Publications

31 Jul 2017
HBS Case

It’s Hard to Fix the Family Business Without Offending the Family

finds equally beneficial lessons in a much different setting: a small family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Boston’s inner-city neighborhood of Dorchester. Challenges lie in navigating complex family relationships, transitioning from... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

August 2012 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Milwaukee (A): Making of a World Water Hub

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

Starting in 2007 Milwaukee leaders from different areas (large established companies, civic organizations, public sector, academia, and entrepreneurs) negotiated a path for converting the region into a global water hub to address economic and environmental concerns.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Growth Management; Business or Company Management; Leading Change; Wisconsin

02 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Shareholders Need a Say on Pay

when it comes to those much-maligned golden parachutes. Ferri sees say on pay as a tool utilized "quite judiciously" in the past. "There's no evidence that the process was hijacked by special interests. And it works quite well in terms of favoring more... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Financial Services

April 2025
Case

Campbell's Recipe for Advancing School Nutrition

By: Hise O. Gibson, F. Christopher Eaglin and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

In 2021, The Campbell’s Company launched Full Futures, a collective impact initiative aimed at advancing school nutrition environments in underserved communities. The program started in Camden, NJ—home to Campbell’s headquarters—and later expanded to Charlotte, NC, and... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Education; Health; Nutrition; Social Enterprise; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Decision Making; Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; New Jersey; North Carolina; Pennsylvania

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Junko Yoda and Her Collaboration to Address Sex Trafficking in Asia

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

In 2011, Junko Yoda with Pam McCambridge launched CLinked, a venture aimed to reduce human trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. Since incorporation, they launched several different pilot programs in partnership with local non-governmental... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Social Issues; Non-Governmental Organizations; Public Administration Industry; Indonesia

Teaching Interest

Finance Reporting and Control

Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) is a course about how leaders can design and use performance measurement systems to build more effective organizations. Throughout their careers, business leaders are required to... View Details

September 2012
Article

Learning Agility: In Search of Conceptual Clarity and Theoretical Grounding

By: D. Scott DeRue, Susan J. Ashford and Christopher G. Myers

As organizations become more complex and dynamic, individuals' ability to learn from experience becomes more important. Recently, the concept of learning agility has attracted considerable attention from human resource professionals and consultants interested in... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Learning

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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

04 Oct 2022
What Do You Think?

Have Managers Underestimated the Need for Face-to-Face Contact?

Consider Lifting Tariffs on Chinese Imports? The several comments on last month’s topic reflect the complexity of the tariff issue, wide differences of responses to the question, and the search for least-worst strategies. Ron Kurtz... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2017
Case

Planetary Resources Inc., Property Rights, and the Regulation of the Space Economy

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Planetary Resources, Inc. (PRI) had a bold, some said crazy, vision: to mine asteroids. One might have assumed that developing the right technology would be the greatest challenge facing PRI. But even if the fledgling company could develop and deploy the sophisticated... View Details

Keywords: Property; Rights; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Aerospace Industry; Mining Industry

November 2000 (Revised October 2005)
Case

TiVo

TiVo is a digital video recorder that allows viewers to watch what they want, when they want to watch it. Fourteen months into the launch, sales are very disappointing. Brodie Keast, VP of marketing and sales, wants to combine a catchy communications campaign, product... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Product Launch; Television Entertainment; Innovation and Invention; Electronics Industry

Research Summary

Railroads and the Making of Modern China

My current book project is entitled Railroads and the Making of the Modern China and explores China’s economic and socio-political transformation from the last decades of the empire to the present using railroad infrastructure as a focus. Based on a large... View Details

February 28, 2014
Article

A Better Route to Tech Standards

By: Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole

Technological standards are ubiquitous, whether they allow consumers to communicate seamlessly across wireless networks or manufacturers to procure goods across complex global supply chains. These standards—shaped by standard-setting organizations (SSOs) and... View Details

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Article

Political Skill: Explaining the Effects of Nonnative Accent on Managerial Hiring and Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

By: Laura Huang, Marcia Frideger and Jone L. Pearce

We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Prejudice and Bias; Competency and Skills; Selection and Staffing; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Decisions

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August 2022
Case

In-Q-Tel: Innovation On A Mission

By: Joshua Lev Krieger and Josh Lerner

In 2022, the leaders of In-Q-Tel (IQT) considered what was next for the unique mission-driven organization. Since 1999, IQT had one mission: to be the most sophisticated source of strategic technical knowledge and capabilities to the U.S. government and its allies. IQT... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; National Security; Technological Innovation; Research; Geopolitical Units; Risk Management; Recruitment; Growth and Development Strategy; Venture Capital; Knowledge Management; Information Industry; Banking Industry

Teaching Interest

Financial Reporting and Control

By: Suraj Srinivasan

Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) covers topics about how managers can design and use performance measurement systems for external reporting and internal management to build more effective organizations. Throughout their careers, business leaders are required to... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting

January 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

COFIDIS

An offspring of French catalog marketer 3 Suisses, and a popular sponsor of Tour de France, Cofidis sells consumer credit over the phone, defying conventional banking with a product policy and a communication strategy that perfectly fits the company's comparative... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Competitive Advantage; Product; Credit; Financial Services Industry; France