Design Structure Matrices - Publications - Faculty & Research

14 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 14, 2010

technologies in the U.S. While there are several startups in clean energy that are well-suited to the traditional venture capital investment model, our analysis highlights a number of structural challenges related to venture capital (VC)... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

academic psychologists, Harvard Business School professors, directors of organizations, and government officials. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51447 Winter 2017 Oxford Review of Economic Policy The Market View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

August 28, 2018
Article

How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence

By: Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer

People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a... View Details

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July 2025
Teaching Note

Greenwood Online: A Fin-Tech Service for Culture and Community

By: James Riley and Bernal Cortés

In 2020, Ryan Glover and Paul Judge launched Greenwood, a fintech startup designed to counter systemic racial discrimination in the American banking ecosystem by offering accessible financial services tailored to Black and Brown communities, but available to all.... View Details

Keywords: Purpose; Identity; Cultural Branding; Impression Management; Organization Behavior; Strategic Alignment; Start-up; Mission and Purpose; Decision Making; Decisions; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Structure; Banking Industry; United States

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Organize Care Around Medical Conditions - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

their time to the condition delivers care. IPUs can involve affiliated staff and integration with partner services Care is ideally co-located in dedicated facilities. A hub and spoke structure connecting multiple or affiliated sites,... View Details

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

of "BO," "Undie Odor," and "Dishpan Hands," and to market the cures in the form of Lifebuoy and Lux Flakes. By the end of the 1930s sales exceeded $90 million, and in 1946 they reached $150 million. By the interwar years soap had a firmly... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

September 2001 (Revised October 2018)
Case

DIENA

By: Robert Simons and Indra Reinbergs

Requires students to draw a new organization structure diagram for a rapidly evolving business. A/S DIENA is a newspaper publisher founded during Latvia's 1990/91 struggle for independence from the USSR with a clear social mission to support democracy. With the help of... View Details

Keywords: Employee Ownership; Organizational Design; Marketing Strategy; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development; Economic Systems; Publishing Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Latvia

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06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

can include small “lifestyle” businesses, multi-generational family businesses, high-growth, venture funded technology businesses, and new ventures designed to commercialize breakthrough discoveries in life sciences, clean tech, and other... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

07 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

How Teams Work: Lessons from the Pandemic

interpersonal interactions essential to knowledge workers and looks at how teams tried to facilitate them. They include: Task interactions, when team members collaborate on activities that directly contribute to output; Process interactions, such as the agenda-setting... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

January 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Background Note

Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Students

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Provides an overview for students of the MBA elective course Managing Networked Businesses (MNB). MNB focuses on management challenges in businesses that exhibit network effects. The first section of the note explains that such businesses comprise a large and growing... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Capital Structure; Business or Company Management; Network Effects; Organizational Design; Business and Government Relations; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competitive Strategy

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October 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Global Unichip Corporation (A)

By: Willy Shih and Chen-Fu Chien

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies, and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to... View Details

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24 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

that I seek to make in the world.’ Employees may view passion as an end in itself, to achieve fulfillment.” Managers are often aligned with this view, says Jachimowicz: "When I talk to organizational leaders, they're often very well-intentioned. They want to View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

23 Jan 2024
Book

More Than Memes: NFTs Could Be the Next Gen Deed for a Digital World

a form and scale that has never existed before. You’re not just along for the ride—you’re part of the action. Imagine if you could have a true stake in Star Wars and own a character in that universe. Or play a role in designing the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology; Financial Services

26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

to the new digital context. ” Enthusiasts and advocates of the digital revolution would submit that digital transformation changes everything, from product design to how value is built and captured in the market. In some cases,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

Web

About - Business & Environment

instrumental in driving the firm’s successful growth in fixed income ETFs and sustainable indexing. Before joining BlackRock, Carolyn created structured derivatives solutions for corporations at Citibank, where she was Head of the North... View Details

Web

Entrepreneurship - Faculty & Research

describes its co-founders' motivations and their strategy for disrupting an industry in the midst of dramatic structural change; and asks whether a16z's success to date has been due to its novel organization structure. a16z's 22... View Details

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

and Purpose ; Decisions ; Marketing Strategy ; Organizational Structure ; Banking Industry ; United States Citation Educators Related Riley, James, and Bernal Cortés. "Greenwood Online: A Fin-Tech Service for Culture and Community (B)."... View Details

June 2020
Supplement

RBC: Transforming Transformation (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

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08 Mar 2021
In Practice

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now?

A year ago, COVID-19 forced many companies to send employees home—often with a laptop and a prayer. Now, with COVID cases subsiding and vaccinations rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines appears more possible. But will employees want to flock back to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

July 2000
Background Note

Industry Transformation

By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin

One of the steepest challenges a strategist faces is to navigate his or her company through a period of industry transformation--an era of rapid and wholesale changes in industry structure. This note considers how periods of transformation typically unfold. It then... View Details