Publications

December 1998
Background Note

Cash Management Practices in Small Companies

By: H. Kent Bowen, Andrew R. Jassy, Laurence E. Katz, Kevin E. Kelly and Baltej Kochar

Most small business managers claim that cash management is their leading concern. Often walking a tightrope between growth and illiquidity, small business managers face different cash management challenges than their counterparts in larger companies. Compared to larger... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Working Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Cash; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Business Strategy

Together with Prof. Daniel F. Spulber (Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University), I edit the Journal of Economics & Management Strategy (JEMS), the leading academic journal on the economics of strategy. JEMS is based at Harvard Business... View Details

May 1994
Background Note

Managing Market Complexity: A Three-Ring Circus

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Proposes models of organization that address the various product-market environments posed by the product life cycle. Frames these changes along the two dimensions of uncertainty and diversity. Offers three sets of organizational characteristics to reflect the three... View Details

Keywords: Business Processes; Growth and Development Strategy; Complexity; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Product Marketing; Markets; Product

Find at Harvard

November 1994 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Dennis Hightower: Walt Disney's Transnational Manager

By: Ashish Nanda

Describes the actions taken by Dennis Hightower as president of Disney Consumer Products in Europe and the Middle East from 1988 to 1994. Focuses on how he has established a regional office and knit local operations closer together, the benefits that the process has... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Consumer Products Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Europe

June 1989
Background Note

Mastering the Art of Change: Managing Convergence and Upheaval

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Outlines the differences between convergent change, which is a process of incremental innovation and continuous improvement, and divergent change, which involves revolutionary changes. Discusses how to manage each type of change and the consequences associated with... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Change

March 2013
Case

Robin Ash and Printzhof Press

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Lynda St. Clair

Robin Ash has just been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Printzhof Press and Vice President of its parent company, Education and Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Her first objective is to create an action plan that will achieve two seemingly contradictory corporate... View Details

Keywords: United States; Organizational Change; Management Styles; General Management; Change Management; Morale; Communication; Human Resource Management; Book Publishing; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Conflict Management; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Organizational Culture; Planning; Education Industry; Publishing Industry

June 2011
Article

Stepping into the Unknown: How Companies Learn through Risk Management

By: Anette Mikes

Risk management can add value through the continuous questioning of existing controls, strategies, and scenarios. The article outlines a new framework for risk management predicated on the notion of organizational learning, and illustrates it by a case study of a... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Framework; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2011
Article

Strategic Change and the Jazz Mindset: Exploring Practices That Enhance Dynamic Capabilities for Organizational Improvisation

By: Ethan S. Bernstein and Frank J. Barrett

How can leaders adopt a mindset that maximizes learning, remains responsive to short-term emergent opportunities, and simultaneously strengthens longer-term dynamic capabilities of the organization? This chapter explores the organizational decisions and practices... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Capabilities; Strategic Change; Jazz; Jazz Mindset; Improvisation; Innovation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Leadership; Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizations; Creativity; Strategy; Auto Industry; Banking Industry; Bicycle Industry; Computer Industry; Consulting Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Education Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Health Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Music Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Retail Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Japan; Taiwan; Europe; Asia

Read Now

Forthcoming
Chapter

Organizational Sustainability: Organization Design and Senior Leadership to Enable Strategic Paradox

By: Wendy K. Smith, Marianne W. Lewis and Michael L. Tushman

Keywords: Organizational Design; Management Teams; Strategy; Performance

Find at Harvard

1998
Working Paper

Organizational Form and Risk Taking in the U.S. Cable Television Industry

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Keywords: Risk Management; Organizational Design; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

2013
Case

Innovation and Development of China Machine Press in the New Century

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ning Jia and Guo Jia

China Machine Press (CMP), founded in 1952, is a leading multi-field, multi-discipline and multimedia publishing group in China with large scale, comprehensive and specialized business that integrates paper media, audiovisual media and online media, and combines... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organizational Structure; Strategy; China; China

29 Apr 2015
HBS Seminar

Jason Jay, MIT Sloan School of Management

March 1993
Background Note

Stages Theory, The: A Framework for IT Adoption and Organizational Learning

By: Richard L. Nolan, David Croson and Katherine Seger

Describes Professor Richard Nolan's Stages Theory of Information Technology adoption by organizations. View Details

Keywords: Information; Body of Literature; Information Management; Information Publishing; Adoption; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Decision Making; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

TeachingInterests

Executive Education - Owner/President Management Program

By: Martin A. Sinozich

Delivered in three units that span 24 months over three calendar years, the Owner/President Management (OPM) program is a transformative learning experience that boosts leadership skills and the value of participants’ enterprises. Sinozich teaches the Finance... View Details

08 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

The Death of the Global Manager

When Transnational Management was first published in 1992, the world was a different place. "The global economy was radically restructuring in the wake of an era of accelerating globalization in the 1980s," says Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

October 2005 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities

Describes the efforts of Volkswagen of America, the U.S. subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, to arrive at a process for setting IT funding priorities so that they align with business priorities and the company's overall strategy. The process is carefully thought out and... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Business Subsidiaries; Resource Allocation; Information Technology; Alignment; Auto Industry; United States

October 2019
Teaching Note

Managing the Future of Work

By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg

This teaching note has been prepared to assist instructors with teaching HBS Case Study 818-128 "Managing the Future of Work.' This case has been designed to introduce leaders from various sectors to the Future of Work, and to give them the analytical tools and... View Details

Keywords: Future Of Work; Employment; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities