Design thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

13 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside

that they'll design businesses that we want to acquire and will fit the niches in our portfolio of product or in the innovation trajectory that we've designed.' "Frankly, I think a smart corporation... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss

04 Sep 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Getting Back on Course

Superwoman Thanks to intense discussions over dinners with alumnae—the first of which was hosted by Welsh in New York—and to later conversations with faculty and other colleagues at HBS, Hart came up with a plan. The result is Charting Your Course, a new program View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

28 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

Amazon, eBay and the Bidding Wars

work in market design are interested in how the rules by which markets are organized influence the behavior of participants. So, when I noticed, back in the early days of eBay, that a lot of auctions received bids right near the end of... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Web Services; Technology

14 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

The Big Money for Big Projects

the cost and schedule overruns. In general, I think the project would have benefited from more "for-profit" incentives—if there's not clear incentives to be efficient and make profits, people won't. To address this concern in... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

02 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 2, 2018

paper we draw on the recent literature to highlight areas in which history has played a particularly prominent role in improving our understanding of growth dynamics. Research at the intersection of historical data, theory, and empirics has the potential to reframe how... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

21 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The VC Quandary: Too Much Money

for any individual companies to succeed, and valuations got pushed up…I wonder if you think that phenomenon has gone away?" Marc A. Friend, a general partner with twenty-year-old Summit Partners, said the reason you see... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Financial Services

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

manufactuer's 787 Dreamliner, designed and built using more than 100 outside partners, is perhaps the most-watched example of the use of innovation networks. But already almost two years late, the project was dealt another blow last month... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

13 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

6 Ways to Support COVID-Weary Employees

and are highly work-engaged. All of this suggests a multi-pronged solution to contagious presenteeism: Remove financial incentives for it by providing paid sick leave, audit work designs for features that evoke undue pressure for... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

27 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

Mattel: Getting a Toy Recall Right

design flaws in the toys with the magnets that could come loose. But Mattel deserves praise for now stepping up to its responsibilities as the leading brand in the toy industry. What has Mattel done right? The CEO has taken personal... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

is all this misconduct occurring now? A: I think it's the confluence of several factors: the use of powerful incentive packages, an exuberance that pushed equity prices to heights that were hard to justify economically and yet were very... View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

13 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Diagnosing the Public Health Care Alternative

think the chances of a government plan supplanting private options are slim," he writes. But the existence of both public and private insurance plans might provide enough competition to improve overall value for patients. Professor... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

24 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Who Sets Your Benchmarks?

of the twentieth century, the first twenty-two years of my life seemed to revolve around an unending series of tests designed to rank me versus my peer group. At the end of each grading period, my mom would ask me if I had made the honor... View Details

25 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Why a Harvard Finance Instructor Went to the Kumbh Mela

the Harvard Divinity School. She is a world expert on pilgrimages and the author of definitive books about the rivers of India. Prof. Rahul Mehrotra, chair of the department of urban planning and design at the Harvard View Details

Keywords: by John D. Macomber; Construction; Real Estate

30 Sep 2002
What Do You Think?

Are Business Schools Really Important “Crucibles of Leadership?”

Summing Up Crucibles of leadership are where you find them—or they find you. And business schools rarely create them, at least according to the respondents to the October column. Perry Miles put it most succinctly when he said, "A business school cannot and should... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Managing Innovation is Like Theater

destination in advance. Whether you're designing a new product, running a business in volatile conditions, operating a process that might encounter unforeseen inputs, or just trying to figure out what to do with your life, the journey... View Details

Keywords: by Rob Austin & Lee Devin

20 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School

inadequate disclosure rules were cracks in the financial infrastructure, options were the rocket fuel that blew the cracks wide open, with some disastrous results. I think all the attention being paid to the current problems—particularly... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

24 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Do We Tax?

fixing this gap. For 40 years, economists have drawn from the well of Utilitarian theory—which has the goal of maximizing overall well-being in society—to help design tax systems in the United States and around the world. Although the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Legal Services

16 Aug 2024
In Practice

Election 2024: What's at Stake for Business and the Workplace?

policy, resulting in even stricter immigration restrictions—with potential negative consequences for the economy. The US government and business leaders should instead seek a coordinated approach to design an open, but flexible... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

ideas to a wider audience. The chapter looks at the origins of Porter's interest in clusters, which turns out to be a natural extension of his earlier work on companies. It identifies the key characteristics of Porter's conceptual View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

31 May 2016
First Look

May 31, 2016

on riskier projects and strategies. But risk management must overcome severe individual and organizational biases that prevent managers and employees from thinking deeply and analytically about their risk exposure. In this paper, we draw... View Details