Publications

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and David Kiron

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faces a serious loss of knowledge--both because of the "faster, better, cheaper" mandate for Mars missions and from the retirement of key personnel. An extensive knowledge management system for NASA/JPL includes formal knowledge-capture... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership Development; Internet and the Web; Risk and Uncertainty; Organizational Culture; Retirement; Human Resources; Human Capital

26 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

7 Leadership Principles for Managing in the Time of Coronavirus

I want to share with you my 7 Cs for coronavirus survival if you’re a manager or a leader. This message is also available on video. Calm. Your folks, your employees, your customers, your suppliers, are going to be looking to you as a... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

Research Summary

Clinical Trials as a setting for Health Policy and Management Research

The clinical trial marketplace is in flux. A decade ago, pharmaceutical firms almost exclusively conducted the study of their novel drug compounds within major academic medical centers. But today, industry-sponsored clinical trials are increasingly using community... View Details

1980
Article

R&D Performance as a Function of Internal Communication, Project Management, and the Nature of the Work

By: Thomas J. Allen, Denis M.S. Lee and Michael Tushman

Keywords: Research and Development; Performance; Communication; Projects; Management

06 Oct 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID's Rising Waters

Since March, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge has posted more than 80 stories and research papers on the topic of COVID-19, most targeted at managers and the new challenges they face. That's a lot of information to digest. To... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

03 Dec 2014
What Do You Think?

Can the Brilliant Jerk Be Managed Effectively?

and some of the most successful projects in the world have been accomplished by 'jerks.'" Todd's comments prompt the questions: Have we failed to take appropriate notice of research and accumulated experiences that would help View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2007
Casebook

Managing School Districts for High Performance: Cases in Public Education Leadership

By: Stacey Childress, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman and Susan Moore Johnson

Managing School Districts for High Performance brings together more than twenty case studies and other readings that offer a powerful and transformative approach to advancing and sustaining the work of school improvement. At the center of this work is the... View Details

Keywords: Management; Strategy; Leadership; Public Sector; Organizational Design; Education; Performance Improvement

Read Now

2018
Working Paper

Managing Through Organizational Change: Employee Alignment in the Presence of Unexpected Career Concerns

By: Ohchan Kwon and Jee-Eun Shin

This study examines performance consequences due to unexpected career concerns – layoff risks due to institutional reasons. Exploiting a company-wide announcement of a merger decision by management as a trigger event for unexpected career concerns, we examine employee... View Details

Keywords: Career Changes; Performance Measures; Incentives; M＆A; Employees; Personal Development and Career; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

for natural gas, and to create derivative supply contracts that could help customers manage the risks of demand volatility and price swings more effectively than before. In this way, Skilling and his colleagues solved a major contracting... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

November–December 2023
Article

Iterative Coordination and Innovation: Prioritizing Value over Novelty

By: Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Novelty; Goals; Specialization; Coordination; Field Experiment; Software Development; Agile; Scrum; Iteration; Iterative; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Value; Goals and Objectives; Integration; Applications and Software

Read Now

29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Managing Innovation is Like Theater

If you don't know where you're going, any map will do.1 This conventional wisdom sounds right to many managers. It highlights the safety of having a clear objective for your management actions. It implies that all View Details

Keywords: by Rob Austin & Lee Devin

Teaching Interest

Managing the Future of Work (MBA Education—Elective Curriculum)

By: Christopher T. Stanton

The nature and scope of work is changing rapidly, creating massive business challenges in the shadow of broader political and social shifts. HBS launched a major initiative in 2017 on Managing the Future of Work to define these workplace issues and... View Details

May 2021
Article

Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders: A Matter of Health and Well-Being

By: Lisa Rotenstein, Robert S. Huckman and Christine K. Cassel

The COVID-19 crisis has forced physicians to make daily decisions that require knowledge and skills they did not acquire as part of their biomedical training. Physicians are being called upon to be both managers—able to set processes and structures—and leaders—capable... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management; Leadership; Health Pandemics; Health Industry

March 2007
Article

Authority, Risk, and Performance Incentives: Evidence from Division Manager Positions inside Firms

By: Julie Wulf

I show that performance incentives vary by decision-making authority of division managers. For division managers with broader authority, i.e., those designated as corporate officers, both the sensitivity of pay to global performance measures and the relative importance... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Globalization; Measurement and Metrics; Status and Position; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Divisions

Read Now

14 Oct 2021
In Practice

Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

School and a leader of the Managing the Future of Work Project and the Project on Workforce. Lakshmi Ramarajan: Don’t leave struggling workers behind Employers should remember... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

April 2016
Supplement

Preparing a Concession Bid at TAV Airports Holding

By: C. Fritz Foley and Çiğdem Çelik

In 2013, TAV Airports Holding prepared a bid for the concession to build and operate the third Istanbul airport. This process involved input from various parts of the firm with operating and financial expertise. Burcu Geriş, the CFO of TAV Airports Holding, and her... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Infrastructure Development; Equity Cash Flows; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Financial Management; Financing and Loans; Air Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Turkey

September 2010
Case

New Heritage Doll Company

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Heide Abelli

A manufacturer and retailer of specialty doll products must decide which of two projects to fund. The decision requires the student to compute cash flows for the 2 projects, discount values to the present and compare and contrast different project performance measures. View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Resource Management; Resource Allocation; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

March 2015
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A) (Abridged)

By: Boris Groysberg and James Weber

Tracks the first six months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Relations; Organization Behavior; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Managing Projects; Informal Organization; Consulting; Professional Services; Leadership; Work-Life Balance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizations; Rank and Position; Product Development; Service Industry; Consulting Industry