Publications
Publications
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(120,118)
- Faculty Publications (213)
- July 2009
- Teaching Note
Microsoft's Search (TN)
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Eric J. Van den Steen
Teaching Note for [709461]. View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making
By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details
- January 2009
- Case
Microsoft's Search
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Eric J. Van den Steen
In 2008, executives at Microsoft must decide how to compete against Google in the market for Internet search and advertising. The case describes how Microsoft has responded to a set of competitive threats in the past, how Google has gained a dominant position in... View Details
- September 2008
- Article
Response to Farjoun's 'Strategy Making, Novelty, and Analogical Reasoning' Commentary on Gavetti, Levinthal, and Rivkin (2005)
By: G. Gavetti, Daniel A. Levinthal and Jan W. Rivkin
- 2008
- Working Paper
A Replication Study of Alan Blinder's 'How Many U.S. Jobs Might Be Offshorable?'
By: Troy Smith and Jan W. Rivkin
In a 2007 working paper, Alan Blinder assessed the "offshorability" of hundreds of U.S. occupations and estimated that between 22% and 29% of all U.S. jobs were potentially offshorable. This note reports the results of an exercise in which members of Harvard Business... View Details
- April 2008 (Revised July 2011)
- Module Note
Strategic Renewal
By: David J. Collis and Jan W. Rivkin
While it is relatively easy to identify why strategies fail, it is much harder to explain how to fix a failing strategy or build an organization that can continuously renew its strategy. This note identifies some patterns that distinguish companies whose renewal... View Details
- April 2008 (Revised July 2011)
- Background Note
Strategic Decline
By: David J. Collis and Jan W. Rivkin
This note first documents the facts around the sustainability of competitive advantage. It then observes that the demise of a previously successful strategy, in the first instance, often comes from some change in the external environment. It, therefore, characterizes... View Details
- March 2008
- Case
Monitor's Opportunities in India (B): Grail Research
By: Juan Alcacer and Jan W. Rivkin
Supplements "Monitor's Opportunities in India (A)" [708-482]. View Details
- February 2008
- Case
Monitor's Opportunities in India (A)
By: Juan Alcacer and Jan W. Rivkin
The CEO of a strategy consulting firm must decide which of the firm's functions, if any, to move to India. In particular, he wonders whether business research--currently conducted by highly paid consultants in developed countries--can be conducted more efficiently and... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised January 2009)
- Background Note
Offshoring Day in BGIE and Strategy
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Troy Smith
Describes a set of activities in which students will participate before and during a day of classes on offshoring. The day's classes will examine the implications of offshoring for policy makers, business leaders, and workers. View Details
- February 2008 (Revised April 2008)
- Case
The Offshoring of America
By: Richard H.K. Vietor, Jan W. Rivkin and Juliana Seminerio
The movement from jobs in the United States to developing countries, in a process known as offshoring, has become quite a controversial topic. Managers not only need to decide which activities, if any, to move offshore, but where to move them. This case describes the... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised January 2010)
- Background Note
Finding Information for Industry Analysis
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Ann Cullen
This note provides detailed instructions on finding resources for conducting industry analysis, with a special focus on resources available at Harvard Business School. It allows students to transition from doing a Five Forces analysis on the basis of a case, where all... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Seek Strategy the Right Way at the Right Time
By: G. Gavetti and Jan W. Rivkin
Deliberate, emergent, and analogical approaches to finding the best strategy all have their advan-tages, depending on where an industry is in its life cycle. Be open to the best option at each juncture and wise enough to make the right call. View Details
- October 2007 (Revised January 2009)
- Background Note
Analyzing Relative Costs
By: Hanna Halaburda and Jan W. Rivkin
Introduces students to the technique of relative cost analysis, a core technique of strategists. Among the intricate quantitative analyses that strategists undertake, relative cost analysis may be the most common. The goal of a relative cost analysis is simply to... View Details
- July 2007
- Article
Patterned Interactions in Complex Systems
By: J. Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Keywords: System
- 2007
- Working Paper
Coupled Search Processes: Why Is it so Difficult to Find that Organizational Design Matters?
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin
Organizational design affects performance via coupled search processes. At low frequency, managers search for appropriate organizational designs. At higher frequency, managers use designs to search for high-performing operational choices. The two searches are coupled:... View Details
- May – June 2007
- Article
On the Origin of Strategy: Action and Cognition Over Time
By: G. Gavetti and Jan W. Rivkin
- April 2007 (Revised June 2009)
- Supplement
Federal Bureau of Investigation (B)
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Michael A. Roberto
- March 2007 (Revised February 2009)
- Background Note
How to Crack a Strategy Case
By: Stephen P. Bradley, David J. Collis, Kevin P. Coyne, Andrei Hagiu, Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Jan W. Rivkin and John R. Wells
Addresses a common concern among strategy students: "How should I tackle this case?" Describes a process for diagnosing a strategic situation, then generating, evaluating, and choosing among strategic options. View Details