Publications

May 2012
Case

Columbia's Final Mission (Abridged) (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Kerry Herman

This case documents decision-making processes, organizational culture, and other contributors to NASA's failed Columbia mission in 2003. Addresses the question of how organizations should deal with "ambiguous threats" - weak signals of potential crisis - and explores... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Biases; Teams; Organizational Learning; Ambiguous Threat; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Decision Making; Failure; Crisis Management; Aerospace Industry

September – October 2009
Article

An Ounce of Prevention: Financial Regulation, Moral Hazard, and the End of 'Too Big to Fail'

By: David Moss

Keywords: Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Failure

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01 Mar 2011
News

Faculty Research Online

to blame for the recent financial crisis? The fault lies partly with scholars of economics, says David Moss, the John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration. In this working paper, he argues that an academic focus on government View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

29 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations of the Future

or "shepherds," rather than micro-managers of the creative process. How the market interacts with creativity and the impact of this interaction on creativity in organizations. The relationship between creativity and accountability. The importance of learning... View Details

Keywords: by Teresa M. Amabile & Mukti Khaire

Web

2.3.7 Physical Violence | MBA

or that of another is in extreme jeopardy. Failure to do so ordinarily will result in disciplinary action up to and including mandatory withdrawal from HBS. View Details

November 2022 (Revised March 2023)
Case

OneSmart

By: Nien-he Hsieh, Meg Rithmire and Shu Lin

At the end of 2021, Xi “Steve” Zhang was facing an existential crisis for himself and his business. OneSmart was a premium educational company founded in 2008 offering K-12 afterschool tutoring for students nationwide under a number of brands. The company was founded... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Crisis Management; Failure; Education Industry; China

January 1983 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Mat MacGregor (A)

Mat MacGregor took charge of a failing project but failed to turn it around because of a variety of personal, technical, cultural, and political reasons. The purpose of the case is to understand the underlying dynamics and their implications. View Details

Keywords: Management Skills; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Failure; Projects; Personal Characteristics

09 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 9

larger organization. Publisher's link: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-upside-to-large-competitors/ December 2014 Small Group Research Team Reflexivity as an Antidote to Team Information-Processing Failures By: Schippers, Michaéla... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2008 (Revised July 2011)
Module Note

Strategic Renewal

By: David J. Collis and Jan W. Rivkin

While it is relatively easy to identify why strategies fail, it is much harder to explain how to fix a failing strategy or build an organization that can continuously renew its strategy. This note identifies some patterns that distinguish companies whose renewal... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Failure; Strategy

01 Mar 2014
News

@Soldiers Field

pitching. Organizers suggested drinking water rather than Red Bull, but noted "Medieval armor is permitted." Bert Twaalfhoven (MBA 1954) offered guests of the HBS Entrepreneurship Club a personal perspective on the positive power of View Details

Keywords: FIELD program; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

07 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Fostering Candor in Teams and Organizations

for employees to openly discuss issues around diversity and inclusion can connect back to goals of effective collaboration that produce exceptional products and services. Furthermore, setting the stage is also about reframing failure. When leaders reframe View Details

Keywords: All Industries

15 Feb 2012
Op-Ed

Occupy Wall Street Protestors Have a Point

entrepreneurial skills on a broader canvas” We classified what we heard as ten potential disruptors of the global market system: the functioning of the global financial system, barriers to world trade, inequality and consequent populism, migration, environmental... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard & Lynn S. Paine

August 2019
Supplement

Rand Fishkin at Moz (B)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Startups; Scaling; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Business Startups; Diversification; Growth Management

01 Jun 2024
News

The Bookshelf: Try As One Might

A professor of management at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and a leading expert on design thinking, Jeanne Liedtka (MBA 1981) helps people make better decisions through experimentation. The concept sounds simple enough in the... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; experimentation; innovation; process

October 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Supplement

Airbus vs. Boeing (M): MAX 8 Disasters (July 2019)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the October 2018 and March 2019 crashes of Boeing MAX 8 jets, which together killed over 300 passengers. The planes involved in both crashes shared a problem with a software system called MCAS, which Boeing had revamped at the last minute prior to... View Details

Keywords: Airbus; Boeing; Product Development; Product Design; Air Transportation; Projects; Competition; Safety; Failure; Air Transportation Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Europe

March 2020
Case

Aereo

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jacey Taft

Aereo aimed to disrupt television program distribution by providing consumers access to local broadcast TV programming using offsite antennas, cloud-based DVRs, and an Internet connection. With Aereo, consumers could “cut the cord” and avoid the high cost of a cable TV... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Failure; Lawsuits and Litigation; Internet and the Web; Media; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

December 1994
Case

Intel's Pentium: When the Chips Are Down (A)

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Norman Klein

Intel, the largest-selling manufacturer of microprocessor computer chips, finds itself in a brand-threatening situation when a flaw is revealed in its top-of-the-line Pentium chip. The story is front-page news for weeks. The company invested tens of millions of dollars... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Engineering; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Production; Failure; Semiconductor Industry