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05 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

to connect groups with disparate skills—like engineering, sales, and market analysis—at key points in a project. Extensive analysis of job postings Zhang bases his conclusions on a unique linguistic analysis of more than 34 million online... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

17 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

opportunity to recognize this issue as a pinch point, so they can do something about it.” DeCelles co-authored a September 2016 article about the two-year study in Administrative Science Quarterly called Whitened Resumes: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

September 2019 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Gap, Inc., 2019

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2000, The Gap, Inc. (Gap) was the world’s largest player in specialty fashion retailing, and companies such as Inditex of Spain, H&M of Sweden, and Fast Retailing of Japan were less than a quarter of Gap’s size. But after two decades of growth, Gap’s progress... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Change; Fashion; Multinational; Brands; Fast Fashion; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Performance Improvement; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Change Management; Strategy; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sweden; Spain; United States

Educators

December 1991 (Revised October 1998)
Case

Eli Lilly and Co.: Manufacturing Process Technology Strategy--1991

By: Gary P. Pisano, Steven C. Wheelwright and Jonathan West

Outlines the evolution of Lilly's corporate manufacturing strategy over the past decade. The corporate vice president of manufacturing must decide on the next phase of Lilly's strategy for the early 1990s, as well as to what extent and what role process development... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Structures; Product Development; Production; Research and Development; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

April 2012
Article

Retail Doesn't Cross Borders: Here's Why and What to Do about It

By: Marcel Corstjens and Rajiv Lal

Most companies assume that the easiest way to grow is by investing overseas and that the developing world offers the best opportunities for boosting revenues and profits today. However, success abroad varies widely, and research shows that it's often tough to... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Growth and Development Strategy; Globalization; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Local Range; Retail Industry

14 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 14

participation in OS arises as the optimal decision of profit-maximizing firms, and (2) OS and P firms may (or may not) coexist in equilibrium. Firms decide their type and investment in R&D and sell packages composed of a primary good... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another. February 2015 GfK Marketing Intelligence Review Beyond... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2010
Chapter

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-interested Charitable Behavior

By: L. Anik, L. B. Aknin, M. I. Norton and E. W. Dunn

While lay intuitions and pop psychology suggest that helping others leads to higher levels of happiness, the existing evidence only weakly supports this causal claim: research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of charitable giving has... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Cost vs Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Outcome or Result; Relationships; Research; Behavior; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives

Article

Why Build in Web3

By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers

A major change is coming to the internet. While today’s dominant platforms have guarded their troves of user data and maintained an advantage through network effects, new companies—working in what they're calling a “Web3” model—are proposing a new value proposition to... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; User Experience; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Competition; Web Services Industry

December 2018
Case

The Swedish Academy #MeToo Scandal and the Reputation of the Nobel Prize

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Mats Urde

This case focuses on the potential for “reputational contagion” to the Nobel Prize from a scandal affecting one of its independent network member entities, the Swedish Academy. The latter is responsible for selecting the Nobel Prize in Literature, by appointment of... View Details

Keywords: Nobel Prize; Swedish Academy; Scandal; Reputation; Brands and Branding; Crisis Management

Educators

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

2008
Working Paper

Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained

By: Shawn A. Cole, John Thompson and Peter Tufano

In this paper, we analyze the spending decisions of over 1.5 million Americans who vary in their degree of revealed credit constraints. Specifically, we analyze how these Americans spend their income tax refunds, using transaction-level data from a stored-value card... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Credit; Personal Finance; Spending; Taxation; Consumer Behavior; United States

Article

Moving Beyond Schumpeter: Management Research on the Determinants of Technological Innovation

By: Gautam Ahuja, Curba Morris Lampert and Vivek Tandon

Schumpeter's conjecture that large monopolistic firms were the key source of innovation in modern industrial economies has been the underpinning for much work on the topic of innovation. In this review paper we consciously move beyond the Schumpeterian tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Management; Strategy

02 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

Where Does Apple Go From Here?

margin to a core group of loyal users and you don't talk much about market share? (Market researchers pinpoint the Mac share at 2 to 4 percent of the overall PC market.) Is this a viable strategy for Apple? A: Over the long run, no. There... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Building Capabilities in Professional Service Firms

One of the most distinctive aspects of professional service firms is that the vast majority of the people who work in them are directly involved in serving clients. Long-term success in a professional service firm requires obtaining and developing the right... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Digital Platforms 2.0: Learnings, Opportunities, and Challenges

By: Shrabastee Banerjee, Ishita Chakraborty, Hana Choi, Hannes Datta, Remi Daviet, Chiara Farronato, Minkyung Kim, Anja Lambrecht, Puneet Manchanda, Aniko Oery, Ananya Sen, Marshall W Van Alstyne, Prasad Vana, Kenneth C Wilbur, Xu Zhang and Bobby Zhou

Platform-based digital ecosystems form the backbone of our interactions with the Internet. Over the past decade, digital ecosystems have witnessed significant growth, both in terms of industry footprint and academic research. Yet, the challenges associated with their... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Technology Adoption; E-commerce; Market Design

SSRN

2011
Working Paper

The Architecture of Transaction Networks: A Comparative Analysis of Hierarchy in Two Sectors

By: Jianxi Luo, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Daniel E. Whitney and Christopher L. Magee

Many products are manufactured in networks of firms linked by transactions, but comparatively little is known about how or why such transaction networks differ. This paper investigates the transaction networks of two large sectors in Japan at a single point in time. In... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Market Transactions; Networks; Competitive Strategy; Vertical Integration; Auto Industry; Electronics Industry; Japan