Video Player

Building Growth: Why Don’t We Use What We Know

Rebecca Henderson '81: May 13, 2003; Running Time: 56:26

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

In this powerful presentation, Professor Henderson addresses the challenges that come with corporate growth, pointing out that “growth opportunities do not arrive with labels on them.” She discusses staff overload, killing projects, the challenges of choosing between good projects and “competency traps” that inhibit growth.

Lecture Details

Location: Kresge Auditorium

About the Speaker

Rebecca Henderson '81

Eastman Kodak LFM Professor, MIT Sloan School

Rebecca Henderson specializes in technology strategy. Her current research focuses upon the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. She received an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1981 and a doctorate in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1988. She spent 1981-1983 working for the London office of McKinsey and Company.

Her publications include “Underinvestment and Incompetence as Responses to Radical Innovation: Evidence from the Photolithographic Industry” in the Rand Journal of Economics, and “Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms” with Kim Clark, in Administrative Science Quarterly.

Henderson sits on the Board of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and on the Board of the Linbeck Corporation. She was recently retained by the Department of Justice as an Expert Witness in connection with the Remedies phase of the Microsoft case, and in 2001 was voted “Teacher of the Year” at MIT Sloan School of Management.