Publications

March 1997
Background Note

Note on Customer Behavior

By: Gerald Zaltman

A review of selected key concepts that are useful for understanding customers. The importance of understanding customers is also discussed, along with a short description of new frontiers in the study of customer behavior. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge; Marketing; Consumer Behavior

April 2000 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Destiny WebSolutions, Inc.

Describes Destiny's use of "pattern language" concepts to structure its business activities. The innovative approach contrasts with a process approach and helps the company balance its needs for scalability with retained agility. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Business Processes

02 Apr 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Making the Move to General Manager

People achieve success in the early years of their career by specializing and becoming functional experts—in essence, they succeed by knowing more and more about less and less, says Benjamin C. Esty, chair of the General Management Program at Harvard Business School.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2019
Technical Note

Technical Note on Bayesian Statistics and Frequentist Power Calculations

By: Amitabh Chandra and Ariel Dora Stern

This Technical Note provides an introduction to Bayes’ Rule and the statistical intuition that stems from it. In this note, we review the concepts that underlie Bayesian statistics, and we offer several simple mathematical examples to illustrate applications of Bayes’... View Details

Keywords: Bayesian Statistics; Mathematical Methods

30 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Repugnant Markets and How They Get That Way

Unfair. Undignified. Inappropriate, unprofessional, distasteful—and most of all, repugnant. To the wonder and surprise of Alvin E. Roth, a Harvard economist, these harsh words are often hoisted to describe an important task of his: designing and building new markets.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

Tactics, deal design, and set-up are three crucial components of the most effective negotiations. Yet many negotiators focus only on the tactical part, running the risk of undermining their own best interests. How can you negotiate more skillfully and confidently with... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World (HBS Press; Boston 2003)

FOR EXECUTIVES, strategists, and students of technology-driven industries, this is a powerful playbook for the high-stakes innovation game. The market is full of fluctuating, and seemingly illogical, fortunes: A long shot like eBay catches fire, while a... View Details

July 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

elBulli: The Taste of Innovation

By: Michael I. Norton, Julian Villanueva and Luc Wathieu

Ferran Adrià, chef at elBulli, the highest-ranked restaurant in the world for two consecutive years, faces two related decisions. First, Adrià and his team must continue to develop new and different dishes for the ground-breaking cuisine at elBulli to guarantee a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Creativity; Food and Beverage Industry; Spain

January 1997 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Value-At-Risk

Introduces the student to the recently developed concept of value-at-risk (VAR) in risk analysis. By working through a stylized example using spreadsheet tools, the student learns the conceptual framework of VAR and its implementation mechanics. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management

05 May 2020
Video

Narayana Murthy

Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the India-based software company Infosys, discusses how he attracted talent to his start-up by pioneering the concept of employee stock options, and providing excellent career... View Details

January 1998 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Acer America: Development of the Aspire

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Anthony St. George

Follows the development, national launch, and global rollout of the Aspire, Acer's first new product developed outside of Taiwan. Implementing a very promising new PC concept proves challenging to Mike Culver and his U.S. team, who are plagued by coordination problems... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Supply Chain; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business Subsidiaries; Product Launch; Computer Industry; United States; Taiwan

May 1988
Background Note

Roles and Relationships of Business and Government

By: George C. Lodge

Synthesizes a wide range of literature and experience concerning comparative government-business relations, focusing especially on Japan, Europe, and the United States with some references to Brazil and Mexico. Designed for discussion in two consecutive class sessions.... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Framework; Government and Politics; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Structure; Business and Government Relations; Mathematical Methods; System; Japan; Europe; Mexico; United States; Brazil

Every manufacturing process leaves waste, but Assistant Professor Deishin Lee believes much of this left-behind material can be put to productive—and profitable—use. Key concepts include:

The concept of "by-product synergy" consists... View Details

25 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse

Most people at one time or another feel as if they are just spinning their wheels, unable to gain traction either in career or in life. This feeling of being stuck in one place, while troubling, is part of a necessary crisis leading to personal growth, says Dr. Timothy... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2023 (Revised February 2025)
Module Note

LCA Module Overview: Customers

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

This note provides an overview of key questions, themes, and concepts to be covered in the module and provides a brief description of each case and how it relates to these questions, themes, and concepts. View Details

July 2009
Exercise

Bringing AMP Home: Personal Memos to Improve Your Organization

By: Max H. Bazerman

This exercise helps AMP participants connect the concepts in AMP to specific issues that are current in their organizations. This exercise is done for each participant and each phase is shared with living group colleagues View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Performance Improvement

Video

5 Steps in the Change Management Process

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

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 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

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