Publications

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September 13, 2021
Article

Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team

By: Flavio Serapiao, Andrew Hill and Boris Groysberg

Crunch times—the long, stressful hours of work that are often required in the final weeks before a new product launch—can have an inordinate impact on the success of businesses and they’re powerful shapers of organizational culture. Effective leaders understand that... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Situation or Environment; Management Skills

May 2012
Article

Herbert A. Simon on What Ails Business Schools: More than A Problem in Organizational Design

By: Rakesh Khurana and J.C. Spender

We critically examine Herbert Simon's 1967 essay, "The Business School: A Problem in Organizational Design." We consider this essay within the context of Simon's key ideas about organizations, particularly those closely associated with the 'Carnegie perspective' on... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Perspective; Innovation and Invention; Business Education; Research; Management Practices and Processes; Teaching

28 Feb 2019
News

The Future of Leadership Development

November 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Almarai Company: Milk and Modernization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

By: Kristin Fabbe, Safwan Al-Amin, Esel Cekin and Natalie Kindred

With SAR 14 billion ($3.7 billion) in 2017 revenues, Almarai was Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy producer, distributor, and marketer, with a large portfolio of branded dairy products, juices, bakery goods, and infant formula and a sales presence across the Gulf region,... View Details

Educators

09 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Moving From Bean Counter to Game Changer

Buried in the middle layers of many organizations resides a strata of highly skilled experts, from HR managers to risk evaluators, whose collective wisdom and experience could prove invaluable in informing strategic decisions at the highest levels. “They're all... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Banking

January 2019
Teaching Note

Pricing PatientPing

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-017. PatientPing sells a software platform that allows health care providers to receive real-time notifications (“pings”) when one of their patients is admitted to or discharged from a health-care facility. The platform facilitates... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Health Tech; Health Technology; Sales Process; Sales Strategy; Price; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts

2010
Working Paper

Developing Negotiation Case Studies

By: James K. Sebenius

While a great deal of excellent advice exists for producing case studies on managerially relevant topics in general, negotiation cases have distinctive aspects that merit explicit treatment. This article offers three types of tailored advice for producing cases on... View Details

Keywords: Debates; Cases; Goals and Objectives; Negotiation; Perspective

August 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll: The MTV Approach to Tackling HIV/AIDS

By: Tarun Khanna, Sonali R. Bloom and David E. Bloom

This case explores the role that MTV, with its heavy diet of music and general youth-oriented media content, plays in spreading public-service messaging to contain the scourge of HIV/AIDS worldwide. There is a focus especially on its efforts in several emerging... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Developing Countries and Economies; Multinational Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Strategy; Health Industry; Africa

Educators

2007
Working Paper

Multi-Sided Platforms: From Microfoundations to Design and Expansion Strategies

By: Andrei Hagiu

Multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which bring together two or more interdependent groups of customers, have recently risen to economic and business prominence in many industries. This paper first lays out a simple micro-founded framework which aims to organize academic and... View Details

Keywords: Multi-Sided Platforms

Research Summary

Current Research

Professor Gardner’s research investigates two primary research questions, both particularly relevant to the management of professional service firms: (1) How are project teams able to most effectively use their members’ expertise in order... View Details

February 2017
Case

BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone

In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe

Educators

January 2011
Article

Developing Superior Negotiation Case Studies

By: James K. Sebenius

While a great deal of excellent advice exists for producing case studies on managerially relevant topics in general, negotiation cases have distinctive aspects that merit explicit treatment. This article offers three types of tailored advice for producing cases on... View Details

Keywords: Education; Cases; Negotiation

JAMES K. (“Jim”) SEBENIUS, is the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he founded the Negotiation unit and teaches advanced... View Details

24 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

Harvard Business School Discusses Future of the MBA

relatively little relevance for practice—I actually think that's a valid concern," Light says in an interview. "But I don't think that's the issue for us." Why? Because the case method of instruction is at the other end of... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson & HBS Bulletin; Education

October 2018
Article

Africa Rising? A Historical Perspective

By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg

Sub-Saharan Africa’s recent economic boom has raised hopes and expectations to lift the regions’ ‘bottom millions’ out of poverty by 2030. How realistic is that goal? We approach this question by comparing the experiences of three front-runners of region-specific... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Economy; Transformation; Poverty; History; Africa

21 Aug 2017
News

Why CEOs Can’t Stay Silent in the Wake of Events Like Charlottesville

29 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Magie Cheng & David Huang

Program

Creating Brand Value

that easily connect them to others who share their tastes. To take full advantage of these trends, brand managers must be able to strengthen their brand through stories that spark conversations—capturing attention, generating engagement, and providing View Details

Article

Selling After the Crisis

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Like perishable goods in grocery stores, sales models have a sell-by date. As product standards evolve and new entrants emerge, buyers have more choices and demand more in terms of quality and performance across vendors. Firms that fail to adjust to changing customer... View Details

Keywords: Sales Model; Sales; Management; Customer Relationship Management; Health Pandemics