Publications

Research Summary

The Design of Mechanisms and Institutions

Professor Coughlan's research also investigates the design of public policy and collective choice institutions. His research publications have applied game theory, mechanism design, and laboratory experiments to explore incentives and outcomes under alternative legal,... View Details

October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Herman Miller (A): Innovation by Design

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

Gary Van Spronsen, president of Miller SQA, has been asked to leave the thriving subsidiary he helped to reinvent to join Herman Miller's corporate initiative on innovation. Miller SQA has pioneered processes new to the Herman Miller organization, such as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business Model; Organizations; Values and Beliefs; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

December 2008
Article

Behavioral Frontiers in Choice Modeling

We review the discussion at a workshop whose goal was to achieve a better integration among behavioral, economic, and statistical approaches to choice modeling. The workshop explored how current approaches to the specification, estimation, and application of choice... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Integration; Goals and Objectives; Decision Choices and Conditions; Problems and Challenges; Business Processes; Customers; Behavior; Economics

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20 Aug 2024
News

Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports

September 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Careem: Base Camp or Mountain Peak? Designing an OS for Scaling

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Gamze Yucaoglu and Alpana Thapar

This case focuses on designing a fast growing organization. It is part of a two-case set that is taught together to cover the scaling journey.
Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing service aimed to ‘simplify and improve the lives of people, and build an awesome... View Details

Keywords: Scale; Values; Rights; Operating Systems; Business Startup; Transportation; Organizational Design; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Decision Making; Managerial Roles; Dubai; United Arab Emirates; Middle East

17 Nov 2011
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Organizational Design

resources. But for other types of tasks, cultural heterogeneity had no effect on creative performance. The research is relevant to business practitioners because creating a multicultural workplace is often touted as a strategy to foster... View Details

Keywords: Re: Ranjay Gulati & Raffaella Sadun

September 2023
Supplement

Design and Evaluation of Targeted Interventions

By: Eva Ascarza

Targeted interventions serve as a pivotal tool in business strategy, streamlining decisions for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness. This note delves into two central facets of such interventions: first, the design of potent decision guidelines, or targeting... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Design; Business Strategy; Policy; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry

July 1999 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Quickturn Design Systems, Inc. (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Katharina Pick

Quickturn Design Systems, Inc. faces a hostile takeover bid from its competitor, Mentor Graphics. Mentor makes the bid at a moment when Quickturn's stock price is depressed and the company is defending against a patent suit filed by Mentor. The two companies have a... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Governing and Advisory Boards; Behavior; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizations; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Service Industry

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01 Dec 2004
News

A Life by Design

design — a career as varied as the teams she assembled. Fresh out of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Ross started her own highly successful jewelry business on the strength of a $60,000 purchase... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; toys; Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Sporting Goods, Hobby, Musical Instrument, and Book Stores; Retail Trade

October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Technical Note

Design and Evaluation of Targeted Interventions

By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei (David) Huang

Targeted interventions serve as a pivotal tool in business strategy, streamlining decisions for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness. This note delves into two central facets of such interventions: first, the design of potent decision guidelines, or targeting... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Analysis; Design; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry

May 2021
Supplement

Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise, Instructor Version

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton

On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Service Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Service Industry; New York (city, NY); Boston

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Ecosystems and Complementarities

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce two new building blocks to the theory of how technology shapes organizations. The first is a new layer of organization structure: a business “ecosystem.” The second is the economic concept of “complementarity.” Ecosystems are... View Details

Keywords: Business Ecosystems; Complementarity; Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations

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August 2013 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Coursera

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Hyunjin Kim

By providing free and open-access online courses at a large scale, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms seek to innovate the business models of the traditional higher education industry. In a little over a year, Coursera had grown at a rapid rate to emerge as a... View Details

Keywords: Business Models; Strategy; Competition; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Higher Education; Competitive Advantage; Education Industry

June 2003
Module Note

Design and Implementation of Activity-Based Cost Systems

By: V.G. Narayanan

Describes the main themes of the module on the design and implementation of an activity-based costing (ABC) system. Instructors can teach this module to second-year MBA students who have been exposed to activity-based costing in their first-year core accounting... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting