Harvard Business School

Ryan L. Raffaelli

Ryan L. Raffaelli

Professor of Business Administration

Professor of Business Administration

Organizational reinvention, technological change, identity and leadership.

Organizational reinvention, technological change, identity and leadership.

The question at the center of the work

How can an organization reinvent itself without discarding the identity and capabilities that make it credible?

How can an organization reinvent itself without discarding the identity and capabilities that make it credible?

Raffaelli’s research examines what happens after a technology, industry or organization is declared obsolete. It shows how leaders reinterpret the past, recover neglected capabilities and combine preservation with modernization to create a viable future.

Raffaelli’s research examines what happens after a technology, industry or organization is declared obsolete. It shows how leaders reinterpret the past, recover neglected capabilities and combine preservation with modernization to create a viable future.

The research

The research

Raffaelli connects technology re-emergence, identity, strategic paradox and action orientations to explain how established organizations reinvent themselves.

Technology re-emergence

How old technologies and practices return when actors reconnect them to new meanings, markets and identities.

Organizational identity and reinvention

How leaders decide what must be preserved, reinterpreted or relinquished during strategic change.

Leadership and strategic paradox

How leaders with competing visions can generate a stronger strategy rather than settle for compromise.

Action orientations

How analytical, contextual and relational approaches shape what leaders notice and how they act.

Four ideas to carry into the work

Four ideas to carry into the work

Reinvention is more than adopting new technology.

Leaders must reconsider the beliefs, identity and relationships through which the organization understands its value.

The past can be a strategic resource.

Capabilities and traditions that appear obsolete may become valuable when connected to a new market or meaning.

Preservation and modernization can strengthen each other.

The work is to decide what carries credibility forward and what must change for the organization to remain relevant.

Leaders need more than one way of knowing.

Evidence, context and relationships each reveal different parts of a consequential decision.

A guided reading path

A guided reading path

These selections provide a route into the work, with a short note on the question or argument each publication helps a reader examine.

These selections provide a route into the work, with a short note on the question or argument each publication helps a reader examine.

View the complete faculty publication record

View the complete faculty publication record

Start here

Technology Re-Emergence

Harvard Business School working paper

How entrepreneurs and institutions created new value for mechanical watchmaking after the technology was considered obsolete.

Research

How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy

Academy of Management Journal · 2022

A close study of how leaders integrated preservation and modernization in Swiss watchmaking.

Leadership

Leader Action Orientations

Harvard Business School technical note · 2022

A practical framework for recognizing analytical, contextual and relational approaches to action.

Case series

The Reinvention of Kodak

Harvard Business School case

A case about technological disruption, strategic response and the assumptions that shape an incumbent’s choices.

HBS case

Jean-Claude Biver: The Reemergence of the Swiss Watch Industry

Harvard Business School case

A leadership case about restoring value to a mature technology by changing its meaning and market position.

HBS case

Moleskine

Harvard Business School case

How a company builds a contemporary growth platform around an object associated with craft, identity and history.

HBS case

Faber-Castell

Harvard Business School case

A case about growth, heritage, innovation and renewal in a long-lived family enterprise.

Research record

Reinvention, identity and institutions

Harvard Business School

The complete record connects research on technology re-emergence, market categories, leadership and organizational identity.

Complete Harvard Business Review record

The verified record below includes Ryan Raffaelli’s Harvard Business Review article.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

2014 · Digital article

2014 · Digital article

Why the Apple Watch Is a Gift to the Swiss Watch Industry

Ryan L. Raffaelli

Questions this work helps a leadership team examine

Questions this work helps a leadership team examine

Which parts of the organization’s identity still create credibility and advantage?

Which assumptions were formed under conditions that no longer apply?

What capabilities have been neglected because leaders considered them obsolete?

Where do preservation and modernization appear to conflict—and how might they reinforce each other?

Does the leadership team have enough analytical, contextual and relational capacity to act?

How the research connects to Change Logic

How the research connects to Change Logic

Change Logic uses this work to help leadership teams examine the assumptions behind their strategy and the identity attached to past success. The Congruence Model clarifies which capabilities and organizational arrangements still serve the work. Culture work makes the unwritten rules visible. Strategy Manifesto helps leaders create and uphold a shared account of what will be preserved and what will change.

Change Logic uses this work to help leadership teams examine the assumptions behind their strategy and the identity attached to past success. The Congruence Model clarifies which capabilities and organizational arrangements still serve the work. Culture work makes the unwritten rules visible. Strategy Manifesto helps leaders create and uphold a shared account of what will be preserved and what will change.

Strategy Manifesto

Congruence Model

Culture