Publications

2009
Article

Synthesis by Microbes or Chemists? Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing in the Antibiotic Era

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

This article presents a case study of the rise of Pfizer as a leading pharmaceutical company, with a focus on changing relationships between manufacturing technology and R&D between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s. Pfizer first moved into pharmaceuticals through... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Production; Technology; Transformation; Relationships; Success; Organizations; Programs; Chemicals; Alignment; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

29 Sep 2020
Blog Post

New Life for Old Tech: Startup Provides Network Security Solutions for Obsolete Devices

Engineering Sciences program, jointly offered by the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Harvard Business School, in 2020. “What are the... View Details

01 Jun 1997
News

Competition and Strategy Unit at HBS Sets Pace In Its Field

Rosenbloom, with almost four decades of service on the HBS faculty, is an editor of and contributor to Engines of Innovation: U.S. Industrial Research at the End of an Era, published last year. He teaches... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Royal DSM: From Continuous Transformation to Organic Growth

By: William W. George, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Amram Migdal

Royal DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma was pondering the challenges of shifting DSM’s global organization from the constant transformations of the past 100 years to creating organic growth. When Sijbesma took the helm as CEO in 2007, he further pushed and completed the company’s... View Details

Keywords: Organic Growth; Organizational Change; M＆A; Mergers And Acquisitions; Divestment; Business Ventures; Business Divisions; Business Growth and Maturation; Restructuring; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Transition; Engineering; Chemicals; Mining; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Food; Globalization; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Health; Nutrition; History; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Style; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Ownership; Public Ownership; Performance; Strategy; Adaptation; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Value; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Netherlands

October 2002 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Group Process in the Challenger Launch Decision (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

The night before the launch of the Challenger shuttle, officials from Morton Thiokol (Solid Rocket Booster manufacturer) and NASA participated in a teleconference to discuss whether to postpone the shuttle launch due to predicted low temperatures at Kennedy Space... View Details

Keywords: Process Analysis; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Engineering; Risk Management; Analysis; Decision Making; Aerospace Industry; United States

March 1999
Article

Discussion of "Engineering Bureaucracy: The Genesis of Formal Policies, Positions, and Structures in High-Technology Firms" by James N. Baron, M. Diane Burton, and Michael T. Hannan

By: Josh Lerner

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Engineering; Technology Industry

1980
Chapter

Negotiating and Implementing Mineral Agreements with Multinationals: Some Critical Tax Development Issues

By: L. T. Wells Jr. and Malcolm Gillis

Keywords: Agreements and Arrangements; Metals and Minerals; Mining; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Taxation; Mining Industry

Elie Ofek is a Professor in the Marketing unit at the Harvard Business School. Professor Ofek's research focuses on new product strategies in technology-driven business environments as well as in consumer-oriented companies in general. He explores interactions... View Details

Keywords: internet; media; high technology; consumer products

January 2017
Case

The Six CEOs of Tyco International Ltd.

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In September 2016, Johnson Controls, Inc. completed the acquisition of Tyco International PLC, a $9.9 billion business with operating profits of $884 million. The purchase consideration was $14.4 billion. Although the deal was billed as a merger, Ireland-based Tyco... View Details

01 Mar 2023
News

Clearing the Air

MORE For a deeper dive, check out our three-part Skydeck podcast series on carbon capture. Skydeck podcast MORE For a deeper dive, check out our three-part Skydeck podcast series on carbon capture. Skydeck podcast When the United States Congress passed the Inflation... View Details

Keywords: April White and Dan Morrell; Illustrations by Richard Borge

05 Oct 2016
What Do You Think?

Can the US Economy Regain the Growth and Prosperity of the Past?

the middle class in the past with Uber’s small middle class core corps of engineers and large “army of owner drivers treated and priced out like commodities.” Others... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Emil N. Siriwardane

Emil Siriwardane is an associate professor of business administration in the Finance Unit.

Professor Siriwardane’s research studies the ways in which financial intermediaries influence capital markets, how perceptions of risk impact business cycles,... View Details

November 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

ABB: 'In China, for China'

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi and Elisa Farri

ABB, a power and automation Swiss engineering company had to decide if they wanted to be even more integrated into the Chinese economy, ABB's biggest market, or if they should instead increase their presence in other emerging markets such as India and Brazil. View Details

Keywords: History; Multinational Firms and Management; Engineering; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Emerging Markets; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Industrial Products Industry; China; India; Brazil

May 2014
Case

Sasol: U.S. Growth Program

By: Richard H. K. Vietor

Sasol, the world's largest producer of synthetic oil from coal and gas, has announced plans to build a huge Catalytic cracker and gas-to-liquids plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This $21 billion venture will be the single largest foreign direct investment in US... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Risk; Risk And Uncertainty; Petroleum; Synthesis; Diesel; Foreign Direct Investment; Chemicals; Strategy; Energy Industry; United States

March 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Supplement

Systems Infrastructure at Google (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

This case is a thick description of how a Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google, Bill Coughran, leads a high-performing engineering organization. The case focuses specifically on Coughran's use of encouraging two teams of engineers to develop competing... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Leadership; Infrastructure; Management Teams; Leadership Development; Information Technology Industry

2010
Article

We Cannot Go On: Disruptive Innovation and the First World War Royal Navy

By: Gautam Mukunda

Insights from Disruptive Innovation theory (DI) are often used in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of national security policy. DI explains why successful companies are sometimes defeated by new competitors with relatively unsophisticated products.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; History; National Security; Framework; Adaptation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technological Innovation; Machinery and Machining; Disruptive Innovation; Theory; Developing Countries and Economies; Technology Industry

2021
Working Paper

First Law of Motion: Influencer Video Advertising on TikTok

By: Jeremy Yang, Juanjuan Zhang and Yuhan Zhang

This paper engineers an intuitive feature that is predictive of the causal effect of influencer video advertising on product sales. We propose the concept of m-score, a summary statistic that captures the extent to which a product is advertised in the most engaging... View Details

Keywords: Influencer Advertising; Video Advertising; Computer Vision; Machine Learning; Advertising; Online Technology

SSRN

March 2013
Teaching Note

Vale: Global Expansion in the Challenging World of Mining (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Tarun Khanna and Aldo Musacchio

Keywords: Globalization; Brazil; Emerging Markets; Mining; Mining Industry; Brazil; South America