Product Failures - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Mar 2010
News

What Happened to Leadership?

IMMELT: A prescription to fix failures at the top. Sgt. Vincent Fusco/Usma For a speech on “Reviving American Leadership,” General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt (MBA ’82) chose a discerning audience: the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military... View Details

Keywords: Management; Electrical Equipment, Appliance, and Component Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Dec 2005
News

Faculty Research Online

The Best Place for Retirement Funds Location, location, location isn’t just about real estate. Assistant Professor Daniel Bergstresser discusses his research on optimal asset-location strategies. The Hard Work of Failure Analysis We all... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

Web

Leadership Execution and Action Planning (LEAP) - Course Catalog

results. An additional underlying theme of the course is on personal failure , highlighting the major missteps and early career challenges that leaders fall into. The course asks students to evaluate their own blind spots and shortcomings... View Details

20 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Risky Business with Structured Finance

this product was so superior to other channels of financing. We also started hearing the phrase, 'These structures create yield out of thin air.' It implies magic, or a violation of a very standard notion in finance, a Modigliani-Miller... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

01 Oct 1997
News

Terence P. Stewart

happens, lawyering didn't come first for Stewart. After graduating from HBS, he worked for several years in the business trenches, in marketing at J.C. Penney and later as product manager at Kroehler Manufacturing Co., a furniture... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

07 Oct 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers

JetBlue employees and more than 130,000 customers whose flights were cancelled, delayed, or diverted. How did the airline make it right with customers and learn from its mistakes? The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Air Transportation

09 Dec 2020
Blog Post

How to Create a Psychologically Safe Workplace

diversity and inclusion can connect back to goals of effective collaboration that produces exceptional products and services. Furthermore, setting the stage is also about reframing failure. Organizations that are afraid to admit View Details

25 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Lean Strategy Not Just for Start-Ups

let's-try-some-things-and-see-what-sticks culture of a start-up. Product teams may be disheartened when their preconceived notions turn from promising hypotheses into failed experiments. Cook stressed, though, that View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

16 Oct 2013
Op-Ed

Response to Readers: Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking

With more than 7,500 views and 180-plus tweets, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read the original HBS Working Knowledge piece, The Case for Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking, and, in particular, for sharing your thoughts with one... View Details

Keywords: by Joe Lassiter; Energy; Utilities

03 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

Making Money Making Movies

investigates the drivers of success and failure of media and entertainment products such as motion pictures and video games. Her paper, "Demand and Supply Dynamics for Sequentially Released View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Entertainment & Recreation; Motion Pictures & Video

December 1994
Case

Intel's Pentium: When the Chips Are Down (A)

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Norman Klein

Intel, the largest-selling manufacturer of microprocessor computer chips, finds itself in a brand-threatening situation when a flaw is revealed in its top-of-the-line Pentium chip. The story is front-page news for weeks. The company invested tens of millions of dollars... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Engineering; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Production; Failure; Semiconductor Industry

Citation

Educators

Purchase

01 Dec 2015
News

Launch Codes

“Too often, they’ll design something for what they think their customers’ needs are, and they haven’t developed plans to test these assumptions.” #2 Aiming for perfection: “You want to go to market with a minimally viable product and get... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

29 May 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is the “Service Sector Effect” on Productivity?

Respondents to this month's column appeared to be about equally divided on these issues. John Inman commented, "I sometimes feel that we are racing to the bottom to provide products and services at ever lower pricing without... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Service

01 Jun 2009
News

Insights from the Post-Macho Workplace

ELY: Drilling down for valuable perspectives on how gender issues affect efficiency, safety, and productivity in the workplace. Field-based research can take HBS faculty members to some unusual places. Professor Robin Ely’s recent working... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining

April 1993 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Chiron Corp.

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Pablo Valenzuela, vice president of R&D at Chiron Corp., faces several choices for how to allocate scarce resources across several promising projects. These choices will determine Chiron's position in several emerging biotechnology and diagnostic markets, including... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Research and Development; Failure; Business Strategy; Joint Ventures; Strategic Planning; Opportunities; Product Development; Biotechnology Industry; California

Citation

Find at Harvard

02 Oct 2008
What Do You Think?

Workout vs. Bailout: Should Government Take Advantage of the Buffett Effect?

themselves to loans they cannot afford." Elizabeth Doty commented, "The promise that individual actions lead to societal gain also means that individual failures of judgment lead to societal risk and pain, as we are seeing . This is why I... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Profile

Spencer Copeland

expectations for the next stage because I've learned to dream even bigger. While here, I've been introduced to resources and a community that will help me achieve whatever I put my mind to. I'm not scared of failure and view future... View Details

01 Mar 2019
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for March 2019

Earth. This book is an invitation to live in another story, the story of sustainable abundance. Cleantech Sell: The Essential Guide to Selling Resource Efficient Products in the B2B Market by Tony McDonald (MBA 1989) Cleantech Sell... View Details

09 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 9

Publications December 2014 Academy of Management Journal Harnessing Productive Tensions in Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Work Integration Social Enterprises By: Battilana, Julie, Metin Sengul, Anne-claire Pache, and Jacob Model... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

How to Pick Managers for Disruptive Growth

managers can succeed for reasons not of their own making—and we often learn far more from our failures than our successes. Failure and bouncing back from failure can be... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Raynor

Publications