Publications

December 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Background Note

Business Model Analysis for Entrepreneurs

By: Thomas Eisenmann

This note defines a business model and its major elements: a customer value proposition, a technology and operations management plan, a go-to-market plan, and a profit formula. For each element, the note lists questions that an entrepreneur must address when evaluating... View Details

Keywords: Business Model

June 1991 (Revised September 1996)
Case

Human Resource Management at American Airlines

American Airlines' strategy calls for continued growth, improvements in customer service, and cost reduction. This case examines the Human Resource Management system at American Airlines and its role in the airline's past and continued success. May be used with... View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Management Systems; Human Resources; Business Strategy; Air Transportation Industry; United States

Teaching Interest

Data Science for Managers

Served as a teaching fellow; assisted MBA students with classroom coding exercises.
Developed course materials, including new case studies, technical notes, and code notebooks students used to analzye case data.
Developed interactive web... View Details

November–December 2020
Article

Dancing with Giants: How Small Women-and Minority- Owned Firms Use Soft Power to Manage Asymmetric Relationships with Larger Partners

By: Kisha Lashley and Timothy G. Pollock

We explore how minority- and women-owned suppliers lacking hard power manage asymmetric relationships with larger, more powerful buyers in the context of supplier diversity relationships. We examine how these suppliers create and use soft power to manage the... View Details

Keywords: Women-owned Businesses; Minority-owned Businesses; Soft Power; Buyer-supplier Relationshships; Cognitive Centrality; Hard Power; Influencers; Supplier Diversity; Small Business; Relationships; Sales

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winter 1988
Article

Management Buyouts and Managerial Efforts

By: Robert F. Bruner and Lynn S. Paine

Management buyouts, which have played an important role in the recent wave of corporate restructurings, have been criticized from several directions. This article addresses the problems created by management's conflict of interest. As members of the buyout team,... View Details

Keywords: Buyout; Ethical Decision Making; Management; Leveraged Buyouts; Ethics; Decision Making

March 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Emerging Business Opportunities at IBM (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Lynne Levesque

By June 2003, IBM had made significant progress in changing the way it managed new, emerging businesses. Describes the development of a separate management program at IBM designed to identify, fund, and shepherd new businesses through growth. Traces the history of the... View Details

Keywords: History; Business or Company Management; Talent and Talent Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy

February 2023 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Doing Business in Nairobi, Kenya

By: Archie L. Jones, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Kuria Kamau

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Nairobi, Kenya. It highlights Kenya's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2024 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business and Government Relations; Technological Innovation; Foreign Direct Investment; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Kenya; Nairobi; Africa

04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Governing the Family-Run Business

these systems by clarifying family-business-ownership needs and managing the conversations needed to agree on goals, values, and policies. If you are in a family enterprise, you need to learn the basics of governance and apply the best... View Details

March 2009
Article

Risk Management and Calculative Cultures

By: Anette Mikes

Enterprise risk management (ERM) has recently emerged as a widespread practice in financial institutions. It has been increasingly codified and encrypted into regulatory, corporate governance and organisational management blueprints. A burgeoning literature of... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Practice; Banks and Banking; Corporate Governance; Value; Business and Shareholder Relations; Managerial Roles; Culture; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business or Company Management; Financial Services Industry

04 Mar 2014
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

"innovation is everyone's job." Dozens of faculty at Harvard Business School are focused on the subject of managing innovation. Some look at it by examining processes while others view through the lens of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

Article

Does Management Matter in Schools?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden,... View Details

Keywords: Management; Education; Business Strategy; Education Industry; Germany; Sweden; India; Canada; Italy; Brazil; United Kingdom; United States

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19 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?

Like many business leaders, Donovan Neale-May routinely seeks out information on business innovation and management trends. He reads reports from market analysis firms, white... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

30 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Measuring the Efficacy of the World’s Managers

organizational management practices all over the world. The project was borne of a widely perceived gap in economic research. In business academia, there is an optimistic tendency to assume that View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

23 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

What’s Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?

codification of such knowledge saved the team and the client one full year of work. Ernst & Young executives have invested a lot to make sure that the codification process works efficiently. The 250 people at the Center for Business... View Details

Keywords: by Morten T. Hansen, Nitin Nohria & Thomas Tierney; Consulting

October 2010
Case

CDG: Managing in China's Economic Transformation

By: Roy Y.J. Chua, Shaohui Chen and Lisa Kwan

China Data Group (CDG) is a leading business processes outsourcing company based in Beijing, China. Roc Yang, chairman of CDG, had to confront a dilemma when he discovered that one of his senior managers gave a gift to a potential client in an effort to win a large... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Management Practices and Processes; Emerging Markets; Negotiation Deal; Relationships; Networks; Societal Protocols; China

24 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Managing Alignment as a Process

corporate synergies should be defined at the top and realized in the business units. Just as the CFO coordinates the budgeting process, a senior executive should coordinate the alignment process—a responsibility for the Office of Strategy... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Retail

June 2004 (Revised June 2006)
Supplement

Vertex Pharmaceuticals: R&D Portfolio Management (A)

By: Gary P. Pisano, Lee Fleming and Eli Strick

Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a drug discovery company that recently decided to pursue a vertically integrated business model, chose to build up its clinical development and commercial capabilities and infrastructure. For the first time in its history, Vertex will... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Investment Portfolio; Pharmaceutical Industry

December 2007 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Global Knowledge Management at Danone (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Bertrand Moingeon, Vincent Marie Dessain and Ane Damgaard Jensen

This case explores French consumer goods company Danone's novel approach to knowledge management. In 2007, Human Resource Chief (Executive Vice President) Franck Mougin assesses the company's knowledge-sharing tools and considers his options going forward. Through... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Social and Collaborative Networks; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry; France