Publications

2012
Chapter

Knowledge-based Innovation: Emergence and Embedding of New Practice Areas in Management Consulting Firms

By: Heidi K. Gardner, N. Anand and Tim Morris

How do innovative knowledge-based structures emerge and become embedded in organizations? We drew on theories of knowledge-intensive firms, communities of practice, and professional service firms to analyze multiple cases of new practice area creation in management... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge; Organizations; Practice; Mathematical Methods; Consulting Industry

October 2014
Article

Good Cop, Bad Cop: Complementarities Between Debt and Equity in Disciplining Management

By: Alexander Guembel and Lucy White

In this paper we examine how the quantity of information generated about firm prospects can be improved by splitting a firm's cash flow into a "safe" claim (debt) and a "risky" claim (equity). The former, being relatively insensitive to upside risk, provides a... View Details

Keywords: Information; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Corporate Finance

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08 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

2006
Working Paper

Managing Functional Biases in Organizational Forecasts: A Case Study of Consensus Forecasting in Supply Chain Planning

To date, little research has been done on managing the organizational and political dimensions of generating and improving forecasts in corporate settings. We examine the implementation of a supply chain planning process at a consumer electronics company, concentrating... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Business or Company Management; Supply Chain Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Planning; Electronics Industry

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December 2009
Article

Restructuring Within an Academic Health Center to Support Quality and Safety: The Development of the Center for Quality and Safety at the Massachusetts General Hospital

By: Richard Bohmer, Jonathan David Bloom, Elizabeth Mort MD, Akinluwa Demehin and Gregg Meyer MD

Recent focus on the need to improve the quality and safety of health care has created new challenges for academic health centers (AHCs). Whereas previously quality was largely assumed, today it is increasingly quantifiable and requires organized systems for... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Performance Improvement; Quality; Safety; Massachusetts

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06 Dec 2004
What Do You Think?

Why Do Managers Fail to Act on Their Predictions?

Summing Up Respondents to the December column produced such a lengthy list of reasons why managers fail to act on their predictions that it is a wonder that organizations are ever able to respond with the foresight needed to avert... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Oct 1996
News

"Service-Profit Chain" Links Members of Service Management Unit

strategic and general management issues facing service organizations as well as the management of service in manufacturing companies. The multidisciplinary unit focuses on... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

13 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

Managing to Learn: How Companies Can Turn Knowledge into Action

in their thinking about issues the right way. What criteria do they use? Why do they think the way they do? What alternatives have they considered? What premises do they have?" Similarly, at Serengeti Eyewear, a division of Corning, View Details

Keywords: by Laurie Joan Aron

November 2018 (Revised July 2023)
Case

The Weir Group: Reforming Executive Pay (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Federica Gabrieli

In February 2018, the Remuneration Committee together with the full Board of Directors of the Scotland-based engineering company The Weir Group had to decide whether to seek a shareholder vote at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in April on a proposal to reform the... View Details

Research Summary

Good cop, Bad Cop: Complementarities between Debt and Equity in Disciplining Management

Joint work with Alexander Gümbel, Saïd Business School and Lincoln College Oxford

In this paper we examine how the quantity of information generated about firm... View Details

01 Feb 1997
News

Made, Not Born: HBS Courses and Entrepreneurial Management

resources." Michael P. Cassidy (MBA '91), general manager of the Computer Telephony Product Group at Artisoft, Inc., a maker of tools that connect phones to computers, took these lessons to heart when he... View Details

February 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike

By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew Preble

For roughly six weeks between late December 1936 and February 1937, a major strike at several critical General Motors (GM) plants in Flint, Michigan, essentially halted the corporation’s U.S. production and resulted in significant gains for the nascent United... View Details

February 2017
Case

GE Digital

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details

Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; North America

07 Mar 2017
News

From Harvard to INSEAD: Change Management in a Disruptive World

general director. With a lengthy career in industry and politics as well as academia, Giscard D’Estaing is a former mayor and member of the French Parliament and is chairman of the Committee for a World Parliament. He is also honorary... View Details

Keywords: Educational Services

18 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

When Bias Creeps into AI, Managers Can Stop It by Asking the Right Questions

algorithm generates fair outcomes. As the algorithm sorts through information to optimize its objective, BEAT detects and eliminates bias at key points in the training process. For instance, BEAT could help a car service charge surge... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

01 Feb 2022
What Do You Think?

Is Concierge Management an Answer to the “Big Quit”?

contributing to the so-called Great Resignation (or “Big Quit”) that has gained publicity recently. Quitting in the United States is a major business expense. Applying generally accepted rules of thumb for the annual cost of quitting to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 2012
Case

Teaming at GE Aviation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih and Eric Baldwin

Describes the challenges and successes encountered by GE's Aviation business in implementing a teaming work structure and culture in plants across its supply chain. GE Aviation leadership had seen dramatic gains in productivity, quality, and worker satisfaction in... View Details