Publications

March 1999 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Apple Computer--1999

By: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak

In 1980, Apple was the leader of the PC industry, but by 1999, it had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Wintel camp. This case examines Apple's efforts to create sustainable competitive advantage as the PC industry evolves. After discussing Apple's history and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Business or Company Management; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology Industry

15 Dec 2009
News

International Emmy Award for Best Documentary

15 Oct 2018
News

Venezuela’s Meltdown Creates a Nation of Desperate Capitalists

July 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Amagansett Funds (A)

Amagansett Funds has had a troubled history with its customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sales agents feel that they derive no value from it and that it is a "tax on their jobs." Amagansett is investigating whether CRM can be improved by making its data... View Details

Keywords: Management; Customer Relationship Management; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry

June 2002 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Delphi Corporation (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Rakesh Khurana and Sonya Sanchez

The Delphi Corp.'s board of directors faces a transition as lead director Thomas Wyman approaches mandatory retirement. Chairman and CEO J.T. Battenberg reflects on Delphi's history and its successful reinvention by Wyman and Battenberg when it separated from its... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Management Succession; Management Teams; Relationships; Corporate Strategy

09 Aug 2010
News

How to Speed Up Energy Innovation

12 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Waking Up a Sleeping Company

illustrates, it is possible to bring your own personality to the leadership post and still be true to the company's history and ideals. The extraordinary results achieved by Medtronic in the past fifteen... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Manager or Mentor? Why You Must Be Both

his teaching career at Wharton. As a newly minted twenty-nine-year-old professor there, he said, he found himself the recipient of a steady stream of practical advice from the senior faculty. Don't hang back by the blackboard when... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2022
Article

Fostering Perceptions of Authenticity via Sensitive Self-Disclosure

By: Li Jiang, Leslie K. John, Reihane Boghrati and Maryam Kouchaki

Leaders’ perceived authenticity—the sense that leaders are acting in accordance with their “true self”—is associated with positive outcomes for both employees and organizations alike. How might leaders foster this impression? We show that sensitive self-disclosure, in... View Details

Keywords: Authenticity; Weaknesses; Self-disclosure; Leaders; Impression Management; Leadership Style; Motivation and Incentives

09 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Overcoming the Challenges of Selling Brand New Technology (Hey, Need a 3-D Printer?)

“Nothing sells itself,” says Frank Cespedes, senior lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. “When companies introduce new products, they are offering something that by definition is going to replace... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Consumer Products; Electronics; Industrial Products; Information Technology; Manufacturing; Medical Devices & Supplies; Retail

03 Jun 2016
News

Again in a Great City

thousands of abandoned homes, needs more housing The Detroit economy was already wavering when the Cummings family arrived. By early 1992, Detroit’s debt rating would be cut to junk bond status. From an investor’s point of view, the city... View Details

Keywords: April White; photographed by Brian Kelly

25 Aug 2022
News

Up on the Corner

two dilapidated row houses that had been vacant since 1978. She intends to replace them with affordable rental apartments—the opening salvo in an ambitious plan to redevelop West Baltimore Street, whose boarded-up windows and abandoned storefronts belie its View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Melissa Golden; Real Estate

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Right from the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader

fairness; others are motivated by arrogance ("I can make these people") or hubris ("All it takes is hard work, support, and leadership"). Whatever the rationale, retaining managers with a View Details

Keywords: by Dan Ciampa & Michael D. Watkins

22 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

Online Banks Fill Funding Needs for Small Business

(Editor's note: This is the last in a series of four articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of bank capital for small business.) Banks are the principal... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

Article

Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception

By: Zoe Chance, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely

Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which people go beyond merely explaining away their misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who exploit... View Details

Keywords: Hindsight Bias; Lying; Motivated Reasoning; Self-enhancement; Social Psychology; Perception; Performance Expectations