Publications

September 2012 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Doing Business in India

By: Andy Zelleke, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Saloni Chaturvedi

The case is set in August 2012—a time when India was undergoing policy stasis as several key reforms were stalled and the government faced allegations of misallocation of coal production licenses. The first part of the case provides a brief background on India's... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market Finance; Emergent Countries; Business History; Economic History; Fieldwork; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Strategy

27 Nov 2006
What Do You Think?

What’s to Be Done About Performance Reviews?

words, "The 'pain' of conducting performance reviews is associated with a lack of clear mutual (management and employee) understanding of their purpose." At the heart of this concern was whether they are intended primarily to benefit the organization View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

08 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: A Sense of Urgency

Street Journal published an explosive article spelling out many of the firm's problems. The CEO had two weeks' warning, but instead of alerting others or working to kill the story, he deliberately chose to do nothing. Not only did he not... View Details

Keywords: by John P. Kotter

February 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

"Not another Bochum." Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila was clear in the goals he set for the 2011 restructuring that Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, had decided was necessary to address the dramatically changed competitive environment the company faced in smartphones... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Plant Closure; Outplacement; Shared Value; Business or Company Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Restructuring; Employee Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry

January 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Satera Team at Imatron Systems, Inc. (A), The

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Elizabeth Schatzel

Escalating conflict has erupted within the Satera product development team, resulting from the conflicting cognitive styles of the two senior mechanical engineers. The conflict has taken a toll on both project progress and team morale, endangering one of the most... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Business or Company Management; Groups and Teams; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Research Summary

Social Learning

One major area of my research is social learning: the ways and extent to which people discover what they want and need from the behavior and opinions of others. Social learning takes many forms. Probably most obvious is word of mouth—the advice and... View Details

Article

Strategic Orientations in a Competitive Context: The Role of Strategic Orientation Differentiation

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Amir Grinstein and Elie Ofek

Strategic orientation studies often provide 'best practice prescriptions' for firms in a given context—matching orientations to environmental conditions. While this perspective has value, empirical results are equivocal, and an important reality has been overlooked:... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Change Management; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions

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April 2011
Article

Strategies for Learning from Failure

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Many executives believe that all failure is bad (although it usually provides lessons)--and that learning from it is pretty straightforward. The author, a professor at Harvard Business School, thinks both beliefs are misguided. In organizational life, she says, some... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leadership; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Failure; Opportunities

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01 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making

What lessons could the humid shores of the Caribbean, the freezing heights of the Himalayas, or the farthest reaches of Earth's atmosphere hold for your company or organization? Although those places... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

Research Summary

Distributed Innovation in Open Systems—The Role of Modularity

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Distributed innovation in open systems is an important trend in the modern global economy. As education levels rise and communication costs fall, more people have the means and motivation to innovate. Supply chains now stretch around the world as firms outsource... View Details

18 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask

doesn't stand still and it's natural for companies to fall out of alignment with achievement of key objectives. Too often, leaders don't realize how off-track they are until serious damage has been done to the business or the firm's... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

February 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Jaguar Capital S.A.S., Take the Money and Run?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

In January 2014, Tomas Uribe and Rodrigo Sanchez-Rios of Jaguar Capital S.A.S. (Jaguar or Jaguar Capital), were considering an offer from White Stone, the world’s largest private equity real estate investor. Jaguar Capital needed capital to fund its investment thesis,... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Investing; Private Equity Financing; Deal Structuring; Emerging Market; Emerging Economies; Emerging Market Finance; International Entrepreneurship; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Agreements and Arrangements; Emerging Markets; Real Estate Industry; Retail Industry; Financial Services Industry; Colombia; Latin America; United States

July–August 2013
Article

How Experts Gain Influence

By: Anette Mikes, Matthew Hall and Yuval Millo

In theory, the risk management groups of two British banks—Saxon and Anglo—had the same influence in their organizations. But in practice, they did not: Saxon's was engaged in critical work throughout the bank, while Anglo's had little visibility outside its areas of... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Banking Industry

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April 2009
Article

How to Market in a Downturn

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine Jocz

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Because no two recessions are exactly alike, marketers find themselves in poorly... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Spending; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Segmentation

Read Now

February 2015 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Equality of Opportunity and Outcome in the U.S.

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Alastair Su

Equality of opportunity is endorsed universally even though, or more likely because, it can mean such different things to different people. What definition of equality of opportunity ought to figure into policy decisions? How close, or far, is the United States from... View Details

Keywords: Equality Of Opportunity; Justice; Opportunities; Equality and Inequality; Policy; United States

April 2006
Background Note

Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 1: Innovation and Uncertainty

By: Alan D. MacCormack

Describes the first module of a Harvard Business School 30-session elective course called Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome these challenges. The... View Details

Keywords: Design; Curriculum and Courses; Innovation and Management; Projects; Opportunities; Perspective

21 May 2008
Research & Ideas

Going Negative in Political Advertising

negative advertisements we've seen from the Clinton campaign: "Fear appeal" ads, such as the 3am phone call, designed to worry voters about Obama's lack of experience. Guilt-by-association ads that include footage of Pastor Wright. The roll-your-own ads that... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

February 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Boston.com

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jon K Rust

How aggressively should an incumbent move when developing an online business that threatens its core product? With Internet competitors taking direct aim at the traditional print newspaper business model, the Boston Globe fought back with its own web initiative,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Change Management; Internet and the Web; Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Strategy; Publishing Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States

Spring 2016
Article

Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Understanding the Tradeoffs

By: Shane Greenstein, Martin Peitz and Tommaso Valletti

The last decade has seen a strident public debate about the principle of "net neutrality." The economic literature has focused on two definitions of net neutrality. The most basic definition of net neutrality is to prohibit payments from content providers to internet... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Policy