Publications

But marketing was important. Even if we produced the greatest drugs in the world, we’d be in trouble if we couldn’t get doctors to prescribe them or insurers to pay for them. As for our reluctance to look outside the company for ideas, I like to say that 0.1% of the... View Details

September 2023
Article

The Changing Role of Managers

By: Letian Zhang

This study argues that the increase in middle management in recent decades was accompanied by a major shift in managerial roles. Increased task complexity and a new management philosophy have reduced the need for direct supervision but generated a much greater... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Leadership; Groups and Teams; Change; Organizational Structure

June 1991 (Revised October 1991)
Case

General Electric: Reg Jones and Jack Welch

By: Francis Aguilar and Christopher A. Bartlett

When GE's retiring Reginald Jones turned the job of CEO over to Jack Welch on April 1, 1981, the Wall Street Journal reported that GE had "decided to replace a legend with a live wire." Some wondered if the young dynamo could fill the elder statesman's very large... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Change Management; Leading Change; Restructuring; Investment; Strategic Planning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Succession

Teaching Interest

Managing Corporate Entrepreneurship

Professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

To stay on top, corporations must learn to continuously create, grow, and profit from completely new ways of doing business. They must simultaneously pursue both excellence in their existing business and... View Details

Article

Multi-Echelon Inventory Management Under Short-Term Take-or-Pay Contracts

By: Joel Goh and Evan L. Porteus

We extend the Clark–Scarf serial multi-echelon inventory model to include procuring production inputs under short-term take-or-pay contracts at one or more stages. In each period, each such stage has the option to order/process at two different cost rates; the cheaper... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Multi-echelon Inventory Theory; Karush Lemma; Clark-Scarf Model; Convex Ordering Cost; Advance Commitments; Supply Chain

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Teaching Interest

Supply Chain Management

By: Kris Johnson Ferreira

The Supply Chain Management (SCM) course builds on aspects of the first-year Technology and Operations Management (RC TOM) course. However, whereas RC TOM focuses primarily on developing and producing products and services, SCM emphasizes managing... View Details

12 Jan 2021
News

How Empathy Helps Bridge Generational Differences

March 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Patient Care Delivery Model at the Massachusetts General Hospital, The

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Richard M.J. Bohmer and Emily Heaphy

Examines the implementation of a new patient care delivery model at Massachusetts General Hospital. Uses clinical and financial data to examine different choices for staffing non-physician health care professionals and to understand the challenges of managing change... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Massachusetts

August 1995 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Hutton Branch Manager (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jane Palley Katz

The manager of an E.F. Hutton branch office must decide how best to approach a colleague whose aggressive and ethically problematic cash management practices have cost the branch a major institutional client. These practices had been encouraged by top management at... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Business or Company Management; Decisions; Management Skills; Cash Flow; Financial Management; Investment; Management Teams; Financial Services Industry

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February 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Supplement

Avaya (D): Early Results of the Demand Generation Initiative

Avaya's top management wants to improve demand generation. This requires an improvement in the relationship between Sales and Marketing. This case series (Avaya (A)-(D)) walks the student through each phase of this process. The (A) case begins with background on the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Cooperation; Sales

August 1995
Case

Hutton Branch Manager (D)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jane Palley Katz

Describes the actions taken by E.F.Hutton management in response to the Bell Report, a study prepared by former Attorney General Griffin Bell and his law firm after Hutton pleaded guilty to 2,000 counts of mail and wire fraud in connection with its cash management... View Details

Keywords: Legal Liability; Crime and Corruption; Moral Sensibility; Acquisition; Decisions; Business or Company Management; Financial Services Industry

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April 1999
Teaching Note

Managing Experimentation: Module Overview Note for Managing Product Development(Note for Instructor)

By: Stefan H. Thomke

Describes the conceptual foundations and pedagogy for a module on managing experimentation in the development of products and services. The module has been taught in the second-year elective MBA course Managing Product Development. The purpose of the module is to help... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Business or Company Management; Product Development; Personal Development and Career; Science; Technology Adoption

March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Xfund and Sam Altman: Finding Harvard's Best Generative AI Founders

By: Suraj Srinivasan

On May 1, 2024, Xfund Managing Partners Patrick Chung and Brandon Farwell, hosted a high-stakes venture pitch session designed to select one startup for a minimum $100,000 investment. This “Xperiment Stake” competition, dedicated to startups in the Generative AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Venture Capital; Innovation Leadership; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Competition; Technology Industry; United States

December 2014
Supplement

Interview with Anders Byriel and Mads Nygård: Kvadrat

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Anders Byriel, CEO of the family-owned Danish textiles company, Kvadrat, and Mads Nygård, SVP of Strategy & Organization at Kvadrat, discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by the company. They elaborate on areas covered in the case including: 1.) Asia; 2.) Soft... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organization Behavior; Strategy; Performance Management; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Manufacturing Industry; Denmark

September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising

By: Elie Ofek

Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Evaluation; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy

August 2013 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Prudential Financial - General Motors Pension Risk Transfer: Back to the Future?

By: Luis M. Viceira and Emily A. Chien

In November 2012, Prudential Financial and General Motors closed on a $25.1B pension risk transfer (PRT) transaction, the largest of its kind to date by an order of magnitude both in the U.S. market and globally. In exchange for an in-kind transfer of $25.1B in... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Asset Management; Insurance; Retirement; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry

September 2024
Exercise

Finding Your 'Jagged Frontier': A Generative AI Exercise

By: Mitchell Weiss

In 2023 a set of scholars set out to study the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on the quality and productivity of knowledge workers—in this specific instance, management consultants. They wanted to know across a range of tasks in a workflow, which, if any, would... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Performance Productivity; Performance Evaluation; Consulting Industry