Publications

November 1987 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Groen: A Dover Industries Company

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the challenges facing the president of an old-line foodservice and food processing equipment manufacturing company as it attempted to accelerate sales and profit growth through the introduction of innovative products. The introduction of a "revolutionary"... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Labor and Management Relations; Machinery and Machining; Management Style; Management Teams; Performance Efficiency; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Organizational Culture

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

If customers were unhappy, they reasoned, the product should be changed. Militant demands displaced an environment of mutual respect and shared learning. Needless to say, the practice of telling students they were customers was quickly... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

28 Aug 2017
Research & Ideas

Should Industry Competitors Cooperate More to Solve World Problems?

Source: Cecilie_Arcurs George Serafeim has a startling suggestion to fix the world’s biggest environmental, social, and governance (ESG) problems such as water pollution, deforestation, and wealth inequality: encourage companies within industries to do less competing... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Manufacturing; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Mining

05 May 2022
News

Like-Minded

whether a business is directly in an ESG field, but that ESG elements should be integrated into the core-value system and management strategy,” notes Murakami. “To do that, we help our portfolio companies... View Details

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Keeping Your Balance With Customers

From product push to customer pull, technology has vastly reshaped the business transaction—and in turn, the customer's place in the value chain. Today, managing the customer relationship has become the... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

October 1981 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Walton Instruments Manufacturing--1980

Provides an opportunity for students to examine the impact of different manufacturing control methods on the manufacturing infrastructure. Information flow, inventory control, quality control and process flows interact and different trade-offs are examined. Introduces... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Production; Management Practices and Processes; Infrastructure

Find at Harvard

25 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

10 Reasons Customers Might Resist Windows 8

feel incompetent. And some early reviews of Windows 8 indicate that it's not much of an ego booster. In the comments section of a review on cnet.com, beta-testing computer science teacher 'jabnipnip' vented: "Sure it loads fast, but you lose View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

The company's new head of product management has designed a system to address a point of constant tension: whether to build custom features in response to new customers' request, even if these custom... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Raffaella Sadun | Working Knowledge

School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work and co-PI of the Digital Reskilling Lab. Her research focuses on managerial and organizational drivers of productivity and growth in corporations and the... View Details

01 Dec 2017
News

2017 in Finance: Helping Consumers Improve Their Financial Life

same from financial services firms. However, consumers understandably have a different bar when it comes to shopping online for clothes versus picking the financial product that’s best for them. Finances aren’t just personal, they are... View Details

Keywords: Omer Ismail (MBA 2007), chief commercial officer, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, the firm’s digital consumer financial services business; Finance

11 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Politicians Benefited From Using Toxic Loans

Talk of the recent financial crisis often falls into a simplistic narrative of villainous banks, marketing toxic financial products to innocent customers who did not understand their risks. Among the storied victims are municipal... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

17 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 17, 2017

responsibilities—including product management, marketing, growth, and sales—to help you figure out if you want to join a startup and what to expect if you do. You'll gain insight into how successful startups operate and learn to assess... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2004 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Activision: The 'Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer' Project

By: Alan D. MacCormack, Enrico D"Angelo and Kerry Herman

Mike Ward, the producer in charge of developing the Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer game for Activision, must decide whether to launch the game in time for the 2002 Christmas season. Complicating his decision are the lukewarm response from consumers to TV test spots of the... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Product Development; Customer Satisfaction; Projects; Business or Company Management; Product Launch; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Industry Structures; Innovation Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

April 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Case

The Container Store

By: Tatiana Sandino, Zeynep Ton and Aldo Sesia

The Container Store (TCS) is a Texas-based retailer of organization and storage solutions. The company prides itself in taking care of its employees first, and its cofounder and CEO Kip Tindell practices Conscious Capitalism. Since its beginnings in 1978, TCS grew to a... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Conscious Capitalism; Merchandising; Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Service Delivery; Going Public; Performance Evaluation; Performance Productivity; Retail Industry; United States

2010
Working Paper

Performance Tradeoffs in Team Knowledge Sourcing

By: Bradley R. Staats, Melissa Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This research examines how teams organize knowledge sourcing (obtaining access to others' knowledge or expertise) and investigates the performance trade-offs involved in two approaches to knowledge sourcing in teams. One approach a team can take is to specialize, such... View Details

Keywords: Information Management; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity; Quality; Groups and Teams; Information Technology Industry; India