Publications

Article

Entrepreneurship in the Large Corporation: A Longitudinal Study of How Established Firms Create Breakthrough Inventions

By: Gautam Ahuja and Curba Morris Lampert

We present a model that explains how established firms create breakthrough inventions. We identify three organizational pathologies that inhibit breakthrough inventions: the familiarity trap—favoring the familiar; the maturity trap—favoring the mature;... View Details

Keywords: Radical Innovation; Organizational Learning; Technology; Strategy; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Processes; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

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01 Jun 2006
News

Faculty Books

corporate headquarters’ role in setting, coordinating, and overseeing organizational strategy. The book’s case studies, frameworks, and sample scorecards show how to align business and support units, boards of directors, and external... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

December 2005 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Pharmacy Service Improvement at CVS (A)

CVS's retail pharmacy operations are functioning poorly and dissatisfying customers. Many customers are defecting as a result. A pharmacy service improvement team has documented the current prescription fulfillment process, its exception rates, and the problems... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Retail Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

01 Oct 2001
News

Calling the Tune: Negotiation as an Improvisational Dance

Before you make that next big deal — to buy a car, hire new staff, or acquire a company — you'd better brush up on your ballroom skills. In business today, negotiating is more like an intricate dance than a cold transaction, according to... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

24 Feb 2017
Blog Post

Advice for Prospective Latino Students

surround myself with others that could empathize with my challenges as one of the few Latinos in my engineering and business courses. Transitioning into my career was an elevated version of undergrad with fewer Latinos, creating more... View Details

05 Dec 2016
Blog Post

5 Pieces of Advice for Applying to HBS

There’s no doubt that applying to business school can be a stressful undertaking. Researching MBA programs, taking the GMAT, writing essays, chasing after recommenders (often while also trying to balance a full time job) can be downright... View Details

21 Dec 2021
Blog Post

Creativity from Many Angles

Upbeat, collaborative, and engaged.” That’s how Professor Teresa Amabile describes a gathering of 85 scholars and 15 business leaders held on the HBS campus in early December. The two-day Centennial conference, “Creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

2011
Working Paper

Managerial Practices That Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers

By: Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer and Michael W. Toffel

Process-improvement ideas often come from frontline workers who speak up by voicing concerns about problems and by taking charge to resolve them. We hypothesize that organization-wide process-improvement campaigns encourage both forms of speaking up, especially voicing... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Practices and Processes; Operations; Business Processes; Performance Improvement

SSRN

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June 2008 (Revised January 2012)
Background Note

Solving a Problem or Sounding the Alarm? Guidelines on Blowing the Whistle

By: Lynn S. Paine and Lara Adamsons

Many of us will at some point in our professional lives encounter situations involving what we believe to be wrongful or injurious activities that may cause harm to innocent parties, our company, or the public. It may be necessary to bring the matter to the attention... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Business Processes; Behavior

March 1998 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Bumper Acquisition (C), A

By: James K. Sebenius and David T. Kotchen

Carries the negotiation between Thermo-Impact and Medallion Capital through October 1996. The companies began talks in 1995 when Medallion offered to buy Thermo-Impact. Students view developments from the perspective of Thermo-Impact's owners and must make decisions... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Entrepreneurship; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Illinois

July 1998 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Tobacco Negotiations

By: Michael A. Wheeler and Georgia Levenson

Chronicles the negotiation of the proposed national settlement between the states and the five major U.S. tobacco companies. View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Types; Negotiation Process; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Products Industry; United States

August 1995 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Stonehaven, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen and Ramchandran Jaikumar

Stonehaven is a disguised version of a shoe factory located in Central Europe that must respond quickly to mix and volume changes for the U.S.-based company. Shoemaking involves several distinctly different processes, which must be designed and managed in a way to give... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Business Processes; Performance Capacity; Change Management; Design; Consumer Products Industry; Europe; United States

June 2010
Teaching Note

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (TN)

By: Anita L. Tucker

Teaching Note for 609109. View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Management Practices and Processes; Strategy; Business Units; Science; Health Industry

October 2016
Case

Malenti Strings: Intrapreneurship within FLG, Inc.

By: David A. Garvin and Rachel Gordon

This case follows Jenica Fletcher as she rebuilds her company's guitar strings division from the ground up. Convinced that she could turn the division around if given complete independence from corporate headquarters, Fletcher relocated the group, rebranded it as... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Restructuring; Business Divisions; Consumer Products Industry

01 Mar 2008
News

Faculty Books

How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy by John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz (HBS Press) Professor Quelch and Research Associate Jocz demonstrate marketing's critical role in the growth and governance of societies and how good marketing improves the political... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

2012
Book

Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams That Got Them Right

By: Thomas H. Davenport and Brook Manville

This book includes twelve detailed stories of organizations that have successfully tapped their data assets, diverse perspectives, and deep knowledge to build an organizational decision-making capability. The book introduces a model that utilizes the collective... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Judgment; Decision-making; Decisions; Organizational Structure; Business Processes

February 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Sarah Powers at Automated Precision Products

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Michael Norris, Julia Kelley and Kristina Tobio

In 2017, Sarah Powers, VP of Sales at an automation hardware firm, is trying to understand why some members of her sales team have been underperforming. She is tasked with analyzing her firm’s email and calendar data to try to find relationships between communications... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Sales Attainment; Communication Networks; Data; Human Resources; Business Processes; Sales; Communication; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States