Publications

September 2002 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Siebel Systems: Organizing for the Customer

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Davila

Siebel Systems is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Tom Siebel, the company's founder, has organized the business to accommodate growth and focus on the customer. Innovative information technology systems and clear accountability prove to be essential to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Business Growth and Maturation; Information Technology; Performance Evaluation; Performance Expectations; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management Teams; Information Technology Industry; North and Central America

14 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting

conference at HBS that Ramanna is organizing with McArthur University Professor Rebecca M. Henderson will dive into these themes and other ideas to develop and clarify reporting standards. For the conference, Henderson and Ramanna teamed... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting; Accounting; Accounting

December 2016
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 10: Using the Job Design Optimization Tool to Build Effective Organizations

By: Robert Simons

This module reading provides directions for using the online Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT) which is available free of charge from Harvard Business School Publishing at https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/resources/marketing/multimedia/JDOT/index.html. This tool can... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Span Of Control; Span Of Accountability; Performance Measurement; Job Design; Organization Design; Strategy; Entrepreneurship

03 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Applying the Care Delivery Value Chain: HIV/AIDS Care in Resource Poor Settings

Keywords: by Joseph Rhatigan, Sachin Jain, Joia S. Mukherjee & Michael E. Porter; Health

Research Summary

Divergent change in organizations

By: Julie Battilana

The first stream of research in Professor Battilana’s work aims to identify the conditions that enable individual actors to initiate divergent change within organizations as well as the conditions enabling successful implementation of such change. It combines... View Details

October 2010 (Revised July 2013)
Case

ActionAid International: Globalizing Governance, Localizing Accountability

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and Rachel Gordon

As a global NGO working in 45 countries, ActionAid International aims to eradicate poverty by addressing its underlying causes such as injustice and inequality. This case follows a series of radical transformations implemented by the organization's CEO, Ramesh Singh—a... View Details

Keywords: Local Range; Globalized Firms and Management; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Nonprofit Organizations; Power and Influence; Johannesburg; London

Article

The Influence of Ownership on Accounting Information Expenditures

This paper analyzes the association between ownership, top management incentives, and expenditures on accounting information. We argue that organizations with privately appointed boards of directors such as for-profit and non-governmental nonprofit organizations use... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Motivation and Incentives; Accounting; Health Care and Treatment; Ownership; Health Industry

May 2009
Supplement

Ceres Gardening Company: Funding Growth in Organic Products, Spreadsheet for Instructors (Brief Case)

By: John H. McArthur and Joel L. Heilprin

Keywords: Accounting Procedures; Marketing; Business Growth; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Channels; Financial Statements; Sales

August 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Repositioning CARE USA

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

CARE USA, a large ($600 million) international nonprofit/NGO, had recently revamped its external branding and positioning in support of its international development work. The case lays out the challenges facing its new CEO, Helene Gayle, as she manages through the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Management; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Non-Governmental Organizations; Adaptation; United States

October 2013
Article

The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Value; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

they tend to remain silent, fearful that speaking up could put their careers at risk. “A CEO might be trying to execute this corporate strategy and everybody in the organization knows it’s off the rails, but no one wants to be the bearer... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Article

Participation in a Voluntary Bundled Payment Program by Organizations Providing Care After an Acute Hospitalization

By: A Jay Holmgren, Julia Adler-Milstein and Lena M. Chen

Article

The IT Transformation Health Care Needs

By: Nikhil R. Sahni, Robert S. Huckman, Anuraag Chigurupati and David M. Cutler

In recent years, health care organizations have made sizable investments in information technology. They’ve used their IT systems to replace paper records with electronic ones and to improve billing processes, thereby boosting revenue. But so far, IT has been of little... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Business Model

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September 2012 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Philips-Visicu

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Natalie Kindred and Sara M. McKinley

Would the advent of global payment models and ACOs create sufficient demand for a telemedicine offering covering the care continuum, from hospitals to the home? This was the decision facing Royal Philips Electronics (Philips), the Netherlands-based producer of... View Details

December 2010
Article

Organizing the In-between: The Population Dynamics of Network-weaving Organizations in the Global Interstate Network

By: Paul Ingram and Magnus Thor Torfason

This article examines the population dynamics and viability of network weavers, which are organizations that provide network relations for others. An analysis of the population dynamics of the intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that are the basis of the interstate... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Organizations; Demographics; Relationships; Globalization; Economics; Conflict and Resolution; Value; Lawfulness; Competition

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June 2015
Article

The Organization of Enterprise in Japan

By: Tom Nicholas

Recent research reveals that the joint stock corporation was not a superior form of business organization in many countries historically. In Japan, however, it played a more fundamental role. Between 1896 and 1939 joint stock enterprises accounted for 44 percent of... View Details

Keywords: Japan; Legal Form; Enterprise; Modernization; Business Organization; Entrepreneurship; Japan

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2011
Working Paper

Organizations in the Shadow of Communities

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Karim R. Lakhani

The concept of a community form is drawn upon in many subfields of organizational theory. Although there is not much convergence on a level of analysis, there is convergence on a mode of action that is increasingly relevant to a knowledge-based economy marked by porous... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Boundaries; Information Technology; Theory; Value Creation