were given the choice of institutional
regime performed significantly better and exerted more effort than those that
were assigned to compete. Second we find that the presence of pecuniary rewards
resulted in better performance and more effort. Third we find that the impact
of choice on performance and effort is equivalent to- and sometimes greater
than the impact of pecuniary rewards, showing the importance of to selection
and sorting for innovation.
SELECTED OTHER
PROJECTS
Complimentary
Complements? Two-Sided Markets with Free Goods and Suppliers who Don't get Paid
with Lars Bo Jeppessen (CBS)
Field Experiments in Open Innovation
Software Development for National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 50th
anniversary of The Rate and
Direction of Inventive Activity
CASES
"Palm (A): The Debate
on Licensing Palm’s OS (1997)." Harvard Business
School Case 708-514. (with R. Casadesus-Masanell, Harvard Business School, and
Jordan Mitchell)
"Palm (B): 2001."
HBS Supplement 708-515. (with
R. Casadesus-Masanell, Harvard, and Jordan Mitchell)
"Palm (C): 2005."
HBS Supplement 708-516. (with
R. Casadesus-Masanell, Harvard, and Jordan Mitchell)
"Palm (D): Epilogue
as of 2008." HBS Supplement 708-517. (with R. Casadesus-Masanell,
Harvard, and Jordan Mitchell)
RESEARCH
ASSISTANTSHIPS AND OTHER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Demand and Supply of Debt and
Equity for Korean Firms.
Olivier Blanchard and Simon Johnson, 2002
Information Technology Investment, Organizational Capital
and Productivity. Erik Brynjolfsson, 2002
Several dozen publications on economics and strategy in
global telecommunications industry, 1999-2001
TEACHING
Courses
Strategic Management, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 (evaluated as “exceptional”)
Advanced Strategy Concepts: Innovation, New Ventures and
Industry Change, 3-day course, 2007, 2009
PhD Empirical Methods 2007, 2010
Teaching
Assistantships and Tutorial Lectureships
Strategic Management (Masters), Ezra
Zuckerman, MIT Sloan, 2006
The Business of Software (Masters), Michael Cusumano, MIT
Sloan, 2005
Technology Strategy (Masters), Rebecca Henderson, MIT Sloan,
2005
Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Sloan Fellows),
Michael Cusumano, MIT Sloan, 2004
Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Masters), MBAs,
Rebecca Henderson, MIT Sloan, 2004
INVITED
PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES
2010 Academy of Management, Platforms Symposium
2010 CRES Conference on the Foundations of Business Strategy
2010 Darden Entrepreneurship & Innovation Conference
2010 NESTA Open Innovation Research Roundtable
2010 Academy of Management,
2009 Dartmouth University
2009 Carnegie Mellon University
2009 IESE
2009 IE Business School
2009 Academy of Management: Innovation and Competition;
Strategy and Business Models
2009 American Economics Association (AEA) Meetings:
Exploring the Sources of Innovation: Recent Developments
2008 REER Conference, Georgia Tech
2008 Strategic Management Society, Sorbonne
2008 Sorbonne, Workshop on the Theory of the Firm
2008 Meeting of Recipients of Microsoft Grants for Research
on Digital Platforms
2008 Platforms, Markets and Innovation, Imperial College
2008 London Business School, Sumantra
Ghoshal Conference
2008 Wharton Technology Mini-Conference
2008 Ottawa University, Telfer
School of Management
2008 London Business School – Strategy Department
Seminar
2008 HBS – TOM Seminar
2008 Imperial College – Strategy and Innovation
Seminar
2007 Free and Open Source Software Workshop, Nice France
2007 User Innovation Workshop, CBS and MIT
2007 Academy of Management – Competing Through
Business Design & Tech Change and Tech Strategy
2007 Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference
2007 Center for Research on Economics and Strategy (CRES), Olin
School of Business, Washington University
2007 Wharton Technology Mini-Conference
2007 International Industrial Organization Conference
2007 Sorbonne, Theoretical Analysis of Organizations and
Markets
2007 IDEI Economics of Software and Internet Industries
2006 HBS Strategy Conference
2006 Modularity and Open Innovation, Practitioners and
Researchers Exchange Workshop, Bocconi University
2006 Ronald Coase Institute
Workshop on Institutional Analysis
2006 Annual conference for the International Society for
Institutional Economics (ISNIE)
2006 International J. A. Schumpeter Society 11th ISS
Conference: Innovation, competition and growth (Schumpeter2006)
2006 Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference (ACAC)
2006 Vanderbilt University, Owen School of Business
2006 McGill University, Desautels
School of Management
2006 HEC Paris School of Management
2006 INSEAD
2006 Ohio State University, Fisher School of Business
2006 Melbourne Business School
2005 NBER Productivity seminar
2005 Consortium on Cooperation and Competitiveness at
University of California Berkeley
2005 MIT Organizational Economics Lunch
2002, 2003, 2004 Sloan Strategy Doctoral Seminar
SERVICE
Reviewing
Management
Science, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Organization Science, Research
Policy, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of
Product Innovation Management, Journal of the Association of Information
Systems, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, DRUID
conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Strategic Management Society,
Academy of Management Meetings – TIM & BPS (Best Reviewer Award
2007), Administrative Science Quarterly, Information Systems Research
Other
Service
Roundtable leader on Governance at European Academy of Management
Doctoral Consortium, 2007
Organizer of HEC Strategy Department Seminar, 2007
HEC Masters thesis advisor, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
HEC Strategy Hiring committee, 2006, 2007
Co-organizer of Sumantra Goshal Strategy Conference, Innovation, Entrepreneurship
& Strategy Track, 2009
AWARDS &
HONORS
RAMD Research Grant (15,000 GBP)
Sponsorship from M-Lab to fund TopCoder competitions (15,000
GBP)
Small honorarium and paper selected by National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER) for 50th anniversary conference in honor of "The Rate and Direction
of Inventive Activity"
Invited Microsoft Research Grant ($50,000) 2007
Best Reviewer Award, Academy of Management, Business Policy
and Strategy Division
Paris Chamber of Commerce Competitive Research Grant for
Research in Media Platforms ($40,000) 2006
Stewart, Gerrity, and Wilson
Fellowships 2003-2005
MIT Presidential Fellow, PhD Program
First Class, University of Toronto Economics
University of Waterloo Dean’s Honors
University of Waterloo Undergraduate Research Scholarship
Second place, Manufacturing Project “Semiconductor
Manufacturing”
First place, Mechanical Engineering Design Project
Engineering Research Excellence, Bell Northern Research
University of Waterloo Entrance Scholarship
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCE
I currently act in an advisory role in the course of
conducting my research. Prior positions include the following:
THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Telecoms, IT, & Media
Division (Pyramid Research), UK, USA
Director of Research
Director of Research, Western Europe
QUALCOMM, Inc., USA, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico
Senior Manager (Contracting and M&A)
Manager (Large-Scale Infrastructure Business Development)
BRAXTON ASSOCIATES, Strategy Consultants, Americas Media
& Telecoms, Canada
Associate
Business Analyst
NORTEL NETWORKS, Canada
Intern, Business Systems Analysis (studied systems across
Ontario manufacturing, marketing and sales system, interviewed 110 people)
Intern, Microchip Fab Engineer
(statistical analysis of performance in semiconductor manufacturing)
Intern, Thermal and Multi-Level Physical Design Engineering
Research (experimental study on ‘Non-Contact Cooling’)
CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY
Intern, System Engineer (Canadarm
space robotic arm project)
OTHER
Affiliations
Academy of Management, BPS and TIM divisions
American Economics Association
Industrial Organization Society
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Languages
English, conversational French and Spanish
Personal
In isolated moments, with time on my hands: cycling
Vancouver-San Diego; cycling Paris-Bordeaux, Lisbon-Seville; New York City Marathon;
running San Diego-Tijuana; Hanover triathlon; road trip across America; travel
in Central and Latin America; fly fishing, outdoors and nature; volunteering in
youth programs in Guatemala, Mexico; tutoring math and music
REFERENCES
Rebecca Henderson, MIT-Sloan, rhenders@mit.edu
Michael Cusumano, MIT-Sloan, cusumano@mit.edu
Marc Rysman,
Boston University, Economics Dept, mrysman@bu.edu
Frank Matthewson, University of
Toronto, Economics Dept, frankm@uchass.utoronto.ca