Publications

October 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Brightview Senior Living

By: Lynda M. Applegate and James Weber

Marilynn Duker, CEO, was exploring how to grow the company while maintaining the culture that made it a leader in the field of senior housing. Brightview constructed and operated senior living apartment communities that offered independent living, assisted living, and... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Employee Relationship Management; Real Estate Industry; United States

August 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Technical Note

Overview of Senior Housing in the United States

By: Charles F. Wu and Joseph Beyer

This technical note provides an overview of the senior housing industry in the United States. There were 40 million seniors in America in 2010, and that number was expected to double by 2050. Seniors would make up 1 in every five Americans. This note explores the... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Senior Living; Retirement Homes; Development; Property; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Real Estate Industry; Massachusetts; United States

October 2014 (Revised June 2021)
Teaching Note

Making Room for the Baby Boom: Senior Living

By: Charles F. Wu and Ben Eppler

Tom Alperin's firm National Development is an experienced multifamily and commercial developer in the Northeast. It has a strong track record for working on challenging projects, delivering high quality products and generating strong returns for his investors. The firm... View Details

Keywords: Housing; Age; Investment Return; Construction Industry; Real Estate Industry; Massachusetts

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

reaching, and extracting the trapped miners. Senior leaders in the Chilean government provided resources to support the on-site efforts. How senior leadership triggered extreme teaming In Santiago, Chile’s... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

20 Aug 2020
Book

From the Plow to the Pill: How Technology Shapes Our Lives

the work we do, the lives we lead, and what we define as good,” Spar writes. “As technology evolves, in other words, so do we.” In this interview, Spar provides more detail about the links between critical pieces of technology and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

our old ways of thinking with COVID.” Decision to adopt the model is a matter of equity Rangan, the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, grew up in India where he says the travails of the extreme poor were always in sight. “Rich and poor View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

15 Aug 2023
HBS Case

(Virtual) Reality Check: How Long Before We Live in the 'Metaverse'?

the case with HBS professor David B. Yoffie, the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration at HBS, and Matt Higgins, now a senior researcher at the HBS California Research Center. At this point, it seems that... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology; Computer; Information Technology

April 2014
Article

Who Lives in the C-Suite? Organizational Structure and the Division of Labor in Top Management

By: Maria Guadalupe, Hongyi Li and Julie Wulf

Top management structures in large U.S. firms have changed significantly since the mid-1980s. While the size of the executive team—the group of managers reporting directly to the CEO—doubled during this period, this growth was driven primarily by an increase in... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Functions; Centralization; M-form; Hierarchy; Top Management Team; C-Suite; Activities; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Diversification; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Management Teams; United States

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

Senior Living Tom Alperin's National Development has purchased a building site in affluent Wellesley, MA, and is in the process of deciding whether to build apartments, a combination of independent View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Dec 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

‘Ted Levitt Changed My Life’

senior associate dean John Quelch stated on the occasion of his death. "He was an intellectual provocateur but one whose insights were grounded in a profound understanding of practice." The author or coauthor of numerous... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Retail

28 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

The Clock Is Ticking: 3 Ways to Manage Your Time Better

Build the Life You Want with Oprah Winfrey DJ DiDonna: Life is short, so consider a sabbatical The pandemic was a forced sabbatical from routine life for most people. The silver lining of such an abrupt departure from our normal ways of View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

15 Nov 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Planning the Future for Harlem’s Beloved Sylvia’s Restaurant

Keywords: Re: Christina R. Wing; Food & Beverage

26 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

Unpacking That Icky Feeling of 'Shopping' for Diverse Job Candidates

people for someone else. They could leave your company before they become your senior manager.” "The leaders at ShopCo knew that these developmental platforms also offered networking opportunities for candidates on their platform, or... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

2020
Working Paper

The Effects of Hierarchy on Learning and Performance in Business Experimentation

By: Sourobh Ghosh, Stefan Thomke and Hazjier Pourkhalkhali

Do senior managers help or hurt business experiments? Despite the widespread adoption of business experiments to guide strategic decision-making, we lack a scholarly understanding of what role senior managers play in firm experimentation. Using proprietary data of live... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Innovation; Search; New Product Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design; Learning; Performance

Read Now

17 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Delivering a Personalized Shopping Experience with AI

Keywords: Re: Jill J. Avery

01 Oct 2014
What Do You Think?

Is Too Much Focus a Problem?

people to do senior managers all want innovation and risk taking in principle, but they don't have ways of measuring and evaluating it in the short term. So focus generally wins in larger, well-established organizations " What to do... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Oct 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Building a Business in the Context of a Life

decades, including those who have found success professionally, when they lift their heads up in their 40s or 50s and question whether their lives are heading in the right direction. “We sit back, look ahead, and ask, 'What do I really... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

November 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Starbucks: Reaffirming Commitment to the Third Place Ideal

By: Francesca Gino, Katherine B. Coffman and Jeff Huizinga

On April 12, 2018, two African American entrepreneurs had scheduled a business meeting at a Starbucks in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. They sat without ordering, waiting for a local businessman to show up for the meeting. The store manager called 911... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Prejudice and Bias; Crisis Management; Employees; Training