Publications

January 2010
Journal Article

A Choice Prediction Competition: Choices from Experience and from Description

By: Ido Erev, Eyal Ert, Alvin E. Roth, Ernan E. Haruvy, Stefan Herzog, Robin Hau, Ralph Hertwig, Terrence Steward, Robert West and Christian Lebiere

Erev, Ert, and Roth organized three choice prediction competitions focused on three related choice tasks: one-shot decisions from description (decisions under risk), one-shot decisions from experience, and repeated decisions from experience. Each competition was based... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Mathematical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty; Competition

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August 1989 (Revised December 1997)
Case

U.S. Airline Industry--1978-88 (A), The

Describes the evolution of the airline industry in the first decade after deregulation (1978-88). Looks at the primary areas of operation in which managers can effect change (planes, people, routes, marketing). The basic teaching objective is to cover industry... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Industry Structures; Air Transportation Industry; United States

July 2003 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Singapore Airlines: Customer Service Innovation

By: Rohit Deshpande and Hal Hogan

The members of Singapore Airlines' (SIA) management committee needs to decide whether to cancel the implementation of the new lie-flat seats in business class after the effects of the global recession on the travel industry in September 2001. SIA was considered the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Air Transportation Industry; Travel Industry; Singapore

January 2017 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Chicago and the Array of Things: A Fitness Tracker for the City

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

The city of Chicago has recently launched a project called the Array of Things. The program involves a series of sensor nodes placed around the city that capture a massive amount of data including pedestrian and vehicle flow, air quality, and cloud cover. The Array of... View Details

Keywords: Smart Connected Products; Smart Cities; Internet Of Things; Sensors; Govenment; Government Administration; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; Chicago; United States

August 1995 (Revised August 1995)
Case

CIGNA Property and Casualty Reengineering (A)

By: Richard L. Nolan, Donna B. Stoddard, Chiara Francalanci and Elise C Martin

Reengineering was introduced at CIGNA Corp. in 1988. CIGNA entered a second wave reengineering effort through a major project at CIGNA P&C, one of CIGNA's larger businesses. P&C was in financial crisis and as a result brought in a new executive team in 1991 to head the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Cost vs Benefits; Design; Growth and Development; Analytics and Data Science; Growth and Development Strategy; Balanced Scorecard; Financial Crisis; Crisis Management; Projects; Information Technology; Insurance Industry

01 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Erik Snowberg, California Institute of Technology

October 1993 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Kathleen Scharf

Describes Becton Dickinson's evolving attempt to develop products and strategies to meet worldwide competitive and market needs. Traces the evolution of a classic parent company-led product-market strategy to truly transnational product and strategy development.... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Product Development; Innovation and Management; Competitive Advantage; Multinational Firms and Management

January 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

The New Carolina Initiative

By: Michael E. Porter and Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo

The New Carolina Initiative case explores the process of fostering competitiveness in the subnational region, South Carolina, one of the poorest states in the United States. The case has been developed primarily for use in the course "Microeconomics of... View Details

Keywords: Public Sector; Poverty; Competitive Strategy; Private Sector; Economic Growth; South Carolina

Research Summary

Cost Management Systems

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Robert S. Kaplan continues to explore the design and use of activity-based cost management systems for manufacturing and service companies. His most recent work, done collaboratively with Professor Michael E. Porter, applies time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC)... View Details

August 2014
Article

Incentives in a Stage-Gate Process

By: Raul O. Chao, Kenneth C. Lichtendahl and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Many large organizations use a stage‐gate process to manage new product development projects. In a typical stage‐gate process project managers learn about potential ideas from research and exert effort in development while senior executives make intervening go/no‐go... View Details

Keywords: Stage-Gate Process; Production; Operations; Product Development; Innovation and Invention

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2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel-dataset on firm hierarchies of large U.S. firms (1986-1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy

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Research Summary

Trust

By: Deepak Malhotra

My research on trust falls into two broad categories. First, I study barriers to trust development, and focus on mechanisms that might help to overcome these barriers. One recent project analyzes over 150,000 pages of documents concerning 102-interfirm disputes to... View Details

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Do Managers’ Heuristics Affect R&D Performance Volatility? A Simulation Informed by the Pharmaceutical Industry

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Gary P. Pisano; Pharmaceutical

March 2006
Module Note

Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 3: Expanding Diversity

By: Alan D. MacCormack

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

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Business Processes; Projects; Risk and Uncertainty; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Opportunities; Perspective; Expansion; Goals and Objectives

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why IT Does Matter

had the courage to invest in its performance, and they used it to gain a significant competitive edge. It is naive to assume that other sharply discontinuous technologies will not offer similar... View Details

Keywords: by F. Warren McFarlan & Richard L. Nolan

February 2002 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Customer Profitability and Customer Relationship Management at RBC Financial Group

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

The Royal Bank of Canada uses customer relationship management and customer profitability tools to gain a competitive advantage in Canada's increasingly crowded financial services market. The case presents two pricing and customer management issues: one from the point... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Price; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Customer Value and Value Chain; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Canada

September 1998 (Revised September 1998)
Case

Saturn Corporation in 1998

Describes the challenges facing the Saturn Corp., General Motor's (GM) small-car company, as it enters a phase of transferring its knowledge, technology, and experience throughout GM. Describes the urgency of Saturnization at GM and the continuing pressure to retain... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Competitive Advantage; Auto Industry; United States

January 2010 (Revised March 2013)
Case

foursquare

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and David Chen

Co-founders of foursquare are deciding how to respond to competitive threats and scale up the organization. Foursquare was a location-based online service that allowed users to "check in" to a location using an application on a smartphone. Foursquare kept track of a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competitive Advantage; Web Services Industry; United States