Publications

2017
Other Article

Designing an Agile Software Portfolio Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Performance

By: Alan MacCormack and Robert Lagerstrom

The modern industrial corporation encompasses a myriad of different software applications, each of which must work in concert to deliver functionality to end-users. However, the increasingly complex and dynamic nature of competition in today’s product-markets dictates... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness

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September 1992
Case

Kodak Business Imaging Systems Division

By: Marie-Therese M. Flaherty and Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes Kodak's decision regarding a manufacturing site for some of its products. Compares several types of products (with different cost structures) and several worldwide locations (with different characteristics). Provides a framework (model) for comparing and... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Production; Product; Global Range; Supply Chain Management; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Electronics Industry

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

The dot-com boom of the 1990s had changed the rules of business forever, it seemed; all you needed was a sexy IPO, cold nerve, and the magic carpet of momentum trading. But even as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists were dismissing... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

March 1988
Article

Tobin's q and the Importance of Focus in Firm Performance

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and Birger Wernerfelt

Keywords: Business Ventures; Performance

2010
Working Paper

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Direct Investment and Establishment Performance

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen

We examine in this paper the differential response of establishments to the global financial crisis, with particular emphasis on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in determining micro economic performance. Using a new worldwide dataset that reports the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Local Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Production; Performance Evaluation; Networks

March 1997 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Business Teams at Rubbermaid, Inc.

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Dean Whitney

Rubbermaid, a consumer-products company widely praised for its innovation, has instituted a company-wide experiment to stimulate innovation even further. The experiment consists of creating small cross-functional business teams within each division, with each team... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Innovation Strategy; Groups and Teams; Innovation and Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Consumer Products Industry; United States

01 Dec 1996
News

Intellectual Debate: The Business of Business

With Dean Clark and former Dean McArthur present, along with some fifty current and former faculty members, two back-to-back sessions at the McArthur symposium under-scored differing views within the HBS community on some fundamental View Details

06 Jun 2017
News

Will business fill the Paris void?

April 1979
Article

Communication Patterns, Project Performance, and Task Characteristics: An Empirical Evaluation and Integration in an R&D Setting

By: Ralph Katz and Michael Tushman

Keywords: Communication; Projects; Performance; Information; Integration; Research and Development

Article

Innovation Contests for High-Tech Procurement

By: Jin Hyun Paik, Martin Scholl, Rinat A. Sergeev, Steven Randazzo and Karim R. Lakhani

Innovation managers rarely use crowdsourcing as an innovative instrument despite extensive academic and theoretical research. The lack of tools available to compare and measure crowdsourcing, specifically contests, against traditional methods of procuring goods and... View Details

Keywords: Open Innovation; Contests; Crowdsourcing; Nasa; Evaluation; Acquisition; Information Technology; Innovation and Invention; Performance Evaluation; Framework

December 2007
Article

The Roles of Task-Specific Experience and Innate Ability in Understanding Analyst Performance

By: Michael B. Clement, Lisa Koonce and Thomas Lopez

Considerable debate exists about what analyst experience measures and whether analysts learn from their experiences. Extant research has argued that once innate ability is considered, analysts’ general and firm-specific experiences are not relevant to understanding... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Learning; Performance Evaluation; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Services Industry

01 Jun 2024
News

Conducting Business

In 2015 I moved from New York City to Madison, Connecticut, where I met, quite by chance, Ginny Vancil and her brother, Richard. I thought, How many Vancils can there be in the world? I asked if they knew Richard “Dick” Vancil, who was my first professor for my first... View Details

Keywords: Michael Farmer (MBA 1971); illustration by Lucinda Rogers; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

Article

Clogs to Clogs in Three Generations? Explaining Entrepreneurial Performance in Britain Since 1850

By: Tom Nicholas

Research into culture and entrepreneurship in Britain has been dominated by casual empiricism. This article shows the benefits of using a new method. Lifetime wealth accumulation is specified as a measure of entrepreneurial performance, and applied to data collected... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Performance Evaluation; Biography; Culture; Education; Wealth; Research; Great Britain

Article

Medium-term Business Cycles

By: Diego Comin and Mark Gertler

Over the postwar period, many industrialized countries have experienced significant medium-frequency oscillations between periods of robust growth versus relative stagnation. Conventional business cycle filters, however, tend to sweep these oscillations into the trend.... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Fluctuation; Information Technology; Research and Development; Resource Allocation; Framework; Trends; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity

December 2000
Article

Triad Lessons: Generalizing Results on High Performance Firms in Five Business-to-Business Markets

By: Rohit Deshpandé, John U. Farley and Frederick E. Webster Jr.

Keywords: Learning; Performance; Business Ventures; Markets

Keywords: Green Building; LEED Rating System; Economic And Environmental Performance; Program Evaluation And Assessment; Tradeoffs Between Process- And Performance Standards; Buildings and Facilities; Business Headquarters; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry

Web

Business Economics - Doctoral

Business Economics From corporate finance, industrial organization, and international business, to markets, competition, and government regulation, HBS doctoral students in Business Economics delve into some... View Details

September 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Genzyme Center (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia

Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green... View Details

February 2012
Case

Henkel: Building a Winning Culture

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details

Keywords: Performance Measurement; Performance Appraisals; Human Resource Management; Values; Organizational Transformations; Pay For Performance; Strategy Execution; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits