Publications

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September 2005 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker (A)

By: Daniel C. Snow, Steven C. Wheelwright and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Scharffen Berger, a premium brand chocolate, is growing rapidly and must decide where and when to add capacity in the production line and with what technology. The company must consider the demands of marketing, the impact on quality and reputation, and the economics... View Details

Keywords: Production; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Capacity; Quality; Expansion

April 1995 (Revised July 1997)
Case

General Instrument (A)

A manufacturer of cable TV transmission equipment is faced with redesigning its network of international plants that make set-top converters and decoders. One possibility is to have each plant dedicated to manufacturing and engineering support for different product... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Manufacturing Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

2012
Chapter

Schumpeterian Competition and Diseconomies of Scope: Illustrations from the Histories of Microsoft and IBM

By: Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein and Rebecca M. Henderson

We address a longstanding question about the causes of creative destruction. Dominant incumbent firms, long successful in an existing technology, are often much less successful in new technological eras. This is puzzling, since a cursory analysis would suggest that... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Opportunities; Competition; Information Technology; Innovation and Management; Organizations; Relationships; Information Technology Industry

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June 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Technical Note

Note on the Future of Commerce

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Nathaniel Schwalb

In 2019, the retail and consumer product industries were undergoing a significant transformation. Over the past 50 years, what was once a highly fragmented industry began to consolidate, digitize, and increase convenience while lowering costs. The winning enterprises... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Demand and Consumers; Demographics; Transformation; Global Range; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Leading Change; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

thought would be short-lived. But when we looked at the turnover rates again a few years later, we discovered the rate was about the same, but the driving cause was more than just the rapid change in IT: It was also because IT was the nexus of major View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2012 (Revised September 2012)
Case

INRIX

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Ryan Johnson

Since its founding in 2004, INRIX, a leading global provider of traffic information and driver services, had received four rounds of financing from leading venture capital (VC) firms and by 2012 had been cash flow positive for the past six quarters. Its founder, Bryan... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Organizational Structure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry; Washington (state, US)

2016
Working Paper

The Skills Gap and the Near-Far Problem in Executive Education and Leadership Development

By: Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas

Executive development programs have entered a period of rapid transformation, driven on one side by the proliferation of a new technological, cultural, and economic landscape commonly referred to as “digital disruption” and on the other by a widening gap between the... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Executive Education; Disruption; Management Skills

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June 2016
Case

Publicis Groupe 2016: Maurice and the Millennials

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Having built Publicis Groupe through acquisitions maintained as separate brands, CEO Maurice Lévy wanted to transform the advertising and marketing firm to an integrated digital-ready enterprise to address industry changes. In early 2016, following a reorganization, he... View Details

September 2003 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Best Buy Co., Inc. (A): An Innovator's Journey

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

The CEO of Best Buy, a hugely successful retailing company, has hired consulting firm Strategos to imbue the company with an improved innovative capability. The six-month program of experimental learning yields new business ideas and also trains Best Buy employees as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Management Teams; Creativity; Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employees; Learning; Training; Programs; Retail Industry; United States

05 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

American Journal of Sociology. While artificial intelligence promises to transform the workplace and disrupt the organizational chart, Zhang’s research suggests that middle managers will still play a key role even in innovation-heavy... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

24 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate & J. Bruce Harreld

Teaching Interest

Applied Business Analytics

Course Overview:

Business Analytics has become a core function in many firms today and is driving innovation in the form of new business and operating models. Data-driven decision-making requires understanding of statistics, computer... View Details

17 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 17, 2008

Nanda Abstract Using loan-level data from Mexico, we study the relationship between the organizational structure of banks and the terms of lending to small businesses. We find that banks with decentralized lending structures—where branch... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Zespri Grows

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned “corporatized cooperative” with the exclusive right to export New Zealand-grown kiwifruit (except to Australia). Zespri did not grow fruit but... View Details

15 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Learning from My Success and From Others’ Failure: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

Keywords: by KC Diwas, Bradley R. Staats & Francesca Gino; Health

April 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Module Note

Delivering Personally on Responsibility

By: Joshua D. Margolis

How can individuals equip themselves to exercise leadership in the face of moral adversity? This six-session module aims to prepare students to meet moral responsibility when it is simultaneously most essential and most difficult. Moral adversity refers to situations... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Leadership; Moral Sensibility; Leadership Development

22 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 22

require a grand organizational makeover or buy-in from the CEO. All it takes is collaboration between you and your team-working together and making small, doable changes. What started as an experiment with a six-person team at The Boston... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2022
Case

To Feed the Planet: Juan Luciano at ADM

By: Joshua D. Margolis, David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Stacy Straaberg and James Weber

In December 2022, Juan Luciano, Chairman and CEO of agribusiness and nutrition giant ADM, considered the next phase of the historic company’s future. Beginning in 2011 when he joined as COO and moving into his tenure as CEO in 2015, Luciano led a transformation of ADM... View Details

January 2013 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Chorus and Telecom: Building the Boards (A)

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2011, Sarah Naudé and Matt Stanley sat down with the chairman of Telecom New Zealand, Wayne Boyd. Telecom, a publicly listed company and the largest telecom provider in New Zealand, was being divided into two publicly traded companies, Chorus, a telecom... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Women's Empowerment; Governance; Leadership; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Structure; Decision Making; Human Resources; Diversity; Telecommunications Industry; New Zealand