Publications

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2008
Chapter

Allocating Marketing Resources

By: Sunil Gupta and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Companies spend billions of dollars on marketing every year because it is essential to organic growth. Given these large investments, marketing managers have the responsibility to optimally allocate resources and to demonstrate that their investments generate... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods

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02 Feb 2007
What Do You Think?

Is There Too Little “Know Why” In Business?

"Purpose is just one part of the whole process . We definitely have to concretize the steps we intend to do, break down the core purpose to objectives, and then to relevant action plans ." Shrikant Sortur reminded us of... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Article

Stop the Meeting Madness: How to Free Up Time for Meaningful Work

By: Leslie Perlow, Constance Noonan Hadley and Eunice Eun

Many executives feel overwhelmed by meetings, and no wonder: On average, they spend nearly 23 hours a week in them, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. What’s more, the meetings are often poorly timed, badly run, or both. We can all joke about how painful they... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Performance Efficiency; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement

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Steve Wheelwright is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard Business School.

Following his retirement from HBS in 2006, he served with former Dean Kim B. Clark at BYU-Idaho and then from 2007-2015 he served as... View Details

May 1987 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Caruso's Pizza (Condensed)

Caruso's Pizza is a small, entrepreneurial restaurant chain. The case considers expansion of an experimental pizza delivery system ("express delivery") that involves a major process innovation--producing pizzas to inventory rather than to order. The system promises... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Processes; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry

Tony Mayo is the Thomas S. Murphy Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in the Organizational Behavior Unit of Harvard Business School (HBS). He currently teaches and serves as the course head for... View Details

Keywords: advertising; airline; education industry; nonprofit industry; publishing industry; service industry

Stefan H. Thomke

Stefan Thomke (sthomke@hbs.edu), an authority on the management of innovation, is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He has worked with firms on product, process, and... View Details

January 2025
Case

Ontra: Embracing GenAI in the Legal Technology Industry

By: Christopher Stanton and George Gonzalez

Ontra built a network of legal professionals to enable financial institutions to outsource contract negotiations. The rise of generative AI inspired the company to build software solutions to streamline its processes through automation. Now company leadership must... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Technology Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

15 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 15, 2008

questions and concerns. Placing value only on getting things right the first time, organizations are unable to take the risks necessary to improve and evolve. By contrast, firms that put a premium on what Edmondson calls... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2018
Case

Zensar Technologies Ltd.

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Tanvi Deshpande

Zensar, an established mid-tier IT services company based in India, is known for its customer-centric approach and close-knit culture. Sandeep Kishore has recently stepped in as the MD and CEO, replacing the previous CEO of 15 years. Kishore is developing his strategy... View Details

Keywords: Digitalization; Business Processes; Strategy; Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Information Technology Industry

July 1993 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Millipore Corporate Strategy

By: Nitin Nohria and V. Kasturi Rangan

Millipore, a $750 million (sales) company with three divisions, had been growing at a rate of 20% in the 1970s, but this growth rate had slowed considerably in the 1980s. CEO John Gilmartin was looking for ways to reenergize the organization and redirect its strategy... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Corporate Strategy; Restructuring; Growth and Development Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Business Processes; Organizational Structure

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December 2013 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Paul Levy: Confronting a 'Corporate Campaign' (A)

By: James K. Sebenius

Hospital CEO Paul Levy confronts an SEIU unionization drive via a "corporate campaign" aimed at undercutting the hospital's relationships with key internal and external constituencies. Having shepherded one of Boston's top teaching hospitals much of the way through a... View Details

Keywords: Dispute Resolution; Corporate Campaign; Negotiating Campaign; Bargaining; Health Care; Hospitals; Unions; Health Care and Treatment; Negotiation; Strategy; Negotiation Process; Labor Unions; Health Industry; Boston

26 Sep 2024
HBS Seminar

Garrett Van Ryzin, Columbia & Amazon

Program

Leadership for Senior Executives

improve your competitive position in the marketplace. Details Build your contextual intelligence Analyze how the environmental context influences how your organization operates and competes Sharpen your contextual intelligence on a micro... View Details

October 1989 (Revised May 1996)
Case

Xerox Corp.: Leadership Through Quality (A)

By: Todd D. Jick and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Describes the "Leadership Through Quality" effort undertaken by Xerox in the 1980s. Includes the history of Xerox in the 1970s and its need to make major changes in quality by the 1980s. Most of the remainder of the case details the step-by-step process by which Xerox... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Quality; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Service Industry; Electronics Industry

21 Sep 2012
News

Something for the weekend

February 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Merger Integration at Bank of America: The TrustWeb Project

By: Gary P. Pisano and Bradley R. Staats

This case explores project management in a large organization through the eyes of a young project manager, Mike Morris. Morris is tasked with leading a project within the overall merger integration effort at Bank of America. Morris encounters difficulties with managing... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Management Skills; Business Processes; Projects; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Banking Industry; United States

17 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

the resume screening process at companies throughout the United States, says Katherine A. DeCelles, the James M. Collins Visiting Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. “Discrimination still exists in... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 1995 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Smashing the Cube: Corporate Transformation at CIBA-GEIGY Ltd.

By: David J. Collis and Elizabeth Wynne Johnson

CIBA-GEIGY is a large, diversified multinational corporation that transforms itself in the 1990s through a massive structural and cultural change. The case describes the changes implemented and the processes used to effect change in portfolio, people, and structures.... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Change Management; Transformation; Investment Portfolio; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy