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July 2011 (Revised September 2012)
Case

Industrial Metrology: Getting In-Line? (A)

By: Willy Shih

Metrology plays a key role in the manufacture of mechanical components. Traditionally it is used extensively in a pre-process stage where a manufacturer does process planning, design, and ramp-up, and in post-process off-line inspection to establish proof of quality.... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Machinery and Machining; Measurement and Metrics; Product Design; Planning; Quality; Opportunities; Competitive Strategy; Diversification; Segmentation; Technology Adoption; Theory; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

June 20, 2013
Article

The Tyranny of Minority Shareholders

By: Josh Baron and Henry Foley

The article discusses challenges arising from minority ownership in the context of the proposed Empire State Building IPO. It emphasizes the complexities that minority shareholders can introduce in business decisions when families take their assets public. The article... View Details

Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations; Ownership; Family Ownership; Corporate Governance; Power and Influence

Article

Active World Model Learning with Progress Curiosity

By: Kuno Kim, Megumi Sano, Julian De Freitas, Nick Haber and Daniel Yamins

World models are self-supervised predictive models of how the world evolves. Humans learn world models by curiously exploring their environment, in the process acquiring compact abstractions of high bandwidth sensory inputs, the ability to plan across long temporal... View Details

Keywords: World Models; Mathematical Methods

January 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Jiamei Dental: Private Health Care in China

By: William C. Kirby and G.A. Donovan

With the recent announcement from the Chinese government that the country's healthcare system was going to undergo reform, Jiamei Dental Chairman Liu Jia wondered what that meant for his 15 year-old dental clinic business. Founded in 1993, Jiamei Dental Medical... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Expansion; Health Industry; China

Educators

August 1994 (Revised May 1995)
Case

Engineering Inspection & Insurance Company

By: Robert H. Hayes

Engineering Inspection & Insurance Co. (EIIC) is a small but highly successful company that offers machinery and boiler inspection and insurance services. After years of above-average growth and profits, both are retreating toward the industry average, policy delivery... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Business Strategy; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Insurance; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Insurance Industry; United States

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

By: Shikhar Ghosh

I am focused on exploring the human side of developing early stage entrepreneurial ventures. These enterprises are characterized by the pursuit of opportunity, shortage of resources to pursue their goals and uncertainty at every step of the journey. Some of the... View Details

Keywords: Scale; Exit; Founders' Agreements; Success Measures; Entrepreneurial Risk; Founding Teams; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Europe; Middle East; Asia

2023
Working Paper

El Dorado Lost: Local Elites, Real Estate and the Education Business in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolving, complex and multifaceted relationship between the real estate industry and the education sector in China. The current crises in the private education and real estate sectors caused by policy shifts reflect the inter-meshing of... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Policy; Government and Politics; Economic Sectors; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China

SSRN

March 2025
Article

Novice Risk Work: How Juniors Coaching Seniors on Emerging Technologies Such as Generative AI Can Lead to Learning Failures

By: Katherine C. Kellogg, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Steven Randazzo, Ethan Mollick, Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon and Karim R. Lakhani

The literature on communities of practice demonstrates that a proven way for senior professionals to upskill themselves in the use of new technologies that undermine existing expertise is to learn from junior professionals. It notes that juniors may be better able... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Competency and Skills; Technology Adoption; Experience and Expertise; AI and Machine Learning

18 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Organization Design for Distributed Innovation

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin

January 2024
Supplement

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting—and... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Talent and Talent Management; Compensation and Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Consulting Industry

September 2011
Supplement

TopCoder (B)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Eric Lonstein and Stephanie Pokrywa

Metrology plays a key role in the manufacture of mechanical components. Traditionally it is used extensively in a pre-process stage where a manufacturer does process planning, design, and ramp-up, and in post-process off-line inspection to establish proof of quality.... View Details

Keywords: Industry Growth; Forecasting and Prediction; Change Management; Production; Machinery and Machining; Planning; Quality; Competition; Diversification; Technology Adoption; Measurement and Metrics; Product Design; Manufacturing Industry

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate; Early Childhood Education; Performance Evaluation; Teaching; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Nonprofit Organizations; Private Sector; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China

May 1992 (Revised January 2000)
Supplement

ABB: Accountability Times Two (B)

By: Robert L. Simons

Describes internal allocation conflicts in a complex global company structured as a matrix organization. ABB Switzerland has secured and will build an important power station project; however, internal market allocation policies dictate that this work be handled by ABB... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Conflict Management; Complexity; Sweden; Switzerland

24 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 24

Political Markets: The Soft Underbelly of Capitalism By: Ramanna, Karthik Abstract—"Thin political markets" are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Michael Porter’s Prescription For the High Cost of Health Care

We believe that competition is the root of the problem with U.S. health care performance. But this does not mean we advocate a state-controlled system or a single-payer system; those approaches would only make matters worse. On the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter; Health

18 Feb 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

Keywords: by Lyra Colfer & Carliss Y. Baldwin

16 Aug 2016
First Look

August 16, 2016

to dealers with whom they have the strongest ties, and more so during periods of market turmoil. Systemically important dealers exploit their connections at the expense of peripheral dealers as well as clients, charging higher markups... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2012
Working Paper

The Impact of Modularity on Intellectual Property and Value Appropriation

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel

Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect intellectual property (IP). We... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Value; Complexity; Intellectual Property

SSRN