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- January 2018 (Revised May 2018)
- Case
AT&T Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century
By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr
By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that... View Details
Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States
Gross, Daniel P., and William R. Kerr. "AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century." Harvard Business School Case 718-486, January 2018. (Revised May 2018.)
- May 2018
- Teaching Note
AT&T: Managing Technological Change and the Future of Telephone Operators in the 20th Century
By: Daniel P. Gross and William R. Kerr
Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-486. View Details
Keywords: AT＆T; Bell Telephone; Phone Lines; Phone Operators; Mechanical Switching; Layoffs; Technological Change; Transition; History; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Disruption; Change Management; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States
- January 2020
- Case
The Origins of Bell Labs
By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko
In 1947, scientists at Bell Labs invented the transistor—a tiny signal amplifier that would go on to become the fundamental building block of the digital age. But, confounding most traditional economic assumptions, it was not a vigorous startup that made this momentous... View Details
Keywords: Business History; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Patents; Monopoly; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Boston; Massachusetts; New York (city, NY)
Nicholas, Tom, and John Masko. "The Origins of Bell Labs." Harvard Business School Case 820-081, January 2020.
- 2020
- Working Paper
Why Do Firms Automate Production, and How Do They Adjust? Evidence from the Bell Telephone System over the 20th Century
By: Daniel P. Gross and James J. Feigenbaum
Over the course of the 20th century, AT&T's operating companies replaced telephone operators with mechanical switching and dial telephones. Yet it took AT&T 30 years from the invention of the technology to begin using it, and another 60 years to finish installing it... View Details
- Web
The Hawthorne Plant – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections
History Center From the time of its founding in 1876, AT&T’s rapid and pervasive expansion gave it a virtual monopoly over the telephone industry until the time of its break-up in 1984. Like other conglomerates of its day, the View Details
- Web
Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century - Leadership
Telephone and Telegraph, 1933–1956 Glen W. Bell Taco Bell Corporation, 1962–1975 James S. Bell Washburn, Crosby Milling Company, 1889–1915... View Details
- 16 Nov 2021
- HBS Case
How a Company Made Employees So Miserable, They Killed Themselves
have deeply downsized their staffs. “There’s a lot that happened in the situation that should sound alarm bells for others,” Montgomery says. “The cases point to risks that can arise when firms facing severe competitive threats adopt a... View Details
Keywords: by Michael Blanding
- 06 Sep 2004
- Research & Ideas
The Innovator’s Battle Plan
that market to the entrant. AT&T, for example, initially ceded the lowest end of the existing long-distance market to MCI. Western Union clearly ceded the new local communications market to the Bell companies. Remember, incumbents... View Details
- 23 May 2012
- Research & Ideas
Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative
consumer. So, even thinking about what features you put into a product affects how easy it will be to market. There's always this idea of feature creep that leads to adding bells and whistles. But every time you add View Details
Walter S. Gifford
During Gifford’s presidency, AT&T experienced tremendous growth. Gifford increased operating revenue from $657 million to $2.25 billion. During Gifford’s tenure, the wire mileage of AT&T rose from 39.5 million to 113 million, and the number of View Details
Keywords: Communications
- Web
Photograph Albums - Photography Collections - Historical Collections
twelve member companies of the Alabama Mining Institute. Desk stand, 1892. AT&T Bell Laboratories Mss: 583 1931 A512 1 album, 34 photographs This album contains close-up views of telephone equipment produced... View Details
- 01 Jan 2005
- News
Judith R. Haberkorn, 111th AMP, 1992
for women to think more about their marriage prospects than their business future. Nevertheless, Haberkorn walked into the Baltimore employment office of the AT&T-owned Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland and landed a job in... View Details
- Web
Timeline - Race, Gender & Equity
Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone with the help of Thomas A. Watson 1877 Thomas Edison and a team of engineers create the phonograph 1879 Edison perfects the incandescent lightbulb 1882 Federation of... View Details
- 30 Jun 2020
- Book
Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever
The book Capitalism at Risk first appeared in 2011. The problems it identified with social inequality, global trade strife, and environmental degradation have only accelerated by 2020. The new edition of Capitalism at Risk, subtitled How Business Can Lead, is expanded... View Details
Keywords: by Martha Lagace
- 01 Mar 2012
- News
Get Creative
into a product affects how easy it will be to market. There’s always this idea of feature creep that leads to adding bells and whistles. But every time you add bells and whistles, chances are you’re also... View Details
- 01 Mar 2017
- News
A Summit Higher Than Everest
sitting next to him: Allen Carpé. Carpé was a World War I veteran and an accomplished research engineer with Bell Telephone Laboratories whose exploits included the stormy first ascent of Mount Logan,... View Details
- 01 Feb 1997
- News
Doing It Your Way
to survive." Bhide also points to "certain attitudes and skills" that spell entrepreneurial success. One is "the ability to make decisions in real time, with very limited information," a skill that may ring a bell with HBS grads. "Yes,... View Details