Publications

29 Nov 2012
News

Who is going to innovate and truly lead sustainable business?

11 May 2015
News

What It Will Take to Fix America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

Keywords: infrastructure; leadership; innovation; government policy; women in business; Transportation

20 Oct 2020
News

HBS and Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Receive $25 Million Gift from The Chris and Carrie Shumway Foundation to Support Leadership in Life Sciences

March 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Yo-Yo Ma and Silkroad

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Paul A. Gompers and Scott Duke Kominers

Silkroad—a cross-cultural music collaboration that world-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma had spearheaded since 1998, was preparing to celebrate its 20th anniversary. In parallel, Ma was stepping back from his role as the organization’s Artistic Director. Silkroad had come of... View Details

Keywords: Managing Diverse Teams; Leadership Transitions; Global Innovation; Music; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Music Entertainment; Leadership; Transition

Web

Maggie Sanchez (MBA 1990) on Purpose-Driven Board Leadership - Blog: RGE Report

Purpose-Driven Board Leadership Lex Schroeder Author tag Board Diversity Getting to the Boardroom There’s an immediate warmth one feels while in conversation with Maggie Sanchez (MBA 1990). Sanchez’s home office is in sunny Arizona, but... View Details

May 2025
Case

Daiichi Sankyo: Steering a Global Organization

By: Tiona Zuzul, Amy C. Edmondson and Cat Huang

In the spring of 2023, Sunao Manabe, CEO of Daiichi Sankyo, reflected on a pivotal decision. A large Western pharmaceutical company had made a bid to partner with Daiichi Sankyo to develop the next three products in its oncology pipeline. Daiichi Sankyo, a 125-year old... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Culture Change; Decision-making; Leadership; Culture; Innovation; Psychological Safety

01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

Summing Up Where are the leaders that can help elephants avoid a stall? Like a good case study, this month's question divided respondents nearly down the middle on the question of whether or not organizations naturally "stall" because their size interferes... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

20 Sep 2021
News

Innovation at Johnson & Johnson: A Conversation with Dr. William Hait

05 Aug 2002
What Do You Think?

Is Platform Leadership Old Hat or the Wave of the Future?

Summing Up Platform leadership, the process by which base technologies are developed and on which innovations created by many entrepreneurs can be based, may be characteristic of the knowledge economy. But it isn't new, at least to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Mastercard Labs (A) (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Hill, Sunil Gupta, Emily Tedards and Julia Kelley

When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, he shifted the company’s competitive focus from card networks to cash itself. Mastercard’s new vision of a “World Beyond Cash” distilled into a three-pronged framework: Grow the core business, Diversify... View Details

March 2018 (Revised September 2023)
Case

X: The Foghorn Decision

By: Robert S. Huckman, Karim R. Lakhani and Kyle R. Myers

In February 2016, Kathy Hannun—a project leader at X, Alphabet Inc.'s so-called "moonshot factory"—had to prepare a recommendation for the senior leadership of X regarding the future of Foghorn, a project she was leading to develop a carbon-neutral process for... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; R＆D Project Management; Radical Innovation; Clean Technology; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Energy; Research and Development; Projects; Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; California

September 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Case

Ganesh Natarajan: Leading Innovation and Organizational Change at Zensar (A)

By: Michael Tushman and David Kiron

In 2005, Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, a Pune, India-based software company, and his senior management team are considering consolidating staff and resources at the firms. Natarajan proposes an additional, possible controversial business unit to the proposed new... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Product Launch; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Information Technology Industry

October 2020 (Revised February 2025)
Technical Note

Reinvention

By: Ryan Raffaelli

This note is designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts of leading innovation in established organizations. Reinvention is a process whereby organizations respond to changes in the environment that threaten their core business model, technologies,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation And Strategy; Leadership And Change Management; Organizational Ambidexterity; Exploration And Exploitation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Leading Change; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

December 2022
Case

To Feed the Planet: Juan Luciano at ADM

By: Joshua D. Margolis, David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Stacy Straaberg and James Weber

In December 2022, Juan Luciano, Chairman and CEO of agribusiness and nutrition giant ADM, considered the next phase of the historic company’s future. Beginning in 2011 when he joined as COO and moving into his tenure as CEO in 2015, Luciano led a transformation of ADM... View Details