Publications

October 2002 (Revised June 2006)
Case

KnowledgeNet (A)

By: William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth Kind

Describes the internal reporting package for a rapidly growing company in the e-learning industry. Management must analyze the data in the package and decide what actions to take. They must also decide what to communicate to the board of directors. Contains a... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Performance Improvement; Performance Evaluation; Education Industry

December 1999 (Revised May 2002)
Case

CNBC (A): NBC and Its Startup Friends

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

NBC expands further on to the Internet with CNBC.com. NBC's Internet strategy, supported by corporate parent General Electric, involves numerous investments as well as new ventures like CNBC.com. Soon after CNBC.com is launched in 1999, NBC brings in a new CEO, Pamela... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Change Management; Management Teams; Corporate Strategy; Leadership Development; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Media; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Telecommunications Industry

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April 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Evergreen Investments: Mobile CRM (A)

Evergreen Investments has had a troubled history with its customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sales agents feel that they derive no value from it and that it is a tax on their jobs. Evergreen is investigating whether it can improve CRM by making its data... View Details

Keywords: Management; Customer Relationship Management; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry

07 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Do Experts or Collective Intelligence Write with More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia

Keywords: by Shane Greenstein & Feng Zhu; Information; Information

Teaching Interest

Applied Business Analytics

Course Overview:

Business Analytics has become a core function in many firms today and is driving innovation in the form of new business and operating models. Data-driven decision-making requires understanding of statistics, computer... View Details

July 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Amagansett Funds (A)

Amagansett Funds has had a troubled history with its customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sales agents feel that they derive no value from it and that it is a "tax on their jobs." Amagansett is investigating whether CRM can be improved by making its data... View Details

Keywords: Management; Customer Relationship Management; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry

07 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

How Teams Work: Lessons from the Pandemic

it’s easy to ask a manager or colleague, “When is this due?” or “Who’s working on that?” Without those informal interactions, teams often went too far, scheduling too many meetings to touch base. “They would... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

30 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Why Evolutionary Software Development Works

Given the importance of software, the lack of research on the best ways to manage its development is surprising. Many different models have been proposed since the much cited waterfall model emerged more than 30 years ago. Unfortunately,... View Details

Keywords: by Alan MacCormack; Technology

November 2007
Case

Ockham Technologies: Living on the Razor's Edge (Abridged)

By: Noam T. Wasserman

Describes the issues facing a Founder-CEO regarding building a board, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing system development work. The abridged version does not include the introduction and final sections of the full case... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Recruitment; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Information Technology

January 2019 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Analytical Space: The Next Frontier?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and David Lane

With one satellite aloft and in the midst of beta testing in late 2018, Analytical Space founders Justin Oliveira and Dan Nevius turned to critical questions about the pioneering startup’s go-to-market, pricing, and business development strategy. Analytical Space aimed... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Decisions; Demand Validation; Revenue Model; Business Development; Space Tech; Satellites; Earth Observation; Remote Sensing; Business Startups; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development Strategy; Finance; Selection and Staffing; Business Strategy; Aerospace Industry

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

lose hope in their organization and become cynical and passive. “People who are this discouraged stop bothering to collaborate with others to improve the organization,” he says. The antidote: Organizations need to allow critical View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

02 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

The Role of Government When All Else Fails

has increased, we are now in a better position to address it than we once were. Finally, it seems almost certain that the information revolution we are now experiencing will influence the way that government View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

October, 2023
Article

Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: Housing Market Impacts of Removing Legacy Pollutants

By: Alecia Cassidy, Robyn C. Meeks and Michale R. Moore

The Great Lakes and their tributaries make up the largest freshwater system on the planet, providing drinking water and recreational value to millions of people. Yet manufacturing plants left a legacy of toxic pollutants in the region, tarnishing it as part of the... View Details

Keywords: Valuation Of Environmental Effects; Housing Demand; Water Pollution; Water Quality; Infrastructure; Pollution; Consumer Behavior

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Read Now

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Failing to Learn and Learning to Fail (Intelligently): How Great Organizations Put Failure to Work to Improve and Innovate

Keywords: by Mark D. Cannon & Amy C. Edmondson

01 Feb 2008
What Do You Think?

How Sustainable Is Sustainability in a For-Profit Organization?

Summing Up How will sustainability be achieved? To sum up responses to this month's column, the question is not whether global sustainability will be achieved but how. One school of thought could perhaps be characterized as enlightened self-interest, a realization on... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

inside The future of the restaurant industry is especially of concern to us. We collectively share 35 years of restaurant and food industry experience, navigating our way through as waitstaff and bartenders, as managers and senior leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

February 2018
Supplement

People Analytics at Teach For America (B)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley

This is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. In this supplement, Managing Director Michael Metzger must decide how to extend his team’s predictive analytics work using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Recruitment; Analysis

April 2017
Teaching Note

Basecamp: Pricing

By: Frank V. Cespedes

This Teaching Note accompanies HBS No. 817-067 “Basecamp: Pricing” in which a data analyst at Basecamp is evaluating the results of pricing research and its potential implications for the venture's latest version of its project management software product. View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Price; Analysis; Customers; Product Marketing