by Noel Watson - Publications - Faculty & Research

12 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 12

income between two organizations in similar businesses. It can be measured by the "Four Rs" of referrals and retention of employees, returns to labor, and relationships with customers that foster customer referrals and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 2007
What Do You Think?

How Should Pay Be Linked to Performance?

for shareholders. However, there is a sense, expressed by John Ippolito, that there is a lack of perception in boards of directors of "what constitutes 'creating value' in the enterprise many boards are too ready to turn over the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

06 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Are You a Level-Six Leader?

the Builder, strives not to reach a goal but to build an institution. Builders are legendary leaders such as IBM's Tom Watson Jr., GM's Alfred P. Sloan, and Harpo's Oprah Winfrey. These people serve their institutions View Details

Keywords: by Mitch Maidique

October 1993 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Paragould City Cable

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Unhappy with the prices provided by the local, privately owned cable television operator, the city of Paragould, Arkansas constructs a competing municipally owned cable system. Once in operation, Paragould City Cable faces vigorous competition from the incumbent... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Television Entertainment; Competitive Strategy; Distribution Channels; Media; Public Sector; Programs; Growth and Development Strategy; Cost; Performance Improvement; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Arkansas

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03 Jan 2008
What Do You Think?

Does Judgment Trump Experience?

Summing Up How is good judgment developed? Whether judgment trumps experience quickly gave way in this month's rich exchange of views to other questions about how (and the extent to which) judgment is developed. Most of those addressing the question agreed with the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 Mar 2011
News

HBS Faculty on Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

01 Nov 2022
What Do You Think?

Why Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy?

those crossing the border to request asylum without “waiting in line” for fully documented or legal entry. (As economist Tara Watson and writer Kalee Thompson point out in their recent book, it is more accurate to say that under current... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

20 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

Gaps in the Historical Record: Development of the Electronics Industry

In a recently published book on current international research in business history, edited by Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones, HBS professor emeritus Alfred D. Chandler Jr. contributed an essay on the opportunities... View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Consumer Products

29 Jun 2015
HBS Case

Consumer-centered Health Care Depends on Accessible Medical Records

insurance company as well as one about IBM Watson Health, to explore advances by other players in the integrated patient data market. Note to readers: John Quelch invites Working Knowledge readers to comment... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health; Technology

06 Sep 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Mixing Students and Scientists in the Classroom

with the classic norms of science. We actually discuss this in terms of the discovery of DNA. Watson and Crick arguably violated scientific norms by relying on information that had been gathered View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg; Education

02 Apr 2010
What Do You Think?

Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied With Their Jobs?

over their own needs)." Mark Isaac pointed out that "Succession plans, open communication, and knowing that the company cares, create a learning environment." Gerald Nanninga's reference to findings of the biennial Global Workforce Study View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

08 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

The Return of the Salesman

began to appear in the 1990s, with French historian Laurence Fontaine's Histoire du colportage en Europe: XVe-XIXe siècle, a work translated into English and published by Duke University Press as History of Pedlars in Europe in 1996. This... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

23 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

How the Giants of Enterprise Seized the Future

shared with the other titans in this book a belief in the future. Watson had two decades of business experience by the time he became chief executive of Computing-Tabulating-Recording (C-T-R) in 1914. The... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow

09 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Andy Grove: A Biographer’s Tale

previous books: the Watsons of IBM, Sam Walton, for example. What led you to focus this time on Andy Grove? Tedlow: Having looked at CEO's, as you mentioned, in other books, and really having studied the phenomenon of the chief executive... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Historically Speaking: A Roundtable at HBS

employees used to punch in and out of work. Tabulating machines helped people count and keep track of things, and as such were the predecessors of the computer. When Tom Watson, Sr., became CEO in 1914, tabulating was the smallest part of the operation. View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

October 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear! (Abridged)

By: Willy C. Shih

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Big Data; Business Analytics; Product Development Strategy; Machine Learning; Machine Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence; Product Development; AI and Machine Learning; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology Industry; United States

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29 Mar 2010
Research & Ideas

Ruthlessly Realistic: How CEOs Must Overcome Denial

bankrupt. Q: Given that a CEO's role is often to keep the company energy high and to stoke optimism among employees, are CEOs by virtue of their position especially prone to denial? How could they better blend optimism and realism? A:... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Auto; Retail; Technology

03 Mar 2017
News

Big Blue’s Big Bet

Jeopardy! contestants to compete against Watson, its “brain” the compendium of 100 algorithms working in parallel against 200 million pages of text in 500 gigabytes of data. When it finally played master Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings in 2011, View Details

Keywords: Paul Kix; illustrations by Dan Page

16 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Researchers Contribute Globalization of Markets Papers

Twenty years has provided time to judge the success or failure of Theodore Levitt's predictions of a global economy populated by standardized products and marketing approaches. For the colloquium, a number of Harvard Business School and... View Details

Keywords: by Working Knowledge editors

September 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear!

By: Willy Shih

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Standards; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mathematical Methods; Research and Development; Information Technology

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