Publications

Program

Strategic Marketing for Driving Growth

resonate with customers Make strategic tradeoffs with a thorough understanding of implications for marketing Assess the performance of your marketing function, including talent, programs, and infrastructure Synchronize marketing... View Details

22 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

Manager Visibility No Guarantee of Fixing Problems

Observing and understanding the tasks and challenges that workers face every day is important. But managers who merely put in time "walking the floor" are not doing enough; in fact, it can make employees feel worse about their... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

09 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

A Diagnostic for Disruptive Innovation

interaction, coordination, communication, and decision making employees use to transform resources into products and services of greater worth. A company's processes determine its skills and strengths as... View Details

Keywords: by Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson & Matt Eyring

29 Oct 2021
News

Ask Help Desk: How Remote Workers Can Separate Work and Home Lives

April 2021
Exercise

Valuing Employment Exercise

By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and Katie Panella

The Valuing Employment exercise can be used to show the importance of impact measurement in designing incentives and contracts. The exercise has two phases. In the first phase, participants play the role of managers at the State of Massachusetts Infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: Bid Evaluation; Workforce; Impact Measurement; Bids and Bidding; Contracts; Design; Measurement and Metrics

February 2015
Case

Founder Field Day

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ramana Nanda and Nathaniel Burbank

Branded as the "Millennial firm for Millennials," Mike Rothenberg founded Rothenberg Ventures (RV) in 2012 while earning his MBA at the Harvard Business School (HBS). Over the following 24 months, Rothenberg raised $20 million and built a venture capital firm that made... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Startups; Seed-investing; Micro-VC; Venture Capital; Business Startups; San Francisco; New York (city, NY)

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

30 May 2018
News

First “HBS Hacks” Event in San Francisco

09 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 9

interdependent work is performed under conditions that make bounded stable teams infeasible, creating a need to understand factors that foster teaming in the absence of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Blog

Inside the Learning: Sustainability—on Campus and Beyond

make each of the key HBS Executive Education facilities greener, healthier places: Esteves Hall, McArthur Hall, Tata Hall. You can rest assured that the Harvard dining services team strives to deliver meals... View Details

06 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

Unexpected Exercise Advice for the Super Busy: Ditch the Rigid Routine

enjoyable it is, it’s a separate issue.” Overcoming the initial hurdles that stand in the way of a good habit often requires people to challenge seemingly innocuous behaviors, says Beshears, who has been studying how people make financial... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

12 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

What Brands Can Do to Monitor Factory Conditions of Suppliers

composition in forming teams,” says Toffel. “In fact, some said they expressly didn’t consider gender, believing it inappropriate to do so.” Not considering gender when forming audit teams makes sense in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2023
Case

To Found or to Cofound? That is the Question

By: Christina Wallace and Jo Tango

Entrepreneurs often struggle with the question of whether to found solo or alongside one or more cofounders. This case is comprised of three vignettes detailing common founding scenarios: the first-time technical founder; the serial commercial founder; and the MBA... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Partners and Partnerships

10 Jul 2023
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2023

from Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster to Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future by Saul Griffith. But even grounded books such as The Disposable City by Mario Alejandro Ariza make the challenges seem... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Program

Leading Professional Service Firms

professional network Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business... View Details

Keywords: Professional Services; Professional Services

December 2012 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Plastiq

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Gaurav Jain, Liroy Haddad, Luke Langford and Matt Noble

The young CEO of a venture-backed startup needs to figure out his go to market strategy and the right profile for his first key sales hires. Should he develop partnerships with channels that would provide leverage or build out a direct sales force? And should the sales... View Details

Keywords: Payments; Sales; Channels; Credit Cards; Digital Platforms; Selection and Staffing; Cost vs Benefits; Salesforce Management; Marketing Channels; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Management Systems

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

in their attempts. A set of interrelated choices of organization design and senior team process determines which attempts to build ambidextrous organizations are successful. How Much to Make and How Much to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2008
Working Paper

Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox

By: Tobias Fredberg, Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote and Flemming Norrgren

We tend to assume that great leaders must make difficult choices between two or more conflicting outcomes. In an interview study with 26 CEOs of top American and European companies (incl. IKEA, Campbell Soups, Nokia, H&M), we find that instead of choosing between... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance; Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Decision Choices and Conditions