Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(915)
- Faculty Publications (93)
- April 2011
- Article
Why Leaders Don't Learn from Success
By: Francesca Gino and Gary P. Pisano
We argue that for a variety of psychological reasons, it is often much harder for leaders and organizations to learn from success than to learn from failure. Success creates three kinds of traps that often impede deep learning. The first is attribution error or the... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Performance Tradeoffs in Team Knowledge Sourcing
By: Bradley R. Staats, Melissa Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson
This research examines how teams organize knowledge sourcing (obtaining access to others' knowledge or expertise) and investigates the performance trade-offs involved in two approaches to knowledge sourcing in teams. One approach a team can take is to specialize, such... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Google Inc. (Abridged)
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats it poses to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised April 2011)
- Case
Google Inc.
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One... View Details
- December 2009
- Article
Hiding the Evidence of Valid Theories: How Coupled Search Processes Obscure Performance Differences Among Organizations
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin
Theorists argue that an organization's high-level choices, such as its organizational design or the attributes of its top management team, should influence its performance, yet empirical researchers have struggled to detect such influence. The impact of high-level... View Details
- September 2009
- Module Note
Leading Teams Note
This note, which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams... View Details
- July 2009
- Article
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman
The optimal moment to address the question of how to improve human decision making has arrived. Thanks to fifty years of research by judgment and decision making scholars, psychologists have developed a detailed picture of the ways in which human judgment is bounded.... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making
By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman
The optimal moment to address the question of how to improve human decision making has arrived. Thanks to fifty years of research by judgment and decision making scholars, psychologists have developed a detailed picture of the ways in which human judgment is bounded.... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the Mirroring Hypothesis
By: Alan D. MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin
A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that this organization produces. Specifically, products tend to "mirror" the architectures of the organizations in which they are... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
Global Climate Change and BP
By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman
Following the sudden resignation of Sir John Browne, Tony Hayward, BP CEO, must decide how global climate change management will figure into BP's corporate strategy. Climate change management was a major part of BP's strategy under Browne: In 1997 Browne broke from his... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Coupled Search Processes: Why Is it so Difficult to Find that Organizational Design Matters?
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin
Organizational design affects performance via coupled search processes. At low frequency, managers search for appropriate organizational designs. At higher frequency, managers use designs to search for high-performing operational choices. The two searches are coupled:... View Details
- August 2006
- Article
When Exploration Backfires: Unintended Consequences of Multi-level Organizational Search
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan W. Rivkin
- October 2005 (Revised February 2006)
- Case
Reactivity: A Case of Re-Invention
By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper
By the time Glenn Osaka joined Reactivity as its new CEO in January 2001, the Internet bubble had burst, the financial markets had turned, and the company's core businesses were drying up. He was not hired to lead a turnaround, but Osaka found that the firm's future... View Details
- April 2005 (Revised July 2005)
- Case
Ilene Lang and the Catalyst Search (A)
By: Myra M. Hart and Laura L. Nash
Catalyst, the nonprofit organization dedicated to championing women in professional ranks, is searching for a new president--only the third in its 42-year history. Ilene Lang, a corporate executive and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in high-tech... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Work-Life Balance; Job Search; Gender; Service Industry
- March 2004 (Revised August 2004)
- Case
Strategic Review at Egon Zehnder International (A)
By: Ashish Nanda
The case describes the history of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder International (EZI) from its inception through 2000. Internal and environmental changes lead EZI leaders to question whether the firm might be at an inflection point in its history. The EZI... View Details
- March 2003 (Revised November 2009)
- Case
Hudson Manufacturing Company
By: Paul A. Gompers and Vanessa del Valle Broussard
Concerns the decision by Brett Keith and Owen Colligan to purchase Hudson Manufacturing, a maker of heaters and air filtration units for the military. Keith and Colligan have organized a search fund and identified Hudson as a potential buyout. The decline in the... View Details
- March 2003
- Article
Balancing Search and Stability: Interdependencies Among Elements of Organizational Design
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
- November 1999 (Revised July 2001)
- Case
New Profit Inc.: Governing the Nonprofit Enterprise
By: Robert S. Kaplan
New Profit, Inc. (NPI) is an innovative venture philanthropy fund. Founded by social entrepreneur Venessa Kirsch, NPI intends to raise large donations from individuals who wish to invest in nonprofit enterprises that could have a significant social impact and the... View Details