Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,291)
- Faculty Publications (334)
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Architecture of Complex Systems: Do Core-periphery Structures Dominate?
By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak
Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some of which are core to system function while others are only peripheral. The dynamics of how such "core-periphery" structures evolve and become embedded in a... View Details
- October 2009 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
Carolina for Kibera
By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Cailin B. Hammer
A growing NGO based in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, is facing a complete change in leadership as the founders step back. At the same time, a $1 million grant presents new opportunities and challenges. View Details
- September 2009 (Revised August 2011)
- Case
Root Capital
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee
Founded in 1999, Root Capital had loaned $150 million to nearly 250 small and growing businesses, mainly in Latin America. In 2009, as the organization launched a five-year, $55 million capital campaign, it had to determine a strategic path going forward in keeping... View Details
- August 2009 (Revised July 2010)
- Case
Jones Lang LaSalle: Reorganizing around the Customer (2005)
By: Ranjay Gulati and Lucia Menzer Marshall
Peter Roberts, CEO of Jones, Lang, LaSalle (JLL) Americas division, has been charged with expanding the company's presence in its core geographic markets while simultaneously growing its corporate account business. Roberts and his task force have narrowed their options... View Details
- July 2009
- Article
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman
The optimal moment to address the question of how to improve human decision making has arrived. Thanks to fifty years of research by judgment and decision making scholars, psychologists have developed a detailed picture of the ways in which human judgment is bounded.... View Details
- March 2009 (Revised July 2014)
- Case
PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (A)
By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Alison Comings
In 2003, PNC Financial focused its corporate citizenship and philanthropic resources on a ten-year, $100 million investment in early childhood education called PNC Grow Up Great. The case tracks the origination of Grow Up Great, how it was developed and implemented... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised November 2010)
- Case
The Dojima Rice Market and the Origins of Futures Trading
By: David A. Moss and Eugene Kintgen
In 1730, Japanese merchants petitioned shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to officially authorize trade in rice futures at the Dojima Exchange, the world's first organized (but unsanctioned) futures market. For many years, the Japanese government had prohibited the trade of... View Details
- 2009
- Article
Silenced by Fear: The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Fear at Work
By: Jennifer Kish Gephart, James R. Detert, Linda K. Trevino and Amy C. Edmondson
In every organization, individual members have the potential to speak up about important issues, but a growing body of research suggests that they often remain silent instead, out of fear of negative personal and professional consequences. In this chapter, we draw on... View Details
Keywords: Organizations; Working Conditions; Research; Emotions; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Theory; Behavior
- 2008
- Book
On Competition
By: M. E. Porter
Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many fields of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage
By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Joe Wheeler
Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
Omron: Sensing Society
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ethan S Bernstein
"Leading profitable growth is only part of the goal. We cannot live without breathing, but we do not live in order to take a breath,” said Omron's President and CEO, Hisao Sakuta, in 2008. Omron, a $7B global supplier of sensors, control system components, advanced... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility
By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Alison Comings
Having bought Shaklee Corporation from Yamanouchi, Roger Barnett, its owner and CEO, wrestled with the question of how to grow the company and its reputation for environmental sustainability. In addition to preserving the "network marketing" nature of its sales channel... View Details
- October 2008
- Case
TripIt: The Traveler's Agent
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Gabriele Piccoli and Kathryn Brohman
In July 2008, the co-founders of TripIt, a free online travel organizer that aggregated travelers' bookings from many top travel websites, had recently secured $5.1 million in new financing. While the co-founders believed that their company offered travelers a unique... View Details
- June 2008 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Year Up: A Social Entrepreneur Builds High Performance
By: Allen S Grossman and Naomi Greckol-Herlich
Year Up, a nonprofit job-skills training program for low-income, urban youth has run four successful programs in four cities for the past seven years. Now, after an ambitious capital campaign, the organization is poised to grow into a national program in an attempt to... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman
The optimal moment to address the question of how to improve human decision making has arrived. Thanks to fifty years of research by judgment and decision making scholars, psychologists have developed a detailed picture of the ways in which human judgment is bounded.... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Future of Social Enterprise
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Herman B. Leonard and Susan McDonald
The Future of Social Enterprise considers the confluence of forces that is shaping the field of social enterprise, changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. We trace a growing pool of potential funding sources to... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
SKS Microfinance
By: Shawn A. Cole and Theresa Chen
Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance, seeks a venture capital investment to fund his firm. SKS, one of the largest and fastest growing microfinance institutions in India, is a profitable, for-profit institution with a social mission. In what is one of the first... View Details
- March 2008
- Case
Ujjivan: A Microfinance Institution at a Crossroads (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan and Pamela Freed
Samit Ghosh, the CEO and founder of Ujjivan, a major microfinance provider in Bangalore, wants to grow his business rapidly and become financially sustainable, but he's struggling with staff fraud, high costs, and how to stay true to Ujjivan's mission of poverty... View Details
- 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
- November 2007
- Article
Solve the Succession Crisis by Growing Inside-Outside Leaders
By: Joseph L. Bower
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In his interviews and data analysis, Harvard Business School professor Bower found... View Details