Publications

September 1994 (Revised May 1995)
Case

Time Life, Inc. (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Jonathan West

Time Life has historically been a continuity book publisher, selling 20-volume book series via direct mail. Now, however, music and video/TV divisions have been added, and the CEO is trying to craft a strategy that will align the divisions so they can produce... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Business Divisions; Horizontal Integration; Production; Creativity; Alignment; Advertising; Publishing Industry

March 2016 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations

By: John Beshears

Evive Health is a company that manages communication campaigns on behalf of health insurance plans and large employers. Using big data techniques and insights from behavioral economics, Evive deploys targeted and effective messages that improve individuals' health... View Details

Article

Stop the Meeting Madness: How to Free Up Time for Meaningful Work

By: Leslie Perlow, Constance Noonan Hadley and Eunice Eun

Many executives feel overwhelmed by meetings, and no wonder: On average, they spend nearly 23 hours a week in them, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. What’s more, the meetings are often poorly timed, badly run, or both. We can all joke about how painful they... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Performance Efficiency; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement

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12 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

John Irving’s Lessons for Business

Growing Up Creative: Nurturing a Lifetime of Creativity. More recently, Amabile drew on that interview and subsequent correspondence with Irving for an article she wrote for a special section on creativity in American Psychologist.... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark & Martha Lagace

21 Aug 2018
News

Cultivate Curiosity

September–October 2024
Article

How AI Can Power Brand Management

By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek

Marketers have begun experimenting with AI to improve their brand-management efforts. But unlike other marketing tasks, brand management involves more than just repeatedly executing one specialized function. Long considered the exclusive domain of creative talent, it... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Customer Focus and Relationships

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

restrictions on the reporter’s movements and contacts within the company. But let’s assume for the moment that the article was even-handed and accurate. It portrayed an organization with a “churn and burn” personnel strategy offering exciting jobs, View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Retail; Apparel & Accessories; Consumer Products; Fashion

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

staff can help improve employee performance and increase retention, an important finding for any business. “This study shows that investing in both managers and workers is simultaneously important,” Tamayo says. “The notion of how... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Food & Beverage

15 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 15

generation moving up the corporate ranks. Stimulate Creativity by Fueling Passion Authors:Teresa Amabile and Colin M. Fisher Publication:In The Blackwell Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior. 2nd ed. London: Wiley-Blackwell,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2014
Article

The Transparency Trap

By: Ethan Bernstein

To get people to be more creative and productive, managers increase transparency with open workspaces and access to real-time data. But less transparent work environments can yield more-transparent employees. Employees perform better when they can try out new ideas and... View Details

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25 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘Can China Lead?’

book excerpt The Importance Of Being Innovative From Chapter 4, Can China Lead: Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth By Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, and F. Warren McFarlan One can surely doubt that creativity can be mandated or... View Details

Keywords: Re: William C. Kirby & F. Warren McFarlan; Education; Technology

February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (A)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

Burlington Northern's decision whether to invest in ARES, an automated train control system, is a ($350 million) strategic investment in information technology. Although set in a service industry (railroad) the issues around this decision arise in many organizations... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Rail Transportation; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Performance Effectiveness; Cost vs Benefits; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Customers; Quality; Rail Industry

February 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Background Note

Finding the Money: An Overview of Infrastructure Finance Challenges and Opportunities

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox

This overview describes how the United States funds and finances infrastructure investment to maintain its economic competitiveness. It considers the roles of taxpayers, users, government allocators and lenders, and private investors in the infrastructure funding... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Infrastructure; Technology; United States

December 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

The Kid Grows Up: Decisions at the Sundance Institute

By: Mukti Khaire and Eleanor Kenyon

The Sundance case raises the question of how markets for innovative cultural products can be created and what the role of intermediaries in creative industries ought to be. The case describes the history of the Sundance Institute, which was founded by actor/director... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Film Entertainment; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

25 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

How Software Platforms Revolutionize Business

a 50,000-foot level, what impact have software platforms had on traditional industries over the last thirty years? Andrei Hagiu: At its most fundamental level, they have fueled innovation and improved productivity. Software platforms have... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

June 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Background Note

Commercializing Technology: Imaginative Understanding of User Needs

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

The transformation of technology into commercially successful products is a process fraught with risk and uncertainty, and increasing pressure on time to market is exacerbating the difficulties. This note first describes a study conducted by Hewlett-Packard to improve... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Strategy; Customers; Design; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Research; Risk and Uncertainty; Commercialization; Technology Adoption

05 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 5, 2018

across countries. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52239 2018 The Nature of Human Creativity Creativity and the Labor of Love By: Amabile, Teresa M. Abstract—This book... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

November 2007
Article

The Accidental Entrepreneur: The Emergent and Collective Process of User Entrepreneurship

By: Sonali K. Shah and Mary Tripsas

We develop a process model of how users, an understudied source of entrepreneurship, create, evaluate, share, and commercialize their ideas. We compare and contrast our model to the classic model of the entrepreneurial process, highlighting the emergent and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Valuation; Business Model; Commercialization; Adoption; Adaptation; Product; Civil Society or Community