Publications

SSRN

Research Summary

Overview

By: Iavor I. Bojinov

Over the last decade, technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix have pioneered data-driven research and development processes centered on massive experimentation. However, as companies increase the breadth and scale of their experiments to millions of... View Details

January 1998
Case

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Customer Relationship Management; Quality; Training; Performance Efficiency; Cost Management; Sales; System

25 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 25

(September 2009): 90-95 Abstract As a business broadens over time, it can lose the operational edge that led to its original success. Core strengths atrophy, efficiency or quality suffers, and sharper rivals... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Overview

Over the last decade, technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix have pioneered data-driven research and development processes centered on massive experimentation. However, as companies increase the breadth and scale of their experiments to millions of... View Details

26 Apr 2023
In Practice

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

supply. "Once companies learn how to exploit generative AI, we can anticipate rapid restructuring at many companies that involve substantial cuts in white-collar staff." Historically, companies have asked, “How can this new technology improve the View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

January 2024
Supplement

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein and Tatiana Sandino

As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Management Style; Business Model; Knowledge Dissemination; Learning; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; Netherlands

23 Aug 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Capturing Benefits from Tomorrow’s Technology in Today’s Products: The Effect of Absorptive Capacity

Keywords: by Daniel Snow; Technology

Person Page

Press / Media

By: Gary P. Pisano

Thought Leader: Gary Pisano

by Amy Bernstein, strategy+business, Summer 2007

A leading student of the biotech business describes the problems holding the industry back, and how it can overcome... View Details

December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

WayCool: Addressing Food Loss

By: Rajiv Lal and Kairavi Dey

Headquartered in Chennai, India, WayCool started by focusing on solving the growing challenge of food losses and low farmer incomes. Dasari and Jayaraman, surprised at the amount of fruits and vegetables lost in the agricultural supply chain, set up the company with... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Food; Supply Chain; Loss; Expansion; Distribution Channels; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Asia; India; Bangalore; Chennai

2015
Working Paper

The Impact of Funds: An Evaluation of CDC 2004-12

By: Josh Lerner, Ann Leamon, Steve Dew and Dong Ik Lee

CDC was founded in 1948 as part of the U.K. government's efforts to develop the economic resources of Britain's remaining colonies. Since then, CDC has pursued a series of strategies to "do good without losing money," as its original mission was phrased. Its approach... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Great Britain

2019
Working Paper

Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose

By: Malcolm S. Salter

In this paper, I address how the ascendance of the theory of shareholder value maximization into the central consciousness of public corporations and its canonization as the only legitimate expression of corporate purpose has contributed to both a widening breach... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Justice; Corporate Purpose; Shareholder Value Maximization; Ethical Reciprocity; Economic Systems; Business Ventures; Mission and Purpose; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

SSRN

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

middle managers. What about efficiency? As the nursing shortage is predicted to become more severe, all health organizations, including Buurtzorg, will be under pressure to become more efficient with nursing time. A traditional approach... View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

July 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Turnaround at the Veterans Health Administration (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Brian R. Golden and Gary J. Young

Investigates the challenges that Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer confronted in seeking to create organizational change at the largest integrated health care system in North America, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Kizer was appointed as the Under Secretary of Health, to... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation; Leadership; Consolidation; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Health Industry; Public Administration Industry; North and Central America

14 Jun 2023
Op-Ed

Every Company Should Have These Leaders—or Develop Them if They Don't

We’ve long known that organizations require so-called flexible leaders to respond to rapid market fluctuations; the last couple of years have only emphasized that necessity. The environment we operate in—shaped by the pandemic, social... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson

Web

Podcast - Business & Environment

capital management, innovation initiatives, and operating companies like Circular Services. She shares how their private equity, venture capital, and catalytic credit strategies are helping scale recycling, reuse, and circular supply... View Details

Article

Highways and Spatial Location within Cities: Evidence from India

By: Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover Goswami and William R. Kerr

We investigate the impact of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project on the spatial organization and efficiency of manufacturing activity. The GQ project upgraded the quality and width of 3,633 miles of road in India. We use a difference-in-difference estimation... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure; Transportation; India

June 2010 (Revised September 2010)
Case

athenahealth: Innovating in Response to a Crisis in Healthcare

When Jonathan Bush and his partner, Todd Park, realized that their revolutionary approach to delivering clinical care was being stymied by the inefficiencies in the healthcare system and insurance red tape, they turned their proprietary technology, athenaNet, to a new... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Information Management; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Health Industry; United States

November 1987 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Groen: A Dover Industries Company

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the challenges facing the president of an old-line foodservice and food processing equipment manufacturing company as it attempted to accelerate sales and profit growth through the introduction of innovative products. The introduction of a "revolutionary"... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Labor and Management Relations; Machinery and Machining; Management Style; Management Teams; Performance Efficiency; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Organizational Culture