Publications

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2015
Chapter

Information Technology and the Distribution of Inventive Activity

By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein

We examine the relationship between the diffusion of advanced Internet technology and the geographic concentration of invention, as measured by patents. First, we show that patenting became more concentrated from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and, similarly, that... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Geographic Location; Internet and the Web; Innovation and Invention

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14 Dec 2021
Op-Ed

To Change Your Company's Culture, Don't Start by Trying to Change the Culture

intervention in meetings. Twitter is a perfect example. Concerned that Twitter’s “nice culture” held back innovation, Dantley Davis, the new vice-president of design, asked employees in a meeting to critique each other. The idea was that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer

26 Apr 2016
First Look

April 26

integrate businesses or separate them completely; whether to pursue business partners, and if so, what those partners should look like; and whether IBM, a large, established technology company, is the right partner for Weather Company. Finally, how would Weather... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Jun 2024
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2024

As the vacation season looms, Harvard Business School faculty members share recommendations for a little light reading. Spoiler alert: Lessons in Chemistry tops two of their beach-read lists. For those whose brains can’t—or won’t—turn off, HBS faculty also suggest some... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Royal DSM: From Continuous Transformation to Organic Growth

By: William W. George, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Amram Migdal

Royal DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma was pondering the challenges of shifting DSM’s global organization from the constant transformations of the past 100 years to creating organic growth. When Sijbesma took the helm as CEO in 2007, he further pushed and completed the company’s... View Details

Keywords: Organic Growth; Organizational Change; M＆A; Mergers And Acquisitions; Divestment; Business Ventures; Business Divisions; Business Growth and Maturation; Restructuring; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Transition; Engineering; Chemicals; Mining; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Food; Globalization; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Health; Nutrition; History; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Style; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Ownership; Public Ownership; Performance; Strategy; Adaptation; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Value; Value Creation; Biotechnology Industry; Chemical Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Mining Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Europe; Netherlands

Rebels have a bad reputation. We think of them as troublemakers, outcasts, contrarians: those colleagues, friends, and family members who complicate seemingly straightforward decisions, create chaos, and disagree when everyone else is in agreement. But in truth,... View Details

06 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 6

practice in the India market. The mission calls for continued financial performance and market leadership, as well as greater emphasis on healthy products, natural resource management, and employee empowerment. PepsiCo India and other... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 15

of investors―extracted from co-search patterns―in addressing long-standing benchmarking problems in finance. Publisher's link: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2171497 August 2013 Academy of Management Journal Exposed: Venture Capital, Competitor Ties, and Entrepreneurial... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Research Summary

The New Social Contract: Contractors, Firms, and Agencies

The emergence of a 'new social contract' linking employees and organizations - perhaps most notable for the absence of a promise of lifelong job security - has been widely remarked. A related trend, less noted but potentially important, has been the emergence of a... View Details

August 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Sealed Air Corporation: Deciding the Fate of VTID

By: Elie Ofek

In mid 2010 the Sealed Air Corporation has to decide on next steps for its novel video tracking technology (called VTID) after unsuccessful attempts to market it in three different industry settings. The company must determine whether its most recent target market, the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Commercialization; Service Industry

October 2000
Case

Framework Technologies Corp.

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Ann Leamon, Ashesh Shah and David Waller

Dan Slavin, CEO of Framework Technologies, is contemplating a complete restart for his company to erase the impact of its shift in product and business strategy since inception. This case describes the issues he must consider, which include the impact of such a change... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Innovation and Invention; Cost vs Benefits; Venture Capital; Technology Industry

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

learning as key to success in the digital era. To help employees see the possibilities of a digital future, participants orchestrated visits to innovation hubs (like Silicon Valley) and opportunities to... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

Political Standards

The University of Chicago Press November 2015.

Prudent, verifiable, and timely corporate accounting is a bedrock of our modern capitalist system. In recent years, however, the rules that govern corporate accounting have been subtly changed in... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Biometric Monitoring, Service Delivery and Misreporting: Evidence from Healthcare in India

By: Thomas Bossuroy, Clara Delavallade and Vincent Pons

Developing countries increasingly use biometric identification technology in hopes of improving the reliability of administrative information and delivering social services more efficiently. This paper exploits the random placement of biometric tracking devices in... View Details

Keywords: Biometric Technology; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Analytics and Data Science; Quality; Performance Improvement; India

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2004
Book

Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America

By: Walter A. Friedman

This book chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Employees; Transformation; United States

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2020
Working Paper

No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details

Keywords: Assortative Matching; Productivity; Global Buyers; Readymade Garments; Management; Employees; Performance Productivity

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January 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Target Malaria: Editing Mosquitoes through Gene Drives

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

Target Malaria, a non-profit research consortium, is exploring the application of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to combat malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its approach uses gene drives, a revolutionary tool, to suppress the population of malaria-carrying... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Strategy; Genetics; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States; United Kingdom; Burkina Faso; Africa

February 2009 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Jieliang Phone Home! (B)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators—bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao—are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have... View Details

Keywords: Managing People; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Production; Innovation and Invention; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Management Practices and Processes; Compensation and Benefits; Labor; Surveys; Decisions; Manufacturing Industry; China