Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,497)
- Faculty Publications (456)
- October 2009 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Ingrid Johnson and Nedbank Business Banking
By: Michael Tushman and David Kiron
This case discusses the issue of leading change at the business banking division of Nedbank, a prominent South African bank, between 2005 and 2009. (This timeframe, beginning just 11 years after Apartheid's end, covers Ingrid Johnson's leadership of this division... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
Elkay Plumbing Products Division
By: Robert S. Kaplan
The vice president of sales learns that the most profitable 1% of the division's customers generate 100% of profits, and that two of the division's largest customers lose 50% of profits. The division has just finished a project to install a time-driven activity-based... View Details
- September 2009
- Article
Are You Having Trouble Keeping Your Operations Focused?
As a business broadens over time, it can lose the operational edge that led to its original success. Core strengths atrophy, efficiency or quality suffers, and sharper rivals close in to take advantage of the loss of focus. In his classic article "The Focused Factory"... View Details
- September – October 2009
- Article
Critical Decisions in Software Development: Updating the State of the Practice
By: Alan MacCormack, Michael A. Cusumano, Chris Kemerer and Bill Crandall
This article focuses on how to choose the "right" software development process, how to structure global software design chains, how to manage the interaction of project structure and software design, and how to balance innovation and efficiency in a software business. View Details
- July 2009 (Revised December 2009)
- Case
Echoing Green
By: Julie Battilana, Thomas J. DeLong and James Weber
This case presents the leadership challenges that Cheryl Dorsey, the president of Echoing Green, faces in early 2009. Echoing Green is a fellowship program that seeks to improve society by identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs who launch organizations to... View Details
- June 2009 (Revised May 2013)
- Case
Australia: The Riches and Challenges of Commodities
By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faced a daunting task that he never imagined he would have to face when he was elected two years ago. Australia at that time was poised to enter its 17th year of uninterrupted growth. Commodity exports were booming, largely driven... View Details
Keywords: Financial Crisis; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Policy; Crisis Management; China; Australia
- June 2009 (Revised February 2010)
- Case
Cirque du Soleil -- The High-Wire Act of Building Sustainable Partnerships
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Maxime Aucoin
The case describes the history and business model of Cirque du Soleil (CdS). The case allows for a rich discussion and analysis of Cirque du Soleil's business model with an emphasis on how it interacts with that of MGM Mirage. Le Cirque and MGM's business models... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance
By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
In this paper, we consider how the structures of tasks and teams interact to affect team performance. We study the effects of diversity in experience on a team's ability to respond to task changes, by separately examining interpersonal team diversity (i.e., differences... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making
By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details
- 2009
- Other Unpublished Work
Steering Monetary Policy Through Unprecedented Crises
By: David Moss and Cole Bolton
In early April 2008, economic conditions in Europe appeared to be deteriorating on almost all fronts: sales figures were falling, business and consumer confidence were slumping, forecasts for European growth were being revised downward, and inflation was rising. In... View Details
- February 2009 (Revised April 2011)
- Case
Mistry Architects (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles and Mona Sinha
Describes an architecture firm founded and run by a husband and wife team, Sharukh and Renu Mistry, that emphasizes "green" building. The firm presents an unusual mix of projects-spanning the spectrum from larger corporate projects to small private homes. The mix also... View Details
- February 2009 (Revised April 2011)
- Supplement
Mistry Architects (B)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles and Mona Sinha
This case is a follow-up of Mistry Architects: Innovating for Sustainability (A) (Case 609-044). In Case (A) Sharukh and Renu Mistry found and run an architectural firm dedicated to being both client-oriented and environmentally responsible. The case uses a difficult... View Details
- February 2009 (Revised April 2011)
- Supplement
Mistry Architects (C)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles and Mona Sinha
This case is a follow-up to "Mistry Architects: Innovating for Sustainability (A)" (Case 609-044) and (B) (Case 609-064). In Case (A) Sharukh and Renu Mistry founded and run an architectural firm dedicated to being both client-oriented and environmentally responsible.... View Details
- February 2009 (Revised September 2011)
- Case
Big Spaceship: Ready to Go Big?
By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind
Big Spaceship, a digital marketing agency, faced a rather big challenge: How to scale the distinctive culture that was essential to its competitive strategy? Renowned for the cutting-edge websites that it developed to market major Hollywood movies and leading consumer... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
Omron: Sensing Society
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ethan S Bernstein
"Leading profitable growth is only part of the goal. We cannot live without breathing, but we do not live in order to take a breath,” said Omron's President and CEO, Hisao Sakuta, in 2008. Omron, a $7B global supplier of sensors, control system components, advanced... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Intel NBI: Intel Corporation's New Business Initiatives (A)
By: Willy C. Shih and Thomas Thurston
For Intel Corporation, the processes and priorities that have made it so successful are difficult to overcome as the company tries to diversify away from its core. The case examines the history and evolution of the New Business Initiatives (NBI) group, as the leader... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised December 2008)
- Supplement
Gillette Company (E): Procter & Gamble
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Matthew Bird
After arriving in 2001 as the first outsider Chairman and CEO in Gillette history, Jim Kilts led a remarkable turnaround. But by late 2004 he had to make a difficult decision. To better position the 104-year-old, Boston-based company, he opted to sell it to... View Details
- October 2008
- Article
Organizational Responses to Environmental Demands: Opening the Black Box
By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
This paper combines new and old institutionalism to explain differences in organizational strategies. We propose that differences in the influence of corporate departments lead their facilities to prioritize different external pressures and thus adopt different... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised September 2009)
- Case
Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Matthew Bird
Since the 1980s, Procter & Gamble had leveraged its purpose, values, and principles (PVP) to create a global company. When P&G faced difficult times in 2000, the new CEO, A.G. Lafley, leveraged the PVP to drive P&G's turnaround, integrate global operations, and guide... View Details
- Article
Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?
What happens when small iconic socially oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but they also pose unusually difficult challenges... View Details