Publications

July 2008
Exercise

Information Use by Managers in Decision Making: A Team Exercise

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ann Cullen

The purpose of this exercise is to explore the challenges of information collection and analysis. Students will, experientially, gain insights into how information is used and be exposed to a framework for identifying and evaluating information. In addition, the... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Decision Making; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Managerial Roles; Business Processes; Groups and Teams

May 2021
Article

Ideology and Composition Among an Online Crowd: Evidence From Wikipedians

By: Shane Greenstein, Grace Gu and Feng Zhu

Online communities bring together participants from diverse backgrounds and often face challenges in aggregating their opinions. We infer lessons from the experience of individual contributors to Wikipedia articles about U.S. politics. We identify two factors that... View Details

Keywords: User Segregation; Online Community; Contested Knowledge; Collective Intelligence; Ideology; Bias; Wikipedia; Knowledge Sharing; Perspective; Government and Politics

September 2018
Article

Rumors and Refugees: How Government-Created Information Vacuums Undermine Effective Crisis Management

By: Melissa Carlson, Laura Jakli and Katerina Linos

Although more than 800,000 displaced people arrived in Greece by sea in 2015, fewer than 5 percent applied for asylum in this first country of arrival. Instead, they either traveled northward informally or remained in Greece in legal limbo. The resultant chaotic... View Details

Keywords: Refugees; Governance Compliance; Knowledge Dissemination; Policy; Crisis Management; Communication; Greece

2015
Working Paper

Bottlenecks, Modules and Dynamic Architectural Capabilities

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

How do firms create and capture value in large technical systems? In this paper, I argue that the points of both value creation and value capture are the system's bottlenecks. Bottlenecks arise first as important technical problems to be solved. Once the problem is... View Details

Keywords: Architecture; Architectural Knowledge; Dynamic Capabilities; Bottleneck; Modularity; Organization Design; Organization Boundaries; Property Rights; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

SSRN

18 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

When Bias Creeps into AI, Managers Can Stop It by Asking the Right Questions

sociodemographic characteristics. HBS Working Knowledge spoke with Israeli, the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration, and Ascarza, the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration, about how View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2016
Article

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence, and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Organization Design; Conway's Law; Knowledge Boundaries; Relational Contracts; Open Source Software; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Boundaries; Knowledge Management; Applications and Software

April 2007
Article

Knowledge-based Innovation: Emergence and Embedding of New Practice Areas in Management Consulting Firms

By: N. Anand, H. K. Gardner and T. Morris

How do innovative knowledge-based structures emerge and become embedded in organizations? We drew on theories of knowledge-intensive firms, communities of practice, and professional service firms to analyze multiple cases of new practice area creation in management... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge; Innovation and Invention; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Economy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Experience and Expertise; Service Operations; Consulting Industry

2012
Chapter

Knowledge-based Innovation: Emergence and Embedding of New Practice Areas in Management Consulting Firms

By: Heidi K. Gardner, N. Anand and Tim Morris

How do innovative knowledge-based structures emerge and become embedded in organizations? We drew on theories of knowledge-intensive firms, communities of practice, and professional service firms to analyze multiple cases of new practice area creation in management... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge; Organizations; Practice; Mathematical Methods; Consulting Industry

06 Apr 2023
Blog Post

Bringing Music to the HBS Classroom: My Journey as a Nontraditional Student in the Summer Venture in Management Program

It was January of 2022 when I stumbled upon the homepage of Harvard Business School’s Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP) while browsing a music industry leader’s LinkedIn page. At the time, with my background in music, non-profit... View Details

December 2002
Article

Something Old, Something New: A Longitudinal Study of Search Behavior and New Product Introduction

By: Riitta Katila and Gautam Ahuja

We examine how firms search, or solve problems, to create new products. According to organizational learning research, firms position themselves in a unidimensional search space that spans a spectrum from local to distant search. Our findings in the global robotics... View Details

Keywords: Problem Solving; New Products; Organizational Learning; Uncertainty; Organizational Research; Knowledge Management; Robotics; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Effectiveness; Innovation Adoption; Strategy; Product Design; Business Processes; Product Development

Other Article

Leadership, Innovation, and Strategic Change: A Conversation with Michael Tushman

By: Michael L. Tushman, Sorah Seong, Yeongsu Kim and Gabriel Szulanski

Continuing the emerging tradition of the Knowledge and Innovation (K&I) Interest Group at the Strategic Management Society (SMS) Conference to interview foundational scholars in strategic management, we invited Professor Michael Tushman from Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Technological Change; Management Education; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Change Management; Business Education

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Important Management Trends of the (Still Young) Twenty-First Century

HBS Working Knowledge recently celebrated its tenth birthday, and we mark the occasion by looking back and looking forward. We've asked HBS Dean Nitin Nohria and a number of faculty to both remark on what they view as the most significant... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2016
Working Paper

Private Networks of Managers and Financial Analysts and Their Externality on a Firm's Information Environment

By: Zengquan Li, T.J. Wong and Gwen Yu

When emerging market firms raise external capital, they face a tradeoff where greater transparency may lead to a lower cost of capital but at the cost of revealing proprietary information in their relational business practices. We find that firms overcome this... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market; Financial Analysts; Information; Emerging Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Corporate Governance

2007
Book

From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession

By: Rakesh Khurana

Is management a profession? Should it be? Can it be? This major work of social and intellectual history reveals how such questions have driven business education and shaped American management and society for more than a century. The book is also a call for reform.... View Details

Keywords: Social History; Business Education; Moral Sensibility; Profit; Leadership; Managerial Roles; United States

20 Feb 2025
Blog Post

IFC India 2025: Building Resilience - Mumbai’s Journey to Sustainable Water Management

Professor Vikram Gandhi’s Immersive Field Course (IFC) “Development while Decarbonizing: India’s Path to Net-Zero" delved into the critical aspect of decarbonization and sustainability goals amid India's rapid development. The course presented an opportunity for... View Details

1984
Book

Technology Crossing Borders: The Choice, Transfer, and Management of International Technology Flows

By: Louis T. Wells and Robert B. Stobaugh

Keywords: Knowledge Dissemination; Technology

fall 1997
Article

The Myth of the Generic Manager: New Personal Competencies for New Management Roles

By: C. A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal

Keywords: Management; Knowledge

September 2013
Teaching Note

The Case of the Unidentified Industries—2013

By: Mihir A. Desai, William E. Fruhan, Jr. and Elizabeth A. Meyer

Helps students to understand how the characteristics of a business are reflected in its financial statements. This case consists of an exercise in which students are given balance sheet data in percentage form and other selected financial data for companies in 14... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Accounting Statements; Ratio Analysis; Financial Statements; Finance