Publications

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10 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Take ‘No’ for an Answer: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations

Keywords: by Judd B. Kessler & Alvin E. Roth

Program

Senior Executive Leadership Program—Middle East

who can deliver value in a global context, drive new levels of innovation, and build accountable, high-performance organizations. Key Benefits The Senior Executive Leadership Program—Middle East prepares you to make the bold market moves... View Details

Article

The Lives and Deaths of Jobs: Technical Interdependence and Survival in a Job Structure

By: Sharique Hasan, John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning

Prior work has considered the properties of individual jobs that make them more or less likely to survive in organizations. Yet little research examines how a job’s position within a larger job structure affects its life chances and thus the evolution of the... View Details

Keywords: Jobs; Natural Language Processing; Jobs and Positions; Organizational Structure

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2016
Article

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence, and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Organization Design; Conway's Law; Knowledge Boundaries; Relational Contracts; Open Source Software; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Boundaries; Knowledge Management; Applications and Software

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January 2025
Case

Uncovering Questionable Behavior

By: David Fubini, Patrick Sanguineti, Amy Chambers and William Fubini

In this short vignette on the boundaries of professionalism, Alex Harding, recently promoted to Team Leader, faces a difficult decision regarding his client. While serving the CFO of the client company in preparation for an upcoming merger, he and his team uncover... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership

Program

Designing and Executing Corporate Revitalization

major corporate challenges proactively, make the right strategic moves, and lead a revitalization effort that establishes a firm foundation for growth. This program is eligible for the Certificate of... View Details

2011
Case

The Secrets to Managing Business Analytics Projects

By: Thomas H. Davenport, Stijn Viaene and Annabel Van den Bunder

Managers have used business analytics to inform their decision making for years. And while few companies would qualify as being what management innovation and strategy expert Thomas H. Davenport has dubbed "analytic competitors," more and more businesses are moving in... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Business or Company Management; Information Management

31 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Marketing’s Conventional Wisdom

to friends. The case is about the marketers' decisions regarding what to do with these films: They could put them on DVDs, or run them in movie theaters before feature films, or do any number of other things. Q: What's the takeaway from... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

Article

Robust and Stable Black Box Explanations

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Nino Arsov and Osbert Bastani

As machine learning black boxes are increasingly being deployed in real-world applications, there has been a growing interest in developing post hoc explanations that summarize the behaviors of these black boxes. However, existing algorithms for generating such... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Black Box Models; Framework

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September 2012 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Cialis Lifecycle Management: Lilly's BPH Dilemma

By: Elie Ofek and Natalie Kindred

How should Eli Lilly further develop and market a new indication of its highly successful erectile-dysfunction (ED) drug, Cialis, without confusing Cialis's hard-won brand equity with physicians and patients? With the final stages of clinical trials for the new... View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Attitudes; Brands and Branding; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Nanda Home: Preparing for Life after Clocky

By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery

Gauri Nanda, the inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that rolls off the bed stand and forces its owner to find it, has to make critical decisions regarding the future of her nascent company. As sales of Clocky show signs of declining, she must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Management; Electronics Industry

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and David Kiron

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faces a serious loss of knowledge--both because of the "faster, better, cheaper" mandate for Mars missions and from the retirement of key personnel. An extensive knowledge management system for NASA/JPL includes formal knowledge-capture... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership Development; Internet and the Web; Risk and Uncertainty; Organizational Culture; Retirement; Human Resources; Human Capital

08 Nov 2017
HBS Seminar

Elizabeth Lyons, UC San Diego School of Global Policy & Strategy

02 May 2018
Blog Post

Should Companies Disclose Employee Compensation?

How Should Organizations Draw the Line on Pay Transparency? There is general support for the widespread practice of disclosing pay data in "bands" associated with jobs. Fewer people would go beyond this to disclose what individual employees View Details

Keywords: All Industries

May 2013
Case

Altius Golf and the Fighter Brand

By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong

Altius Golf is the clear leader in the golf ball market despite a long-term decline in the number of golfers and a drop in sales following the financial crisis. The firm has maintained its position by introducing generations of advanced, super-premium golf balls that... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Competitive Advantage; Decision Choices and Conditions; Distribution Channels; Sports; Financial Crisis; Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

The International Criminal Court

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Natalie Kindred

This Case describes a controversial 2010 decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and alludes to some of the broader challenges of building international institutions. The case briefly highlights certain milestones in international relations preceding the... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decision Choices and Conditions; International Relations; Political Elections; Courts and Trials; Organizations; Kenya

Web

Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

for learning. That’s fundamentally different from the traditional model of teaching — the learned expert transferring knowledge to eager students. At HBS, the teacher asks questions, and the students make statements that become the basis... View Details

Research Summary

Modernization Regimes

Professor Fabbe is currently conducting fieldwork for a book project that focuses on how societies respond to crisis and how states seek to use modernization initiatives to strengthen social resilience and cohesion. Towards this end, she is researching local... View Details

October 2013 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Red Hen Baking Company

By: Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Lisa Paige

The case explores the decision to expand in a small business setting. In 2007, the Red Hen Baking Company (RHB) was deciding whether to move from its cramped and inefficient Duxbury, Vermont facility to a new facility in nearby Middlesex, Vermont. It had been in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Capital; Risk Management; Expansion