Publications

June 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Netflix's Culture: Binge or Cringe?

By: Hubert Joly, Leonard A. Schlesinger, James Barnett and Stacy Straaberg

In May 2022, streaming entertainment company Netflix lost customers for the first time in more than 10 years. Once a first mover in the streaming landscape, Netflix was facing competition from Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, and others. A key component of... View Details

27 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

Want a Happy Customer? Coordinate Sales and Marketing

Financial performance is the result of operating performance. Operating performance includes all the things that a company must do to win the competitive battle in its industry to attract, retain, and profitably serve customers. It varies... View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

creative or integrative thinking, or experiential learning and project work. A few schools were cutting-edge in one or more of these areas. Other schools felt that the business school community as a whole had a long way to go. So while... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

2011
Book

Detour: My Unexpected, Amazing, Life Changing Journey With OnStar

By: Chet Huber

Detour is the story behind the launch of OnStar’s now well known blue button, as told through the eyes of its founder and CEO of over fourteen years, Chet Huber. It’s a personal narrative that describes the events that led up to General Motors’ unexpected choice... View Details

Keywords: General Motors; OnStar; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Transportation; Safety; Personal Development and Career; Creativity; Success; Business History; Auto Industry

Find at Harvard

28 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

hour-long discussion driving around the city. Young Kapur had just joined the firm Ogilvy & Mather after a brief stint at Citibank, where he’d decided he needed a more creative career. His conversation with Ogilvy confirmed that he’d... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

19 Sep 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Say Again? Uncommon Advice for Common Business Problems

their organizations—even the really, really good ones. Then out of the blue comes a Churchill. Should Industry Competitors Cooperate More to Solve World Problems? If industry competitors collaborated more,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Mastering Strategy Execution

By: Robert Simons

Professor Robert Simons’ research encompasses three areas of management accountability that are the foundation for successful strategy execution: organization design, performance measurement and control, and risk management. In addition, Simons is interested in the... View Details

26 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

The Power of the Noncompete Clause

strengthened by the rise of craft guilds in the sixteenth century. Legal scholars claim it was not until the Industrial Revolution that courts began to routinely enforce restrictions on employee mobility, though they generally held that... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

30 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Why Evolutionary Software Development Works

industry in which the need for a responsive development process has never been greater. The researchers analyzed data from 29 completed projects and identified the characteristics most associated with the best outcomes. (See "Four... View Details

Keywords: by Alan MacCormack; Technology

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Who Has the Power in the Music Industry?

The music industry likes power. Power chords, power ballads, even Towers of Power. The balance of power in the industry, however, has been completely upset with the advent and rapid proliferation of digital music. Who calls the shots... View Details

Keywords: Re: Felix Oberholzer-Gee; Music

August 1974 (Revised March 1986)
Case

Architects Collaborative, Inc.

Although internationally recognized for quality design, the collaborative's billings have been on a plateau for four years and they are losing jobs to architects with sophisticated marketing practices. The main issue is how marketing can be integrated into a design... View Details

Keywords: Design; Marketing Strategy; Creativity; Service Industry

23 Jul 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Innovation Is Magic. Really

personality, psychological insights, and talented hands can create wonderful effects that amaze an audience. It's just as much about the hard, creative work Randal puts in to continuously improve his art. “Organizations can do a wonderful... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

02 Jul 2001
What Do You Think?

Built to Last or Bought to Sell?

Summing Up The authors of a recently-published book, Creative Destruction, have more work to do to convince our readers of their primary argument that creative destruction, based on an assumption of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

September 2014 (Revised December 2014)
Teaching Note

Coco Chanel: Creating Fashion for the Modern Woman (A), (B), and (C)

By: Mukti Khaire

Keywords: Fashion; Entrepreneurship; Creativity; Fashion Industry; France

24 Oct 2007
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

"customer focused." Try to create value out of novelty. Succumbing too much to commercial pressures such as taking on easy jobs may lose your distinctiveness. Where Do Creative Ideas Come From? How Kayak Users Built a New View Details

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

sample company invested in marketing, ex ante, at levels close to those that would have maximized returns, observed ex post. Managing Creativity in Small Worlds Authors:Lee Fleming and Matt Marx Periodical:California Management Review 48,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2010
Supplement

Blue Man Group: Creativity, Life, and Business (Video)

This video complements the case "Blue Man Group: Creativity, Life and Surviving an Economic Crisis." (810108) With extensive clips from live performances, Blue Man's three co-founders offer their perspective on creativity, life and business; and describe the birth and... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Entrepreneurship; Financial Crisis; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

August 1998 (Revised October 1998)
Case

Disney's "The Lion King" (B): The Synergy Group

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

In the late 1980s, Disney CEO Michael Eisner introduced a synergy group to the company's organizational structure. The synergy group was responsible for keeping all of Disney's divisions informed and updated on company projects and marketing strategies. View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Creativity; Value; Organizational Structure; Entertainment and Recreation Industry