Publications

Program

Leadership for Senior Executives

ways to lead organizational change Identify the factors that are standing in the way of innovation Learn from stories about organizations that have successfully or unsuccessfully adapted to change Strengthen your View Details

January 2002 (Revised June 2002)
Background Note

A Note on Building and Leading Your Senior Team

By: Linda A. Hill and Maria Farkas

As performance demands intensify in fast-moving global markets, more executives are coming to rely on senior teams for strategic and operational assistance. Team building with powerful senior executives presents special challenges, including competition for their boss'... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Management Teams; Operations; Organizational Culture; Rank and Position; Strategy

April 2000 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Teach for America

On the eve of Teach For America's tenth reunion, Wendy Kopp, the 32-year-old founder and leader of the national teacher corps, is considering how to increase the impact of the organization. To date, the organization has placed 5,000 teachers in under-resourced public... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Leadership Style; Education Industry; United States

February 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

GE's Growth Strategy: The Immelt Initiative

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Follows the actions of GE CEO, Jeff Immelt, as he implements a growth strategy for the $150 billion company in a tough business environment. In four years, he reinvigorates GE's technology, expands its services, develops a commercial focus, pushes developing countries,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Judgments; Global Strategy; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure

April 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (C): Integrating BGI (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Aldo Sesia

On June 11, 2009, BlackRock, Inc., the world’s fourth-largest asset manager announced it was acquiring Barclays Global Investors (BGI) for $13.5 billion in stock and cash. The deal would more than double BlackRock’s assets under management (AUM), making it the world’s... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Integration; Organizational Culture; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology; Asset Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

05 Sep 2023
Book

Failing Well: How Your ‘Intelligent Failure’ Unlocks Your Full Potential

In the 1990s, after drugmaker Eli Lilly spent more than a decade and millions of dollars developing the new drug Alimta to treat lung cancer, the medication came up short in effectively treating cancer in expanded trials. While the failure was disappointing, it was... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

David Shin

David Shin is a doctoral student in the Organizational Behavior program jointly offered by Harvard Business School and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. His research explores how technological innovation shapes relationships at work, particularly as it... View Details

April 2007 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Bankinter: Growing Through Small and Medium Enterprises

Surveys the overall sequence of processes needed for the success of a strategy based on customer analytics. In particular, it charts the formulation and implementation of this strategy by a Spanish bank that decided to expand into the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Data and Data Sets; Knowledge Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Segmentation; Banking Industry; Spain

24 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate & J. Bruce Harreld

March 2008 (Revised June 2008)
Case

The Broad Institute: Applying the Power of Genomics to Medicine

By: Vicki L. Sato and Rachel Gordon

In June 2003, Harvard University and MIT announced an unprecedented partnership to create a biomedical institute, The Broad Institute. The culture of the Broad centered on science, and those involved considered it to be at the edge of the scientific frontier. In just... View Details

Keywords: Education; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Genetics

Program

Strategic Negotiations

efficiencies by developing a systematic approach to managing negotiations Synchronize internal and external negotiations Address the complexities associated with multiple parties and agendas as well as evolving timeframes Negotiate effectively across borders and View Details

April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Dovernet

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Information Technology; Competitive Advantage; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; Vancouver

11 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

When Business Competition Harms Society

aware that fostering a culture of intense competition, in an honest attempt to motivate employees, may instead induce unethical behavior. At the same time, they need to consider the possibility that their rivals are misbehaving in the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Auto

01 Sep 2023
News

Bless this Stress

National Geographic for Disney+/Craig Parry In the first episode of the National Geographic docuseries Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, Modupe Akinola (MBA 2001/PhDOB 2009) and the Australian actor gaze across downtown Sydney to a skyscraper in the distance, teetering... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

January 2012 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Integrated Assurance at Philips Electronics N.V.

By: Robert G. Eccles and Daniela Saltzman

Philips Electronics is a leader in integrated reporting. In 2010 it produced its third generation report. Since its first report in 2008, Philips' integrated reports and its integrated reporting website had grown in sophistication. In planning for its integrated report... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Reports; Organizational Culture

Summer 2021
Article

The Cost and Evolution of Quality at Cipla Ltd, 1935–2016

By: Muhammad H. Zaman and Tarun Khanna

This article examines the evolution of Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer Cipla towards producing drugs that met the quality standards of European and U.S. regulators. It employs new research in Cipla’s corporate archives, the Creating Emerging Markets database, and... View Details

Keywords: Cipla; Pharmaceuticals; Drug Quality; Generics; Quality; Standards; Information Technology; Cost; Organizational Culture; Business History; Pharmaceutical Industry; India

Find at Harvard

24 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

growing. Indeed, the appearance of the word “passion” in US job listings increased nearly tenfold from 2007 to 2019, according to the study, published in Research in Organizational Behavior by HBS assistant professor Jon M. Jachimowicz... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 1994 (Revised July 1995)
Case

Taco Bell--1994

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

Taco Bell CEO, John Martin, boldly proclaims a growth goal of 200,000 points of access by the year 2000 (the company had approximately 3,600 in 1991). To realize such growth, Martin embraces a philosophy of continual change. The implications for Taco Bell are dramatic... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Food; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Goals and Objectives; Change Management; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

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Article

Technology, Identity, and Inertia: Through the Lens of 'The Digital Photography Company'

By: Mary Tripsas

Organizations often experience difficulty when pursuing new technology. Large bodies of research have examined the behavioral, social, and cognitive forces that underlie this phenomenon; however, the role of an organization's identity remains relatively unexplored.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Culture; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Perception; Technology Adoption