Publications

September 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 3: Using Information for Performance Measurement and Control

By: Robert Simons

This module reading explains how managers use information to control critical business processes and outcomes. The analysis begins by illustrating how managers use information to communicate goals and track performance. Then the focus turns to the choices that managers... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Organization Process; Feedback Model; Innovation; Uses Of Information; Big Data; Benchmarking; Decision Making; Information; Performance Evaluation; Analytics and Data Science

October 2018 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Safecast: Bootstrapping Human Capital to Big Data

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm, a 9.1-on-the-Richter-scale, six-minute long earthquake unleashed a tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power facility and releasing sufficient radioactive material into the air and ocean... View Details

1997
Book

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

By: Clayton M. Christensen

His work is cited by the world's best known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In this classic bestseller, innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Leadership

Find at Harvard

29 Jun 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

Keywords: Re: Emily Truelove; Consumer Products

01 Sep 2020
News

In My Humble Opinion: Screen Tested

it’s a good thing to do, but because it makes good business sense,” she says. “We’re addressing a massive gap in content.” Aussie advantage: “The general perception of Australians is that we’re easygoing and approachable. And the accent... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; women in business; COVID-19; film; media; television; Arts, Entertainment

11 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Doing Well by Doing Good? One Industry’s Struggle to Balance Values and Profits

transforming how work is done and how people are paid for it. This heightened tension between moral and material goals may be nowhere as intense as it is in journalism, a field with strong ethical convictions at its core, but whose View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

August 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Supplement

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

31 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 31

examine the psychological mechanism explaining the relationship between bad weather and increased productivity. Our findings support our proposed model and suggest that worker productivity is higher on bad rather than good weather days.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

02 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Careers: Cloud Kitchens Are Now Serving

kitchens can test new restaurant concepts, menu items, and seasonal brands (for example, a salad brand in the summer) more easily without costly investments. It is still an emergent business model with lots... View Details

Keywords: by Lena Ye and Geoffrey Jones; Food & Beverage

05 Apr 2012
News

Clayton Christensen And The Innovators' Smackdown

February 2008 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Digital Music: From MP3 to Streaming

By: Willy Shih

The emergence of the MP3 file-based music format not only disrupted the market for portable audio players, it also impacted the business models of major record labels. Modularity, and the commoditization spillover enabled by modularity in the personal computer... View Details

Keywords: Recording; Digital Devices; Digital Media; Digital Music; Digital; Digital Economics; Consumer Electronics; Customer Value and Value Chain; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Music Industry; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry; United States

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Burch’s research focuses on capitalism, work, and gender in the twentieth-century United States. Her work reinterprets the history of direct selling by placing it at the center, rather than on the margins, of narratives about advanced capitalism. Examining the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Political Economy; Labor History; Gender; Marketing; Sales Force Management; Direct Sales; United States

08 Dec 2020
Cold Call Podcast

Uber's Strategy for Global Success

Keywords: Technology; Transportation

25 Oct 2013
News

Why Hire an MBA When You Can Rent One?

28 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War

Division.Silverthorne: Your work examines how the newspaper industry responded to the perceived threat of the Internet, and how that response matched—or failed to match—what might be expected from models of View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Entertainment & Recreation; Information; Publishing

December 2002 (Revised February 2015)
Case

Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (Abridged)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg

Jim Sharpe, 10 years after receiving his MBA from Harvard and working for others, has finally become his own boss and 100% owner of manufacturer of aluminum extrusions. After 10 months of an unfunded search, he acquires the business in an LBO and prepares to face his... View Details

February 2008 (Revised August 2008)
Case

Quanta Computer and the One Laptop Per Child Initiative

By: Willy Shih, Chintay Shih and Jyun-Chen Wang

When Quanta Computer, Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of laptop computers, first joined the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, it faced a challenge trying to balance the cost objectives of a laptop computer targeted at children of the developing world with... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Disruptive Innovation; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations; Hardware