Michael W. Toffel

Professor Toffel is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management. His research examines how companies are addressing climate change (especially decarbonization) and other environmental and working condition issues in their operations and supply... View Details

• 2010
• Working Paper

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

By: Bradley R. Staats and Francesca Gino

Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Working Conditions; Service Delivery; Performance Productivity; Financial Services Industry; Japan

Citation

Read Now

Related

Staats, Bradley R., and Francesca Gino. "Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11-015, August 2010. (Revised May 2011.)

• June 2018 (Revised August 2019)
• Case

Qualcomm Inc., 2019

By: David B. Yoffie and Andrew S. Choi

This case is set in mid-2019, when Qualcomm was struggling with unwanted take-over battles, fights with Apple and the Chinese government, and internal dissension on the board of directors. Ten years earlier Qualcomm was hailed as a monopoly on CDMA technologies and... View Details

Keywords: Technology Cycles; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Intellectual Property; Information Technology; Standards; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Telecommunications Industry; Semiconductor Industry

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Related

Yoffie, David B., and Andrew S. Choi. "Qualcomm Inc., 2019." Harvard Business School Case 718-514, June 2018. (Revised August 2019.)

• 2010
• Report

State of the Region Report 2010: The Top of Europe Recovering—Regional Lessons from a Global Crisis

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The 2010 State of the Region Report, the seventh in this series of annual evaluations of competitiveness and cooperation across the Baltic Sea Region, takes the Region's economic temperature in the first year after the full onslaught of the global crisis. The focus of... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Policy; Performance Effectiveness; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Baltic Countries

Citation

Related

Ketels, Christian H.M. "State of the Region Report 2010: The Top of Europe Recovering—Regional Lessons from a Global Crisis." Report Series, Baltic Development Forum, Copenhagen, 2010.

• April 1999 (Revised May 2005)
• Case

GE's Two-Decade Transformation: Jack Welch's Leadership

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Meg Wozny

GE is faced with Jack Welch's impending retirement and whether anyone can sustain the blistering pace of change and growth characteristic of the Welch era. After briefly describing GE's heritage and Welch's transformation of the company's business portfolio of the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Global Strategy; Leadership Development; Goals and Objectives; Six Sigma; Management Succession; Service Operations; Quality; Corporate Strategy

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Related

Bartlett, Christopher A., and Meg Wozny. "GE's Two-Decade Transformation: Jack Welch's Leadership." Harvard Business School Case 399-150, April 1999. (Revised May 2005.)

• 23 Jan 2020
• Research & Ideas

Businesses Need a 'Catalyst' to Make CSR Practices Stick

potential to partner with local communities for the good of all, they often lack the connections, expertise, and financing to get those enterprises off the ground. For that reason, they need a “catalyst” to make such strategies possible.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

• 2012
• Article

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

By: B. Staats and F. Gino

Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition... View Details

Keywords: Motivation; Productivity; Specialization; Variety; Work Fragmentation; Boundaries; Performance Productivity; Organizations; Research; Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Opportunities; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Performance; Goals and Objectives; Learning

Citation

Find at Harvard

Related

Staats, B., and F. Gino. "Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank." Management Science 58, no. 6 (June 2012): 1141–1159.

• 2019
• Working Paper

Southern Responses to Gold Certification: Cooperate, Compete, Reject, Revise

By: Kristin Sippl

Artisanal gold mining is a Southern subsistence livelihood posing both challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. In 2011, Fairtrade International launched a certification program to address sustainability problems in the sector. Southern activists,... View Details

Keywords: Eco-labeling; Extractive Industries; Emerging Economies; Fair Trade; Environmental Sustainability; Standards; Programs; Governance Compliance; Competition; Adaptation; Mining Industry

Citation

Read Now

Related

Sippl, Kristin. "Southern Responses to Fair Trade Gold: Cooperation, Competition, Supplementation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-055, November 2018. (Forthcoming in Ecological Economics.)

• March 2011 (Revised May 2011)
• Case

China Construction America (A): The Road Ahead

How did a Chinese state-owned construction company strike one deal after another in South Carolina despite political backlash and in New York where well-established competitors dominate? The case examines the U.S. market entry strategy of the CSCEC, China's leading... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Global Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Negotiation Deal; State Ownership; Construction Industry; China; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Related

Abrami, Regina M., and Weiqi Zhang. "China Construction America (A): The Road Ahead." Harvard Business School Case 911-408, March 2011. (Revised May 2011.)

Boris Groysberg

Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School. Currently, he teaches courses on talent management and leadership in the school's MBA and Executive Education programs. He has won numerous... View Details

Keywords: asset management; banking; brokerage; information technology industry; investment banking industry; professional services

• June 2019
• Article

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Local-currency Bonds; Foreign Reserves; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Financial Markets; Developing Countries and Economies

Citation

Find at Harvard

Read Now

Related

Alfaro, Laura, and Fabio Kanczuk. "Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation." IMF Economic Review 67, no. 2 (June 2019): 261–287. (Also NBER Working Paper No. 19098.)

• June 2018
• Case

Forta Furniture: International Expansion

By: John A. Quelch and Karthik Easwar

The Forta Furniture case highlights the need to consider new market expansion to grow a firm. It demonstrates that simply doing what has always been done is not sustainable when other competitors enter the market with differentiated or potentially superior offerings.... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Global Range; Decision Making; Analysis; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Expansion

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Related

Quelch, John A., and Karthik Easwar. "Forta Furniture: International Expansion." Harvard Business School Brief Case 918-547, June 2018.

• 2013
• Chapter

Beyond Platinum: Making the Case for Titanium Buildings

By: Jock Herron, Amy C. Edmondson and Robert G. Eccles

Buildings are the nation's greatest energy consumers. Forty percent of all our energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting, and powering machines and devices in buildings. And despite decades of investment in green construction technologies, residential and... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Energy; Attitudes; Environmental Sustainability; Construction Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States

Citation

Find at Harvard

Purchase

Related

Herron, Jock, Amy C. Edmondson, and Robert G. Eccles. "Beyond Platinum: Making the Case for Titanium Buildings." Chap. 4 in Constructing Green: The Social Structures of Sustainability, by Rebecca L. Henn and Andrew J. Hoffman, 77–100. MIT Press, 2013.

• November–December 2024
• Article

How to Avoid the Agility Trap

By: Jianwen Liao and Feng Zhu

Agility is all the rage in strategy circles these days. According to conventional wisdom, organizations should rapidly react to technological advances, new market dynamics, and shifting consumer preferences. But in practice this is nearly impossible to pull off,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Advantage; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model

Citation

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

Related

Liao, Jianwen, and Feng Zhu. "How to Avoid the Agility Trap." Harvard Business Review 102, no. 6 (November–December 2024): 126–133.

• September 2010 (Revised December 2010)
• Case

Santander Consumer Finance

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi and Andrew Barron

A Spanish company has to decide if they should expand into the fragmented European consumer finance market and has to make important organizational strategy decisions in the midst of the world economic downturn that followed the 2007 U.S. credit crunch. Since 2002, the... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Financial Markets; International Finance; Personal Finance; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; European Union; Spain

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Related

Trumbull, J. Gunnar, Elena Corsi, and Andrew Barron. "Santander Consumer Finance." Harvard Business School Case 711-015, September 2010. (Revised December 2010.)