Competencies - Publications - Faculty & Research

May 1997
Teaching Note

Introduction and Overview: Managing Product Development, Instructor's Note

The first module, comprising three cases and a team exercise, provides an impressionistic look at all the issues raised in greater detail in subsequent classes. It thus enables students, who come to the course with a range of experience and skills, to get up to speed... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Product Development; Projects; Groups and Teams

Citation

Purchase

September 1981 (Revised September 1986)
Case

Steinway & Sons

By: David A. Garvin

Considers whether Steinway should reintroduce a long-discontinued product line to meet competition from the Japanese. Raises the issue of just how quality is defined in this market. Looks closely at a production process relying on craft skills. Students have the... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Brands and Branding; Production; Quality; Competition

Citation

Educators

Purchase

01 Jun 2012
News

Tickling the Ivories

KAO: Out of conflict and apparent mistakes, a beautiful, coherent melody. The Economist magazine has called him “Mr. Creativity” and a “serial innovator.” A former keyboard player for Frank Zappa, John Kao (MBA 1982), an HBS faculty member from 1982 to 1996, holds an... View Details

Keywords: Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

04 Feb 2022
News

Hour by Hour

Courtesy Rahkeem Morris Rahkeem Morris (MBA 2018) spent the first 10 years of his work life as an hourly wage earner, moving from one minimum wage job to the next, often without transferable skills or training. The cycle wasn’t good for businesses or for hourly... View Details

18 Nov 2020
News

Advancing Company Culture

01 Mar 2006
News

Whitehead Urges MBAs to Become Lifelong Leaders

WHITEHEAD (with moderator George):Because "the world cries out for leadership," HBS students must lead not just in their companies but in their lives. John C. Whitehead (MBA 11/ ’47), one of HBS’s most distinguished graduates, is a powerful role model for younger... View Details

01 Mar 2003
News

Student Snapshot

Second-year student Carlin (“Carly”) Janson divides her time between studying at HBS and managing the Catalyst Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship (Catalyst Alliance), the Cambridgebased social enterprise consultancy she founded while working at Accenture. Catalyst... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry; Catalyst Alliance; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

03 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Everyone Knows Innovation is Essential to Business Success—Except Board Directors

to find that they were now competing with Amazon.” Reversing the trend What should boards do to improve their focus on innovation? Making that strategic change starts with a frank analysis of the skills and expertise that may be lacking... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

13 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Diagnosing the Public Health Care Alternative

private plans need to increase the value they provide to patients and the system as a whole. To read more: Robert Huckman and Gary Pisano, "The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery," [PDF] Management Science Robert Huckman, "The... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

03 Oct 2005
What Do You Think?

What’s the Future of Globally Organized Labor?

competency and its ability to move up the value chain that will allow it to share the positive gains. If labor tries the old tactic of strikes, management will just outsource the staff from somewhere else ... " Globally organized... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Connecting With Nonprofits

People begin to interact with greater frequency and many more kinds of joint activities are undertaken. The types and levels of institutional resources used multiply. Core competencies are not simply deployed but combined to create unique... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

interactions between an innovative entrant and an incumbent where the incumbent may imitate the entrant's business model innovation once it is revealed. We find that an entrant needs to strategically choose whether to reveal its innovation by View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

New Dean Sets Five Priorities for HBS

we say "educate leaders," what kinds of leaders are we talking about? he asked. "If we are interested in educating leaders whom others declare to be leaders, we have to recognize that people only call someone a leader if they feel confident about his or... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Education

05 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Porsche’s Risky Roll on an SUV

Products German craftsmanship and quality are famous, and according to Fear, German companies generally compete as niche producers, particularly those that manufacture high-quality goods that demand a premium price. In 2004-2005 Germany... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Auto; Manufacturing

20 Nov 2014
News

Strengthening America's Public Education System

and infrastructure, and closing America’s gap in preparing workers for jobs requiring “middle skills”—that is, competencies beyond a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L.... View Details

21 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Are Crummy Products Your Next Growth Opportunity?

from above. As transistor radios evolved into the Walkman, parents bought them, too. Some other examples of crummy products finding a market with non-consumers: The first digital cameras were expensive and competed against existing... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Profile

Katy Lankester

where in healthcare I wanted to build my career, and in what types of companies. I wanted to work in healthcare, but I didn’t know what the big verticals were, or which types of competencies were most important. I learned that I wanted to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care

Profile

Jaime Mendez

just seven minutes and managed to place second out of seven. "All the other teams presented variations on the same idea," Jaime says. "We took a risk by planning something entirely different." "After the contest, the judges congratulated us by... View Details

Profile

Fred Smith

At HBS, classes do not lead to definitive answers, but to a greater comfort with – and competence within – ambiguous situations. "Any business decision we have to make," says Fred, "is more than just about profitability.... View Details

Web

War & Peace: The Lessons of History for Leadership, Strategy, Negotiation & Humanity - Course Catalog

competing ideas, ideologies, and narratives. Examine the powerful role that our implicit models and “theories of the case” play in the choices we ultimately make as leaders and strategic actors. Face the possibility that our strongly held... View Details

Publications