Decentralized - Publications - Faculty & Research

27 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

How the FBI Reinvented Itself After 9/11

identity,” they write. Triage, search, and crystallization Before 9/11, the FBI had a fairly decentralized design, owing to the local nature of most crimes. The Bureau operated 56 field offices in major cities, each focused on solving... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

January 2024
Supplement

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein and Tatiana Sandino

As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Management Style; Business Model; Knowledge Dissemination; Learning; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; Netherlands

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Technology & Innovation - Faculty & Research

access pushes decisions down, as it allows for superior decentralized decision making without an undue cognitive burden on those lower in the hierarchy. Better communication pushes decisions up, as it allows employees to rely on those... View Details

07 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

When Celebrity ‘Crypto-Influencers’ Rake in Cash, Investors Lose Big

results don’t offer a smoking gun. Enthusiasm is inherent in the decentralized finance culture, where eager investors generally expect that market values will soar. “There's a belief that because crypto is trying to democratize investment... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

01 Mar 2024
News

Leading Businesses in a Web3 World

Illustration by Daniel Hertzberg Web3 is poised to transform everything we do online by decentralizing and democratizing the internet. That transformation is already underway in the business world: built on blockchain technology that... View Details

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

development of new products, but was also indispensable for the constant upgrading and renewal of brands. Unilever's main problem was the time it took to turn scientific knowledge into successful branded products. It entered the 1960s with an organization that was so... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

May 2022
Article

Strengthening Digital Infrastructure: A Policy Agenda for Free and Open Source Software

By: Frank Nagle

While there is little debate that digital forces are playing an increasingly crucial role in the economy, there is limited understanding of the importance of the digital infrastructure that underlies this role. Much of the discussion around digital infrastructure has... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Applications and Software; Policy; Infrastructure; Open Source Distribution

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28 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)

markets. In the third part of their study, they investigated how 53 chains that don't franchise manage operations across multiple markets. They found evidence that chains serving more diverse markets decentralize their operations by... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

15 Aug 2022
Book

University of the Future: Finding the Next World Leaders in Higher Ed

civil war, and multiple periods of domestic unrest. But can this systemically decentralized Harvard continue to be the ‘Harvard’ of the 21st century?” Which universities will step into the void as American universities decline? “As... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

01 Mar 2024
News

Giving All Stakeholders a Voice

For John Wu (MBA 2000), “Web3” means more than technological innovation. “It’s a mindset,” he says of the movement toward a decentralized internet that accelerates innovation and gives end users greater collaboration with businesses.... View Details

Keywords: April White

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

that whatever technology you choose to implement you execute it flawlessly. Similarly, it matters little whether you centralize or decentralize your business as long as you pay attention to simplifying the way your organization is... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

21 Sep 2016
HBS Seminar

Catherine Tucker, MIT Sloan School of Management

Blog

Leading Successful Digital Transformation

be doing. It is the same with digital technology. A natural reaction of most companies is to protect the status quo and find ways to avoid or discredit the new technology. Apple Pay, digital currency, decentralized finance, cryptocurrency... View Details

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Budgeting Kills Your Company

command-and-control approach to management, remains in place, the newer tools designed to decentralize strategic decision making will never achieve their full potential, Hope and Fraser argue. The solution is not better budgeting... View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gary

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Research - Health Care

enable more patient-centric therapeutic development by generating evidence that captures how patients feel and function, enabling decentralized trial designs that increase participant inclusivity and convenience, and collecting... April... View Details

01 Mar 2024
News

The Internet's Next Frontier

While the Crypto, Fintech, and Web3 Lab—one of 13 labs contained within Harvard’s Digital Data Design Institute—might not have the Bunsen burners and test tubes found in science and engineering labs, it does share a philosophical construct: it is a sandbox—an... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Home Finance

decentralized nature of building and financing homes posed obstacles to private organizations who tried to do the same. Anecdotal accounts, like this feature in the Ladies Home Journal in 1903, suggest that most home-buyers cobbled... View Details

13 Mar 2005
Research & Ideas

The Tricky Business of Nonprofit Brands

mean that implementing activities that protect the brand or attempting to update or modify the brand often meets with resistance internally. In some cases, highly decentralized organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontièrs [also known as... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

14 Mar 2024
Blog Post

IFC India: SELCO - Last Mile Solar Powered Energy for Rural India

across the country. India stands at a critical juncture in its pursuit of sustainable development, grappling with the dual challenges of rapid economic growth and decarbonization. Decentralized Renewable Energy (DRE) serves to address... View Details

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Student Spotlight: 2023 HCC Co-Presidents Reflect on Their Time at HBS and the Current Health Care Systems - Blog: Health Supplement

care segments including insurance companies, self-insured employers, telehealth providers, and decentralized clinical trial CROs. What is your opinion on the current health care system? What would you change and why? The current health... View Details

Publications