Publications

May 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

BEA Systems, Inc.: Constant Reinvention to Cope with Market Waves

Developed in 1995 as a specialist software vendor, BEA Systems, Inc. had already transformed itself twice from a transaction processing product company to a server application provider. By July 2002, it had become the fastest company in history to reach $1 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Business Growth and Maturation; Management Practices and Processes; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

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16 Jul 2024
Op-Ed

Corporate Boards Are Failing in Their No. 1 Duty

thought to the challenges the company will face in the years ahead. While it is impossible to completely predict the future business environment, boards should be looking for leaders who are visionary as well as adaptable to View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

February 2023
Supplement

Grupo Sancor Seguros: Facing the Digital Transformation of Insurance in Argentina (B)

By: Jorge Tamayo, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In 2021, Alejandro Simón, CEO of Sancor Seguros Group, had to reassess the Group’s digital transformation strategy. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Cooperative Ownership; Strategy; Business Strategy; Adaptation; Technology Adoption; Insurance Industry; Latin America; South America; Argentina

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

How Business Strategy Tamed the “Invisible Hand”

presumably based on its distinctive competence, rather than consciously serving the customer. Levitt thus argued that when companies fail, "it usually means that the product fails to adapt to the constantly View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

September 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and Mala Kaul

The Telemonitoring at Visiting Nurse Health System case presents one home healthcare organization's efforts to use telemonitoring to improve the quality of care provided to at-risk patients who were discharged from hospitals and needed home care. After two years of... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Cost vs Benefits; Risk Management; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry

23 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Market Research Meets the “People Factor”

impact that it should. The professors offer suggestions for both groups, so that both sides can better understand the other's point of view and use research more effectively. Even favorable surprises imply a View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

September 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

From Beirut With Love (A)

By: Christina R. Wing, Esel Y. Cekin and Samer Al-Rachedy

This case describes how Robert Fadel, CEO and chairman of ABC, one of Lebanon’s leading retail and real estate groups, professionalized the family business. Robert was the second son of the company’s founder, Maurice Fadel, who had run it single-handedly. Concerned... View Details

01 Dec 2014
News

Research Brief: The Power of Could

do—rather than what you should do—helped participants see existing options as less incompatible, generated a broader range of creative solutions, and led more directly to moral insight in decision-making with others. “What we were quite... View Details

12 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

Crowded at the Top: The Rise of the Functional Manager

managers have risen in power, general managers may be losing some of theirs. A new working paper, Who Lives in the C-Suite? Organizational Structure and the Division of Labor in Top Management, explores... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

12 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide

within stores. Align incentives within your organization and in the supply chain. Use technology judiciously and pay attention to emerging new technologies, whose value might still not be apparent. Explain... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Retail; Auto

July – August 2011
Article

Evolve (Again)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Frenzy over social networks and interactive media can produce equally overhyped predictions that everything will change, not to mention money-losing investments in silly ventures. Separating enduring strategic lessons from the hype can help avoid a new crash. Hint: the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Investment; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships

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March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Supplement

From "BIG" Ideas to Sustainable Impact at ICL Group (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

In August 2023, Raviv Zoller, CEO of ICL Group, discussed his upcoming business trip to St. Louis with Eduard Croitoru, VP of ICL Corporate Initiatives, to commemorate the construction of ICL's new $400 million advanced manufacturing facility. In preparation for the... View Details

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

A Fast Start on Your New Job

been doing on the management of organizational change. The more I studied leaders who were trying to make changes in their organizations, the more I realized that they were usually in the midst of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

14 Jun 2016
First Look

June 14, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51141 2016 Organizational Routines: How They Are Created, Maintained, and Changed Teaming Routines in Complex Innovation Projects... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

31 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: Jan. 31

hospital emergency room and focuses on the effects of a new organizational structure, which we call a team scaffold, on teaming effectiveness and performance outcomes. Using a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne & Carmen Nobel

November 2023 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Aviva plc: Examining Net Zero

By: Peter Tufano, Brian Trelstad and Matteo Gasparini

The board of Aviva Plc, one of the world’s largest insurers, must review its climate risk exposures and evaluate next steps. Risk experts at the firm have conducted a robust set of analyses prepared for its regulator, the Bank of England, simulating how various climate... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Climate Change; Insurance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Risk Management; Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; Europe; United Kingdom