Design thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

Research Summary

Political Risk, Foreign Intervention and International Arbitration

The Empire Trap: America's Attempts to Protect Property Rights Overseas, 1898-2008, is a history of the U.S. government's attempts to protect the property rights of American investors when they venture outside the boundaries of the United... View Details

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

assistant professor of strategy at Harvard Business School. “If a CEO can trust his senior managers, he will be more willing to decentralize decision-making” "The bottom line is that whoever is in charge of the acquisitions and the IT strategy, they obviously... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

09 Apr 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

The Dark Side of Performance Bonuses

used in CEO bonus plans, relatively little attention is paid to the design of the bonus plan or unintended consequences. Equality and Equity in Compensation Why do some firms such as technology startups offer the same equity compensation... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

13 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Don't Turn Your Marketing Function Over to AI Just Yet

collect the data, and then expect machine learning methods to spit out insight for you.” “We tend to think that when we have all this rich data and this machine learning technology, that the machines are going to just come up with the... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

do has more impact than you can imagine. A simple eye roll in a meeting could make a subordinate think they’re about to get fired. A “great job” on a new idea proposal could be heard as an official "OK" or even a directive to... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

23 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

and the DNA of innovators. What they have to say might surprise you. Clayton Christensen Can people learn to be more innovative? I don't want to overstate the case. I think about 40 percent of people just are not going to be good at... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

24 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

How Cost Accounting is Improving Healthcare in Rural Haiti

personnel who had no previous experience with measuring costs at all. Working with local administrators, the team designed a simple procedure for collecting data on patient care. As the case explains: “The process started with the data... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

24 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Reducing Risk with Online Advertising

How can online advertising fraud be detected and prevented? What should we look at, where should we look, and what methods and tools should we use? These questions are relevant to anyone who buys online advertising. According to HBS professor Ben Edelman, an expert on... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Video Game; Web Services

18 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask

risk not only doing too much themselves but also losing these valuable employees, who can become frustrated that they aren't being challenged to build their skills and careers at the company. If You Had To Design Your Company Today With A... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

value of AI as an important tool for increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving the quality of survey designs and insights generated within the fast-growing, $80 billion market research industry. “We’re not saying everyone... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

02 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

Presented with a goal to build a car "under 2,000 pounds and under $2,000" by 1970, employees overlooked safety testing and designed a car where the gas tank was vulnerable to explosion from rear-end collisions. Fifty-three people died as... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

25 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

The Secret Life of Supply Chains

economy.” According to the researchers, “Supply chain industries are a distinct and large segment of the economy. In 2015, they accounted for over 53 million jobs, 43 percent of US employment.” “We think this is a breakthrough—a new way... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing; Service

22 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

When Agreeing to Disagree Is a Good Beginning

in recent years, Minson added. “Arguments have become more accusatory and more emotional,” she said. She blames social media. “It’s become so much easier to surround yourself with people who agree with you. Now you can go online and create your own little universe of... View Details

Keywords: by Clea Simon, Harvard Gazette

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

“father of agency theory,” Milton Friedman, reconciled his views with managing for long-term sustainability rather than maximum short-term shareholder value. Jacob Navon said, for example, “I think this whole debate is introducing... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

09 Dec 2013
Research & Ideas

Cultural Disharmony Undermines Workplace Creativity

miscommunication based on cultural differences. "Even though, when you asked them, they didn't think it was a problem, I wondered if it could have an indirect impact on people observing these tensions," he says. Chua compares it to the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 Jan 2020
Book

Rethinking Business Strategy in the Age of AI

control specialists. A lot of people think of this as disruption, like the taxi industry is being disrupted by Uber. It’s not disruption. Rather, it’s a completely different kind of firm. This hasn’t happened in more than 100 years. Firms... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

04 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 4

the right way to proceed? Designed to help students understand the decisions that helped propel Lady Gaga into one of the entertainment world's biggest names. Written from the perspective of her manager, the case provides rich insights... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 May 2010
First Look

First Look: May 25

entail major changes in the current team structure and incentive program within Frito-Lay. Johnson needed to think carefully about this change implementation. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/410103-PDF-ENG... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 7, 2009

for tactical purposes, such as promotional campaigns. Its management team is thinking about how to incorporate that information to the budgeting (profit-planning) process. From an analytical standpoint the case looks at the surprising... View Details