Product Engineering - Publications - Faculty & Research

28 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 28

of Search Engine Services: Channel Interdependence in Search Engine Results By: Edelman, Benjamin, and Zhenyu Lai Abstract—The authors examine prominent placement of search engines' own services and effects... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

Google and Groupon, for instance, a higher percentage of employees work in sales than engineering or data mining. And at Facebook the salesforce's ability to translate 'likes' into advertisers will make or break that company's valuation... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

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

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29 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 29, 2008

Business School Supplement 508-051 508-051 Purchase this supplement: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=508051 Engineering a Renaissance: The Launch of the Harvard School of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

knew from previous experience leading data science at Gap Inc. that consumers get frustrated with slow mobile apps. To him, the most important engineering requirement was providing users with a response to their search in milliseconds... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

capital shortages, distributed urban territory to assuage losers of reform and promote economic growth. The findings suggest that 1) growth strategies, and the territorial politics they produce, are products of the post-Mao urban... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Four VCs on Evaluating Opportunities

usually an engineering challenge that is tough enough to give the company an edge, resulting in several years lead or longer, if we're lucky. We look for a tough problem that hasn't been solved before. The solution can't be so... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Barley

November 2014
Case

Napalm: From Soldiers Field to Trang Bang

By: Tom Nicholas and Jonas Peter Akins

Napalm is one of the most destructive weapons ever to be invented. Yet, at its original inception it was nothing more than a technical challenge, and it was never intended to be used in indiscriminate antipersonnel warfare. The pathway of its development by a Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; War; Chemicals; Research and Development; Chemical Industry; Viet Nam; Cambridge; United States

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09 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

How to Speed Up Energy Innovation

Is there a special sauce for stimulating innovation in the energy sector, a concoction to spur cost-effective developments toward solving the climate change problem? HBS professor Rebecca Henderson doesn't claim to know all the ingredients for that special sauce. But... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

04 Apr 2023
What Do You Think?

How Does Remote Work Affect Innovation?

team weren’t even on the ads team It was the culture that attracted . These five engineers . To the company in the first place. How would this story play out if Google had relied heavily on remote work at the time? Would Jeff Dean and his... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

future at the same time. It is like changing the engine of a plane while it is flying. Based on almost ten years of research, this book provides a framework for companies to reimagine their business. Using rich case studies and rigorous... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

03 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 3

We develop a model of the productive opportunity space for SEOs as a basis and an inspiration for further scholarly inquiry. Order the book: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=0733-558x&volume=33 Egalitarianism, Cultural... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

way or if it's time to part ways–the company has outgrown them. I once had a talented engineer on my team who was a great prototyper but not strong writing production-level code. Each time he tried to follow a project from the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

08 Mar 2016
First Look

March 8, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50668 forthcoming Journal of Marketing Research Design of Search Engine Services: Channel Interdependence in Search Engine Results By: Edelman, Benjamin, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2015
Case

BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm

By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White

BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.

In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Accelerator; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Strategy

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15 Dec 2015
First Look

December 15, 2015

products but erroneously expect others to dislike dissimilar ones (Studies 1 and 2). While people readily select dissimilar items for themselves (particularly if the dissimilar item is of higher quality than a similar one), they fail to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

of randomness. They then crafted prompts—the questions users ask an AI tool—about specific products like toothpaste and laptops, seeking hundreds of responses about whether the “customer” would choose to purchase View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

10 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Time to Move On? Career Advice for Entrepreneurs Preparing for the Next Stage

roles do you know you definitely don’t want? This could be a level of responsibility (e.g., a founding CEO may know they never want to be a CEO again) or within a function of an organization. (e.g., an engineer who became a View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

can't seem to get innovation right. When companies keep improving their existing products and services to meet their best customers' needs, they eventually run into the "innovator's dilemma." By doing everything right, they... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor & Scott D. Anthony

December 2005 (Revised March 2010)
Case

William Levitt, Levittown and the Creation of American Suburbia

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

Demand for low-cost housing after World War II far exceeded supply. Was this a profitable new market? New York developer William Levitt had to decide. During World War II, Levitt was eager to build basic housing for the working class—otherwise, Levitt & Sons would have... View Details