Publications

September 1987 (Revised October 1987)
Background Note

The Job of the General Manager

By: James L. Heskett

Describes elements of the job of the general manager that are addressed in the Management Policy and Practice course at the Harvard Business School. These include: 1) establishing strategic direction, 2) setting goals and managing standards of performance, 3)... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Policy; Recruitment; Working Conditions; Managerial Roles; Resource Allocation; Mission and Purpose; Performance Evaluation; Strategy; Value

09 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 9

strategy that will put LEGO back on track. Purchase this case: http://hbr.org/search/713478-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 613-025 Austal, Ltd. (A) Austal, Ltd. was an Australian builder of high-speed passenger ferries. It had translated that View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

3 Steps to Reduce Financial System Risk

expertise among the spaghetti bowl of supervisory bodies; second, encourage rating agencies to improve their modeling of new and complex derivative products; and third, induce new investors to evaluate the ratings issued by the agencies... View Details

Keywords: by Mohamed El-Erian; Financial Services; Banking

04 Oct 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Surviving Success: When Founders Must Go

developing Wily's technology, landing some important sales, and leading a strategic transformation of the company, David Strohm (MBA '80), a VC advisor on Wily's board, requested that Cirne step down to CTO and clear the way for an executive with the View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Technology

02 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 3, 2008

C2 is a delivery platform based on Web 2.0 technology that enables Cognizant to subdivide work into tasks that can be allocated wherever in the world the best resources within Cognizant exist based on cost, expertise and availability... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Hard Numbers on Social Investments

should consider creating additional pooled early-stage investment vehicles to take advantage of the specialized expertise of some of its members who have been professional investors, and to create some diversification for its members. IC... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

19 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

LEED-ing by Example

Unit at Harvard Business School. "For example, procurement policies could serve a demonstration role that would stimulate private demand by making people more aware of green buildings. They might also cover the start-up costs of suppliers, lowering prices of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Construction; Real Estate; Energy; Utilities

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

May 2010 (Revised June 2012)
Case

From Imitation to Innovation: Zongshen Industrial Group

By: Willy Shih and Nancy Hua Dai

As Zuo Zongshen drove the transformation of the Zongshen Industrial Group from an early imitator in the motorcycle business to a company that increasingly focused on innovation as a way to get out of the hyper-competitive commodity business, he continually faced new... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Learning; Investment; Disruptive Innovation; Knowledge Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Motorcycle Industry; China

Article

Lone Inventors as Sources of Technological Breakthroughs: Myth or Reality?

Are lone inventors more or less likely to invent breakthroughs? Recent research has attempted to resolve this question by considering the variance of creative outcome distributions. It has implicitly assumed a symmetric thickening or thinning of both tails, i.e., that... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Independent Innovation and Invention; Patents; Groups and Teams; Creativity

Find at Harvard

September 2008
Teaching Note

Chi Mei Optoelectronics (TN)

By: Willy C. Shih

Teaching Note for [608-123]. View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Information Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Standards; Industry Clusters; Supply Chain; Production; Experience and Expertise; Biotechnology Industry; Chemical Industry; Taiwan; Asia; Korean Peninsula; China

June 2009 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

By: Anita L. Tucker and Amy C. Edmondson

The case describes an organization's use of the science of improvement to transform their process quality from below average to the top 10% in their industry. The case outlines the protagonist's strategy of developing internal experts who are trained in a common... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Experience and Expertise; Leading Change; Measurement and Metrics; Service Delivery; Performance Improvement; Health Industry; Ohio

2009
Working Paper

Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance

By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

In this paper, we consider how the structures of tasks and teams interact to affect team performance. We study the effects of diversity in experience on a team's ability to respond to task changes, by separately examining interpersonal team diversity (i.e., differences... View Details

Keywords: Familiarity; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Groups and Teams; Projects; Experience and Expertise; Diversity; India

Read Now

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

examined how decision makers’ own expertise influenced reliance on algorithms. Experts in national security, who regularly make forecasts, relied less on algorithmic advice than lay people did. These results shed light on the important... View Details

20 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: December 20

basis of expertise and the design of econometric models. This article provides insights on the resolution of disputes in global trade while contributing to our understanding of the evolving role of scientific and econometric modeling at... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

03 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 3, 2006

Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, edited by J. Dutton and B. Ragins, 265-275. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2006 Abstract White-collar workers increasingly rely on group interaction rather than individual expertise to generate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2013
Working Paper

How Do Risk Managers Become Influential? A Field Study in Two Financial Institutions

By: Matthew Hall, Anette Mikes and Yuval Millo

This paper, based on a five-year longitudinal study at two UK-based banks, documents and analyzes the practices used by risk managers as they aim to gather and establish influence in their organizations. Specifically, we examine how influence-seeking risk managers (1)... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decision Making; Risk Management; Strategic Planning; Power and Influence; Business Strategy; Banking Industry