Publications

10 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Commodity Busters: Be a Price Maker, Not a Price Taker

for your product or service, as well as to remove the inhibitors to purchasing. The most successful companies follow this two-pronged strategy of providing a reason for the customer to buy, while eliminating annoying problems in the order... View Details

Keywords: by Benson P. Shapiro

October 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Reactivity: A Case of Re-Invention

By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper

By the time Glenn Osaka joined Reactivity as its new CEO in January 2001, the Internet bubble had burst, the financial markets had turned, and the company's core businesses were drying up. He was not hired to lead a turnaround, but Osaka found that the firm's future... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Venture Capital; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Leadership Style; Product; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

company immediately reacted to this news by creating a “COVID committee” to manage the emergency even before the national lockdown was imposed. It shifted to remote working wherever possible, including employees in View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

30 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Real Estate: The Most Imperfect Asset

brought greater transparency and more discipline and efficiency to an undisciplined, inefficient market. Unfortunately, there's no doubt that more and better information means it will be harder to be the alpha, as Professor Andre Perold... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Construction; Real Estate

Research Summary

Output and asset price fluctuations

What are the sources of business cycles? How are these shocks propagated in the economy? Why are their effects so persistent? How can we explain asset price fluctuations? How are shocks transmitted internationally?To study these questions, I have developed a series... View Details

04 Aug 2006
What Do You Think?

What Happens When the Economics of Scarcity Meets the Economics of Abundance?

limited to things that can be digitized, thereby excluding most products for which inventory carrying and other logistics costs for unpopular items are prohibitive? Does it warrant an entirely new field of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Research Summary

Understanding Customers

In conventional business case studies, protagonists almost never have the option of stepping back to seek a new understanding of the customer. But to be effective in practice, managers need both the self-assurance and ability to initiate and pursue, with rigor and... View Details

23 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Minding the Muse: The Impact of Downsizing on Corporate Creativity

Not long ago, the senior management of a leading high-tech company was surprised to learn that research showed their R&D groups' creative performance to be in a prolonged slump following a corporate downsizing. The company's executives fretted that many of the new... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs

12 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

In a Landscape of 'Me Too' Drug Development, What Spurs Radical Innovation?

windfalls on drug development choice, researchers looked at more than 12,000 drug candidates from 3,108 firms, eventually narrowing the field to 270 companies that had at least one drug already approved by the FDA. The cohort included small, one-drug firms and large... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health; Pharmaceutical

08 Feb 2021
Book

How to Make the World Better, Not Perfect

productive ways.” Setting achievable goals Philosophers and ethicists talk a lot about what it means to be “good.” The problem, says Bazerman, is that they tend to hold up the ideal rather than the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

March 2016 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Lotus F1 Team

By: Stefan Thomke, Nikolaos Trichakis, Jérôme Lenhardt and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Describes the detailed inner workings of a high performance Formula One (F1) racing team. It shows how Lotus F1 Team has been able to battle bigger rivals in a very fast-moving, highly regulated, and ultra-competitive environment, where winning races can come down to... View Details

Keywords: Formula One; Motor Sport; Racing Cars; Car Development; Supply Chain; Logistics; Innovation and Management; Competitive Advantage; Product Design; Research and Development; Auto Industry; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

07 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 7

http://hbr.org/product/Via-Verde/an/214105-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 714-517 Airgas, Inc. In 2013, Airgas was the market leader in packaged industrial gas distribution. Recent acquisitions had made it into a larger player in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Aug 2007
What Do You Think?

How Will Millennials Manage?

they are challenging and highly stimulating. So I may have an admittedly warped view of the generation. A great deal has been written about how millennials got that way. Of course, the rise of the Internet has influenced their outlook, behaviors, and skills. Some think... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

17 Dec 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

‘Ted Levitt Changed My Life’

magnitude." In a world made much smaller and more homogeneous by communications technology, Levitt drew a line between the multinational company, which adjusts its products and practices from country to... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Retail

October 2005 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Museum of Fine Arts Boston

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

One of Boston's main cultural attractions, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), has experienced a steady decline of its core audience over the last decade. The museum's executive director attempted to bridge the shortfall by staging new, innovative, special exhibitions,... View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Growth Management; Innovation Leadership; Capital; Financing and Loans; Service Operations; Consumer Behavior

April 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Verge Software (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Scott Rozic, CEO of start-up Verge Software, has just told his board that he is taking the company in a totally new direction, moving from enterprise knowledge management software to Internet direct marketing. This case covers the start-up of the business, and Rozic's... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Product Development; Information Technology Industry; United States