Publications

08 Mar 2018
News

Could a New Business Model Make Clinical Drug Trials More Accessible to Patients?

February 1998 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley (A)

Rob Parson was a star producer in Morgan Stanley's Capital Markets division. He had been recruited from a competitor the prior year and had generated substantial revenues since joining the firm. Unfortunately, Parson's reviews from the 360-degree performance evaluation... View Details

Keywords: Management; Personal Development and Career; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry

February 1995 (Revised June 1999)
Case

Chemical Bank: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Norman Klein

The retail bank division of Chemical Bank faces declining margins and increased competition in its credit and deposit gathering and processing business. It wishes to implement a new strategy to become a preferred financial service provider to target customer groups.... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adoption; Growth and Development Strategy; Communication Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Management Systems; Performance Evaluation; Banks and Banking; Measurement and Metrics; Banking Industry

15 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Algorithmic Foundations for Business Strategy

Keywords: by Mihnea Moldoveanu

July–August 2021
Article

Why Do So Many Strategies Fail?

By: David J. Collis

THE PROBLEM: Seemingly successful new companies struggle to turn a healthy profit. Established firms get disrupted by upstarts. Companies that excel at serving their markets can’t adapt when customers’ tastes shift. THE ROOT CAUSE: All too often, business leaders focus... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Strategic Planning; Business Model; Value; Value Creation; Opportunities

April 2016 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Moleskine (A)

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Raffaella Sadun and Kathy Qu

Describes the founding and growth challenges facing Moleskine, an Italian-based consumer products company known for its oilcloth-covered notebooks once used by Ernest Hemingway and Vincent van Gogh. CEO Arrigo Berni and co-founder Maria Sebregondi aim to transform the... View Details

Keywords: Creative Industries; Brand Building; Digital Innovation; Digital Services And Strategy; Process Improvement; Culture; Identity Construction; Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Innovation Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

January 2018 (Revised August 2020)
Background Note

Continuous Software Development: Agile's Successor

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Samuel Clemens and Olivia Hull

In recent years, the twin software development methodologies of continuous delivery and continuous deployment have risen to prominence in the start-up world and beyond. These methods have enabled technology companies large and small to accelerate their product... View Details

October 2000 (Revised October 2001)
Case

adM@rt(A)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Carin-Isabel Knoop and David Lane

Describes the complex policy alternatives facing an online Hong Kong grocery company as it tries to apply Webvan-type concepts in the Hong Kong marketplace. Captures the extraordinary process of adaptation the company is going through as it tries to find the right... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Markets; Marketing; Business Strategy; Business Model; Decisions; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Hong Kong

Research Summary

Overview

By: Dutch Leonard

Professor Leonard's research focuses on understanding the role of leadership in the development of strategy and processes for execution in private sector and socially-oriented organizations, including an emphasis on innovation, uncertainty, building successful adaptive... View Details

October 1997 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Elaine V. Backman

Outlines the dynamic shifts in the external environment surrounding Planned Parenthood's operations in 1994. Health care reform was threatening some of its core customer base. The organization had to come up with a strategy and a process for adapting to the new... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

04 Sep 2013
What Do You Think?

How Relevant is Long-Range Strategic Planning?

Summing Up How Can Strategic Planning be Adapted to Changing Needs? Strategic planning concepts and the notion of long-range planning will continue to be integral parts of responsible management. But they may require a substantial... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

March 2007
Case

Ascent Media Group (A)

Ascent Media races to adapt to the changes resulting from increasing digitalization of its business, from creative post-production services to warehousing and repurposing of old media content. Raises issues of how technology interacts with creative processes and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technology; Management; Creativity

2012
Working Paper

An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn and Deborah Kolb

We study the process by which a professional service firm reshaped its activities and beliefs over nearly two decades as it adapted to shifts in the social discourse regarding gender and work. Analyzing archival data from the firm over eighteen years and... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firms; Social Institutions; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employment; Gender; Society; Service Industry

SSRN

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06 Aug 2015
News

What Salespeople Need to Know About the New B2B Landscape

Article

Capabilities, Cognition and Inertia: Evidence from Digital Imaging

By: M. Tripsas and G. Gavetti

There is empirical evidence that established firms often have difficulty adapting to radical technological change. Although prior work in the evolutionary tradition emphasizes the inertial forces associated with the local nature of learning processes, little... View Details

Keywords: Business Offices; Organizations; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

07 Jul 2011
What Do You Think?

So We Adapt. What’s the Downside?

Summing Up Adaptability and commitment are complementary concepts, appropriate in different situations, over different time periods, and in response to different challenges. That's the general sense that one gets in reading over the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

2008 - 2008
Conference Presentation

Organizational Identity as an Anchor for Adaptation: An Emerging Market Perspective

By: Andres Hatum, Luciana Silvestri and Roberto Vassolo

There is little doubt that organizational identity—that which is central, distinctive, and enduring about an organization—mediates in adaptive processes. Exactly how this mediation takes place, and whether it is favorable or unfavorable to adaptation, must still be... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Family Business; Strategy; Emerging Markets

2023
Chapter

Organizational Development

By: Min Basadur, Tim Basadur and Goran Calic

Our review of the field of Organizational Development (OD) reveals an extensive range of tools which attempt to help organizations improve performance. We believe that OD should be studied differently: As a continuous process of change-making or innovation. How this... View Details

Keywords: Change; Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Innovation and Management

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2016
Working Paper

Algorithmic Foundations for Business Strategy

By: Mihnea Moldoveanu

I introduce algorithmic and meta-algorithmic models for the study of strategic problem solving, aimed at illuminating the processes and procedures by which strategic managers and firms deal with complex problems. These models allow us to explore the relationship... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Business Strategy