Problem Solving - Publications - Faculty & Research

19 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?

You,” in which Nicholas Kristof wrote, “Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.” Or the 2015 Chronicle of Higher... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

retailers fail to satisfy. If a consumer needs to touch a fabric, smell a cologne, or sample food, bricks and mortar have an advantage (but only if it can solve the free rider problem created by the... View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

04 Apr 2023
Blog Post

Maersk’s Journey to Decarbonize Shipping

Collaboration with suppliers to dramatically increase supply of green shipping fuels. Maersk’s massive scale means that they can essentially create a new market for sustainable shipping fuels, which they are doing in biomethanol. While there is a chicken-or-egg View Details

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Business Economics Online Course | HBS Online

approach to various planning-related problems I tackle each day. My ability to identify details related to business efficiency and performance that I may have missed in the past was fine-tuned in the program, and my understanding of the... View Details

13 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Kind of Blue: Pushing Boundaries with Miles Davis

challenge them and their preconceptions. What would happen if you put great people on a business problem and refused to let them solve it in a habitual way? Carl Størmer: Miles Davis forced the musicians to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

13 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Don't Turn Your Marketing Function Over to AI Just Yet

practice. “We propose to step back and ask how we can best integrate machine learning to solve previously untenable marketing problems facing real companies?” Combining man and machine A product of the 11th... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

06 Feb 2013
What Do You Think?

Is ‘Conscious Capitalism’ an Antidote to Income Inequality?

an absolute believer as well as an amateur practitioner of Conscious Capitalism and its sister concept of Servant Leadership, I do not think that either concept solves the problem by itself. What they can do... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Your Company Wants to be a 'Cognitive Referent' (Hint: SpaceX)

cognitive referent in the market. So they ended up actually undermining their own performance even while they helped the market take off.” The successful firms focused first on trying to solve a problem and... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Aerospace; Food & Beverage; Retail

01 Jan 2002
News

Egon P.S. Zehnder (MBA '56)

the list, he points out fervently. Beyond that, the top executive's tool kit includes motivational skills that can inspire employees at all levels of an organization, the ability to communicate and cooperate with others, and a talent for View Details

04 Nov 2015
What Do You Think?

Why Does Gender Diversity Improve Financial Performance?

might have produced the same results as the McKinsey study. He commented that improved performance is not about gender diversity, but rather about cognitive diversity--"differences in the way that we see and categorize the world, the way we View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

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Commercialization of the Polarizer - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

Monitor , and the New York Herald Tribune . H. I. Day of Electrical Research Products, Inc., impressed with the presentation, stated, "Land has solved a problem that every physicist working with light has... View Details

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HBS OnBoard | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

synchronous sessions with a combination of HBS faculty, social impact practitioners, and alumni to discuss cross-sector topics. Each session will be interactive with opportunities to collaborate with other HBS alumni on problem solving,... View Details

07 Feb 2019
Book

How Big Companies Can Outrun Disruption

manufacturing, which allowed them to exploit the potential of carbon fiber. Lagace: Where can companies get better ideas? Pisano: The problem is often not where they look but where they don’t look for ideas. If you ask where ideas for... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

24 Jun 2021
Blog Post

Celebrating the Past, Crafting the Future Part 2: The First HBS/HKS Class

deal about how to think through problems tactically and holistically and that continues to come into play in his career. “Finance classes at HBS helped me to lead the finance department at Formlabs and international relations classes at... View Details

12 Nov 2021
News

Alumni Business Leaders on Confronting the Climate Change Challenge

CEO, State Street Investing in Climate Remediation BIO Business leaders have a critical role to play in climate change. Climate is a unique problem in that it is truly global—issues and solutions transcend borders. Though we live in a... View Details

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2024 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

company motto, it fueled the belief that we can either make progress or take care of people, one or the other. Throughout this dynamic, interactive lecture, Frei makes the case that the best change leaders solve hard View Details

10 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

The COVID Two-Step for Leaders: Protect and Pivot

improvement and innovation. Below are three suggestions for enabling continuous improvement in your company: Call on cross-functional teams to help solve problems In order to achieve greater efficiency, one... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

13 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

7 Lessons for Navigating the Storm

a crisis, there is a temptation for less experienced leaders to jump to quick-fix solutions that may mask the real problems. The only way to solve these problems is to understand their root cause and... View Details