Publications

January 2014
Technical Note

Learning From Extreme Consumers

By: Jill Avery and Michael Norton

Traditional market research methods focus on understanding the average experiences of average consumers. This focus leads to gaps in our knowledge of consumer behavior and often fails to uncover insights that can drive revolutionary, rather than evolutionary... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Ethnography; Design Thinking; Innovation; New Product Development; Research; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Innovation and Invention

2016
Working Paper

Delay as Agenda Setting

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

We examine a dynamic decision-making process involving unrelated issues in which a decision may be endogenously delayed by the allocation of influence resources. Delay is strategically interesting when decision makers with asymmetric preferences face multiple issues... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Conflict of Interests; Power and Influence; Strategy

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March 2008
Supplement

Patel Food and Chemicals Private Limited (B)

By: Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Alok Patel, the founder and chairman of a Gujarat-based, privately held edible oils processor, has hired a CFO and the company is doing extremely well. He wants to add a new plant to process oilive oil, but estimates he will need $20 million. He must decide among... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financing and Loans; Investment; Financial Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Chemical Industry; Gujarat

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29 Apr 2008
News

How to Revive Securitization Markets

06 Jun 2019
News

Disruption Starts with Unhappy Customers, Not Technology

Research Summary

Overview

My work examines the social and economic processes that generate innovation and distribute its rewards in society, in the context of the United States over the past twenty years. For isntance, I have shown that in recent decades product innovations have... View Details

How Robust Is Your Climate Governance?

During the past few years, as evidence of climate change and its effects has mounted, many corporate boards have added climate governance to their agendas. But the maturity of boards’ climate-oversight processes and activities varies widely. To better... View Details

16 Sep 2019
Blog Post

Finding my Passion in the Startup Space

exceptions, working between our New York headquarters and our offices in Athens. Finding your career passion is a trial and error process. People say “follow your passion” but this can be vague. The actual process of discovering these... View Details

07 Jul 2022
HBS Case

How a Multimillion-Dollar Ice Cream Startup Melted Down (and Bounced Back)

Hills was running out of money and may not make it through the lean winter months, Smith and Cuscuna were surprised. Sales had been brisk. “They built a giant factory costing almost $7 million that required sales that were beyond their reach,” says Eisenmann. “And in... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

January 2016
Case

Open Innovation at Fujitsu (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

This case study examines the open innovation journey at Fujitsu, a global information and communication technology company. The case ends with the location decision between Tokyo, Japan, downtown San Francisco or Sunnyvale, California, regarding establishing a small... View Details

17 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

How Entrepreneurs Can Find the Right Problem to Solve

out their process and highlight how they feel along the way can pinpoint exactly where they are most frustrated in their process. This is also a great technique if you can’t observe the prospect in the setting where the problem exists.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

Dorothy A. Leonard

Dorothy Leonard*, the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita, joined the Harvard faculty in 1983 after teaching for three years at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has taught MBA courses in... View Details

Keywords: computer; consulting; education industry; electronics; federal government; high technology; information technology industry; software; venture capital industry

Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work and consulting are focused on competitive strategy and the effects of digital technology on corporate... View Details

Keywords: media; professional services; manufacturing; advertising

14 Jun 2023
Op-Ed

Every Company Should Have These Leaders—or Develop Them if They Don't

how external factors impact the company and leverage this knowledge to create strategy. LTL specialists are transactional leaders. Individual contributors or managers here handle task heavy processes and systems that are primarily inward... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson

12 Jan 2022
Blog Post

How I Spent My HBS 2+2 Deferral: Cecil Alfaro-Mora

The HBS 2+2 program is a deferred admission process for current students in their final year of study, either in college or a full-time master’s degree program. If you are admitted through 2+2, you work for two to four years in a field of... View Details

Web

The Founding of U.S. Steel and the Power of Public Opinion | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

total capitalization of $1.4 billion, inspired the Wall Street Journal to write of its “uneasiness over the magnitude of the affair.” 2 Through its combined subsidiaries, U.S. Steel’s integrated system held control over the mines and materials that produced steel, the... View Details

November 1992 (Revised May 1993)
Case

BW/IP International, Inc.

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Andrew D. Regan

Less than a year after completing a leveraged buyout of their own company, the managers of BW/IP International were presented with an attractive acquisition candidate. To buy the target company, however, BW/IP would have to borrow more money and take on more... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Leadership Style; Valuation; Resource Allocation; Capital; Public Ownership

October 2020
Article

Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Mounu Prem and Edoardo Teso

In all modern bureaucracies, politicians retain some discretion in public employment decisions, which may lead to frictions in the selection process if political connections substitute for individual competence. Relying on detailed matched employer-employee data on the... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Selection and Staffing; Political Elections; Public Sector; Brazil

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