Publications

August 1989 (Revised January 1992)
Case

Prospect Hill

By: William J. Poorvu and Katherine Sweetman

Bill Hassett, a partner in the Nelson Companies, has to make some important decisions regarding the expansion of Prospect Hill Executive Office Park in Waltham, Massachusetts. The pre-development issues concerning him about the Hillside Building include how to position... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Property; Decisions; Interest Rates; Urban Development; Organizational Structure; Real Estate Industry; Massachusetts

Research Summary

The Architecture of the Integrated Organization

By: Ranjay Gulati

In this research I explore how organizations balance pressures for efficiency with the need to be responsive at the same time. Operating in turbulent global markets it is increasingly important for firms to embrace both global efficiency and also local responsiveness.... View Details

November 2002 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Intel Corporation: 1968-2003

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, David B. Yoffie and Sasha Mattu

Describes three stages in Intel's history: the initial success and then collapse in DRAMs and EPROMs, its transition to and dominance in microprocessors, and its move to become the main supplier of the building blocks for the Internet economy. Allows a rich discussion... View Details

Keywords: History; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Industry Structures; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry

03 Jul 2017
News

Will shareholder pressure reshape company policies?

2020
Book

Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

In industry after industry, data, analytics, and AI-driven processes are transforming the nature of work. While we often still treat AI as the domain of a specific skill, business function, or sector, we have entered a new era in which AI is challenging the very... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Technological Innovation; Change; Competition; Strategy; Leadership; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; AI and Machine Learning

October 2015
Article

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies

By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann

The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Operations; Business Strategy

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16 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

How the Coronavirus Is Already Rewriting the Future of Business

structures also helps within a company. Just about every classic reason that people dislike change under normal circumstances are exacerbated by this crisis: loss of control, excess... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

August 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Supplement

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

October 2010
Journal Article

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel-dataset on firm hierarchies of large U.S. firms (1986-1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Product; Markets; Competition; Organizational Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Rank and Position; Organizational Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Change; Trade; United States

Read Now

The American economy is clearly struggling to recover from a recession of unusual depth and duration, as we are reminded nearly every day. But the United States also faces a less visible but more fundamental challenge: a series of underlying... View Details

November 2022
Case

GE: A New Way Forward?

By: David J. Collis and Haisley Wert

One of the most iconic American companies, General Electric (GE) was founded in 1892 in New York state. Named among the original dozen companies on the Dow Jones index in 1896, it was the list’s most tenacious holdout, maintaining its “blue chip” stock status for over... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; GE; Conglomerate; Conglomerates; Corporate Strategy; Management; History; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Transformation; Strategic Planning; Value Creation; New York (state, US)

2016
Chapter

Unpacking the Dynamics of Successful Change: Ten Insights from the Private Sector

By: Rebecca Henderson

Book Abstract: The aim of this book is to catalyze global interest in the pursuit of transformational changes in natural resource and environmental management. It is shown that transformational policy reforms involve fundamental shifts in strategy with far-reaching... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Transformation; Australia; New Zealand; China; United States; Europe; Southeast Asia

August 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

New Hope Liuhe: Building an Integrated Agri-Food Business

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Shu Lin, Natalie Kindred and Nancy Hua Dai

In October 2018, LIU Chang (Angela), chairman of Beijing-based New Hope Liuhe (NHL), was considering the strategy of the firm. With $9 billion in sales and a presence in nearly 20 countries, NHL was China’s largest animal feed producer and a major pork and poultry... View Details

March 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

In September 2022, Yvon Chouinard, the iconoclastic founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia, announced a new ownership model for his company. Chouinard and his family had held complete control of the company's voting and non-voting stock since its founding 50... View Details

January 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized battery electric vehicle (BEV). He had led... View Details

Keywords: Product Innovation; Product Architecture; Product Engineering; Platform Design; Platform Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Product Design; Product Development; Cost Management; Decision Making; Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Auto Industry; China; Sweden

August 2009
Case

SK Telecom: Pursuing Happiness through Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Christopher Marquis, Kwang Y. Ryu, Philip H. Mirvis and Bobbi Thomason

Since 2006, SK Telecom has worked to develop strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs that are aligned with its business operations and corporate mission. The case tracks the original assessment process the company went through and successive... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; South Korea