Publications

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25 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Importance of Teaming

need to develop and use new capabilities for sharing crucial knowledge quickly. They must learn to ask questions clearly and frequently. They must make the small adjustments through which different skills and View Details

Keywords: Re: Amy C. Edmondson

March 2019
Article

When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?

By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Field Experiment; Peer Effects; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Advice; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Knowledge Dissemination; Entrepreneurship; Performance; India

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January 2014 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Nivea (A)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Johann Fuller, Volker Bilgram and Greta Friar

The case describes the efforts of Beiersdorf, a worldwide leader in the cosmetics and skin care industries, to generate and commercialize new R&D through open innovation using external crowds and "netnographic" analysis. Beiersdorf, best known for its consumer brand... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Innovation Management; Crowdsourcing; Big Data; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Research and Development; Social and Collaborative Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Analytics and Data Science; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry

September 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?

By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg

In late 2018, evidence emerged that many of Google’s temporary help agency workers, vendors, and independent contractors (“TVCs”) were unhappy with the company. TVCs, who reportedly made up 49.95% of Google’s 170,000-person global workforce, had raised concerns of... View Details

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Organizing for Performance: Four Vignettes

By: Robert Simons

This case provides four examples of organizations with very different business strategies: Walmart, Starbucks, Harvard Business School, and Google. To support their varying strategies, each of these organizations requires a specific configuration to provide the most... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization; Span Of Control; Job Design; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

03 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2010

more effective negotiator, and motivating great work from others. Here are the Top 10 articles and Top 10 working papers that appeared in HBS Working Knowledge in 2010. Now turn your attention to 2011 and tell us in the Comment section... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

March 2002 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Intevis: Brokering the Boundaryless Career

Illustrates technology strategy, knowledge management, and the challenges of managing temporary professionals in the increasingly modular semiconductor industry. View Details

Keywords: Technology; Knowledge Management; Employees; Semiconductor Industry

2021
Chapter

Generating Social Entrepreneurship Knowledge: International Research Collaboration on a Hemispheric Level

By: James E. Austin, Gabriel Berger, Rosa Amelia González, Roberto Gutiérrez, Iván D. Lobo and Alfred Vernis

Provide insights on how social entrepreneurship (SE) knowledge can be more effectively generated by universities through the entrepreneurial creation and effective management of a knowledge network centered on international collaborative research; illuminate how one... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Knowledge; Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Global Range

August 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

MindTree: A Community of Communities

By: David A. Garvin and Rachna Tahilyani

MindTree is a mid-sized Indian IT services company known for its knowledge management practices, its collaborative communities, and its strong culture and values. The CEO has set a goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014; to reach that goal, employees must create... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Employee Relationship Management; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology Industry; India

March–April 2012
Article

The Genesis and Dynamics of Organizational Networks

By: Gautam Ahuja, Guiseppe Soda and Akbar Zaheer

An extensive body of knowledge exists on network outcomes and on how network structures may contribute to the creation of outcomes at different levels of analysis, but less attention has been paid to understanding how and why organizational networks emerge, evolve, and... View Details

Keywords: Economic Sociology; Economics And Organization; Social Networks; Organization And Management Theory; Interorganizatonal Relationships; Networks; Strategy; Change

September 1997 (Revised October 1997)
Case

Information at the World Bank: In Search of a Technology Solution (B)

By: W. Earl Sasser and Josep Valor

Acting on his vision to make the World Bank a knowledge institution, bank President Wolfensohn announces the creation of an Information and Knowledge Management Council and an Information Solutions Group, headed by a newly nominated CEO, Mohamed Muhsin. This case... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Knowledge Management; Management Teams; Information Management; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

03 May 2024
Research & Ideas

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters' Worth to Be Exact

A new study of startups sharing a coworking space offers a new wrinkle in the debate over work-from-anywhere: Proximity matters, especially close proximity, to spread knowledge between disparate enterprises. “The more different the... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

June 1996 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Skandia AFS: Developing Intellectual Capital Globally

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Takia Mahmood

Focuses on the measurement and management of organizational knowledge as a strategic asset, and on the deployment of information technology, organizational structure, and processes in leveraging that asset. View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Alliances; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology

August 1979
Case

Claire McCloud

Describes the situation faced by a young MBA with an economics background who is offered the opportunity to manage a high technology fiber optics business. Designed to facilitate exploring the skills and knowledge that the general manager of a technology-based firm... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Management Skills; Technology Industry

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

knowledge sharing outside one’s core department. That is one implication of a new study about how knowledge is shared that focuses on academia, but may offer lessons for technology, pharmaceutical... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

Research Summary

(formerly Leonard-Barton) Creating and Exploiting Knowledge-Based Assets

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

For the past decade, Dorothy Leonard's research has focused on how companies develop and exploit strategically advantageous knowledge assets. In her 1995 book Wellsprings of Knowledge (HBS Press), she identified and described in depth, activities that create and... View Details

27 Dec 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Team Learning Capabilities: A Meso Model of Sustained Innovation and Superior Firm Performance

Keywords: by Jean-François Harvey, Henrik Bresman, and Amy C. Edmondson

September 2000 (Revised March 2006)
Case

ZOOTS--The Cleaner Cleaner

By: Myra M. Hart and Sharon Peyus

A successful entrepreneur (retailing) starts a new venture in dry cleaning. The case focuses on transferable models, skills, and knowledge from one venture to the next. Areas of emphasis are: managing growth, challenges of operations, financing, and competitive moves. View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Competitive Strategy; Operations; Knowledge Dissemination; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; Service Industry; Retail Industry

2015
Other Teaching and Training Material

Marketing Reading: Marketing Intelligence

By: Robert J. Dolan and Leslie K. John

This reading provides the basic knowledge a marketing manager needs in order to choose the right combination of research methods, as well as the best way to present research findings to stakeholders. Furthermore, this Reading shows how effective decision making hinges... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Research; Marketing; Research