Publications

Article

Collaboration Networks, Structural Holes, and Innovation: A Longitudinal Study

By: Gautam Ahuja

To assess the effects of a firm's network of relations on innovation, this paper elaborates a theoretical framework that relates three aspects of a firm's ego network-direct ties, indirect ties, and structural holes (disconnections between a firm's partners)—to the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

March 2000
Article

The Duality of Collaboration: Inducements and Opportunities in the Formation of Interfirm Linkages

By: Gautam Ahuja

I argue that the linkage-formation propensity of firms is explained by simultaneously examining both inducement and opportunity factors. Drawing upon resource-based and social network theory literatures I identify three forms of accumulated... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Innovation; Networks; Strategy; Alliances; Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

March 2001
Article

Technological Acquisitions and the Innovation Performance of Acquiring Firms: A Longitudinal Study

By: Gautam Ahuja and Riitta Katila

This paper examines the impact of acquisitions on the subsequent innovation performance of acquiring firms in the chemicals industry. We distinguish between technological acquisitions, acquisitions in which technology is a component of the acquired firm's assets, and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Acquisitions; Knowledge; Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

Research Summary

Team, Individual, and Organizational Learning From Experience in Two High-Hazard Industries

High-hazard industries such as nuclear power and chemical process plants must learn and improve without sole reliance on trial-and-error. Considerable attention and resources are placed on learning from operating experience, including exchange of best practices, peer... View Details

September 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Teaching Plan

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks; Fintech; Innovation; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation And Strategy; Technological Change; Technology And Innovation Management; Entrepreneurial Management; Intrapreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Management

July 2020
Case

Amanda and Kristen: Mented Cosmetics

By: Steven Rogers, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alterrell Mills

The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community... View Details

June 2008 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Cook Composites and Polymers Co.

By: Deishin Lee, Michael W. Toffel and Rachel Gordon

This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Business Processes; Performance Efficiency; Natural Environment; Wastes and Waste Processing; Pollutants; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Manufacturing Industry

2009
Article

Synthesis by Microbes or Chemists? Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing in the Antibiotic Era

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

This article presents a case study of the rise of Pfizer as a leading pharmaceutical company, with a focus on changing relationships between manufacturing technology and R&D between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s. Pfizer first moved into pharmaceuticals through... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Production; Technology; Transformation; Relationships; Success; Organizations; Programs; Chemicals; Alignment; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

2009
Working Paper

Firsthand Experience and the Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Collaboration

By: Mark Mortensen and T. B. Neeley

While scholars contend that firsthand experience—time spent onsite observing the people, places, and norms of a distant locale—is crucial in globally distributed collaboration, how such experience actually affects interpersonal dynamics is poorly understood. Based on... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Globalized Firms and Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Trust

Read Now

January 1991 (Revised May 1991)
Case

Hoechst in the United States (A)

Describes the U.S. market for chemicals following WW II to the present and the attention of the market for global chemical companies. Traces the involvement of Hoechst in this market up to the 1980s when minimum growth has been offered through Hoechst's U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Chemicals; Acquisition; Chemical Industry; United States

February 2020 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Sustainable Product Management at Solvay

By: George Serafeim, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

In November 2019, Ilham Kadri, CEO of Solvay, a Belgian specialty chemicals and advanced materials group, with annual revenues of more than €10 billion in 2018, announced the group’s mid-term strategy, eight months after she took the helm as Solvay’s 11th CEO. The case... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainable Business And Innovation; Sustainability Management; Sustainable Development; Management Accounting; Innovation; Carbon Emissions; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Target-setting; Product; Management; Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Europe; Belgium

1966
Book

Aromatics and Derivatives

By: Robert B. Stobaugh

Keywords: Chemical Industry; Chemical Industry

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

are far more interesting and promising to me. Building economic relations between the countries, not just through arms-length trade, but investments by individual companies in each other's countries, will cement ties. These will... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Votorantim: Uniting Family and Business Across Generations

By: Christina R. Wing, Carla Larangeira and Pedro Levindo

Over a 105-year span, the Ermírio de Moraes family built Votorantim, one of Latin America’s largest industrial conglomerates, and among Brazil’s topmost businesses, also credited for helping “build” the country over decades. By early 2023, Votorantim included... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Family Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Family and Family Relationships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Latin America

2015
Book

The Impact of Globalization on Argentina and Chile: Business Enterprises and Entrepreneurship

By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrea Lluch

This book compares the effects of globalization on two Latin American countries, Argentina and Chile, over time. The chapters examine the impact of multinationals, the growth of business groups, and the conflicted relations between business and government. The book... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Business Groups; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Globalization; Growth and Development; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Latin America; Argentina; Chile

1968
Book

Olefins, Diolefins, and Acetylene

By: Robert B. Stobaugh

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Product Development; Chemical Industry; Chemical Industry

2013
Book

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book examines the history of entrepreneurship and multinationals in the making of the modern world. In recent years economists, historians, and political scientists have written extensively on the history of globalization and patterns of global wealth and poverty,... View Details