Systems Thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How to Succeed in Business (According to a 15th Century Trade Merchant)

first section, Cotrugli covers the particulars of barter, selling for cash, selling on credit (and receiving payment), and keeping one’s books “in a mercantile manner,” among other business topics. Scholars have noted that it is the earliest known work to cite the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

05 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software

pixelfit Companies that contribute to open source software and use it in their own IT systems and applications can gain a competitive advantage—even though they may be helping their competitors in the short run. Open source software is... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Computer

18 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

How Disruptive Innovation Changes Education

beginning. We have founded a nonprofit think tank, Innosight Institute, to promote the ideas from our work to the stakeholders in the system so that we can help create meaningful change. We also are... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

20 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

Solving the Riddle of How Companies Grow Over Time

years ago, he found the last serious analysis on firm growth was conducted in 1959, in Edith Penrose’s book The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. “I’d like to think we’ve learned a lot since then,” Pisano says. Getting a better... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing

17 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense?

encounter beyond the test,” De Freitas explains. “But we can’t just make the same assumptions about AVs because common sense is part of what’s being engineered into their systems in the first place.” "The solution is not to make AVs... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

02 Oct 2017
What Do You Think?

Do Bitcoin and Digital Currency Have a Future?

for market manipulation (and) used as payment method for online crime.” Bitcoin does not have a future as a currency, Turnbull said, because of the cost of operating sufficient computers to collectively document every single transaction. “When (digital) mining becomes... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Financial Services

17 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

Why a Blended Workforce May Be Key to Lasting Competitive Advantage

In recent years, companies have been anxious about the lack of skilled workers to fill pivotal jobs. But then came COVID-19 and a subsequent recession. The ensuing business turmoil and record-high unemployment may have temporarily distracted companies from their... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph B. Fuller

24 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Get People Addicted to a Good Habit

olfactory system is a powerful sensory source of both memory and pleasure and thus easily embedded into the habit loop,” the researchers explain in the paper. The experiment included 3,763 young children and their parents in 2,943... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

01 Sep 2006
What Do You Think?

Are We Ready for Self-Management?

in how their jobs affect the customer in how their jobs can be improved in getting work done more effectively is most definitely welcome." Birgi Martin said, "I think self-management is needed at all levels of staff."... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

Globalization: The Strategy of Differences

returning to Atlanta." If the business climate can force Coke, which historically was (and is) more profitable internationally than domestically, to seesaw back and forth on globalization in this way, think of the pressures on the... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

26 Nov 2001
Op-Ed

Why Corporate Budgeting Needs To Be Fixed

companies have budgets in the first place is to help coordinate the disparate parts of their businesses. By openly sharing accurate information and basing decisions on a common set of numbers, the thinking goes, you ensure harmonious... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

04 Feb 2010
What Do You Think?

What’s the Best Way to Make Careful Decisions?

decision anyone makes." What do you think? Original Article In his book Blink, discussed in this column in February 2005, Malcolm Gladwell advised us to place faith in intuition based on experience in deciding many things quickly. Now Michael Mauboussin, with his... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Most Accountants Aren’t Crooks—Why Good Audits Go Bad

fundamental changes to the way accounting firms and their clients operate. If we are really going to restore trust in the U.S. system of auditing, we will need to go well beyond the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We will need to... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman, George Loewenstein & Don A. Moore; Accounting; Financial Services

13 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Science: The Unlikely Frontier for New Business Ideas

insights into marketable products, resulting in patents with little or no value. A tale of two storage systems All told, the most science intense patents were worth approximately $15.8 million, compared with $8.7 million for inventions... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

sales productivity is not only about profit maximization and shareholder value—which, by the way, I don't think a CEO or Harvard Business School needs to apologize for—it also affects growth, civic discourse, and the lives of millions of... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

10 Jul 2007
What Do You Think?

How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?

theater and control is required to make people feel comfortable when fundamental operating systems change ." Narendar Singh Raj Purohit adds that " when things are getting out of control someone has to take initiative to give a... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

11 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

Mixing Open Source and Proprietary Software Strategies

product and the competitive landscape. For example, if you have an OS competitor like Apache or the Free Software Foundation, you may not want to be so open. This is an interesting point to make, because usually people think if you face... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Web Services

27 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

Want a Happy Customer? Coordinate Sales and Marketing

individuals in the business, their individual motivation, and their ability to work together harmoniously. Nowhere is the need to work together more important than in the twin customer-facing functions of marketing and sales. Sales and marketing look similar at a... View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro

06 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 6

system is broken and that its ineffectiveness is a major threat to U.S. competitiveness. Why do so many think the political system is not working? Research shows that in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Strategic Intelligence: Adapt or Die

our current strategy." Companies think strategic change is this huge process they have to go through. But if you regularly review what you are doing, then that keeps the tasks from getting bigger and bigger to the point where it gets... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Publications