Publications

03 Oct 2023
What Do You Think?

Do Leaders Learn More From Success or Failure?

led us to a useful conclusion: that a strong culture logically could lead to either success or failure. It was, instead, the presence of values and behaviors—components of its culture—that encouraged openness and adaptability that was... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Management Education’s Unanswered Questions

followed a path that was very different from the one that the traditional high professions of medicine, law, and science had pursued. In those cases, the impetus for professionalization came largely from a subgroup of practitioners who... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

March 2010 (Revised June 2010)
Case

The Greening of DUMBO

By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson and Abhijit Prabhu

The Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO) has seen a revitalization since the late 1970s. The neighborhood's business improvement district (BID) is charged with supplementing New York City's efforts in several areas, including... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Local Range; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Wastes and Waste Processing; Urban Development; Public Administration Industry; New York (city, NY)

December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Arcos Dorados: A QSR Recovery Plan

By: Forest Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

Arcos Dorados—McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, covering Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)—faced a pandemic that was disrupting the entire consumer foodservice business in 2020. With the exclusive right to own, operate, and sub-franchise McDonald’s... View Details

14 Nov 2023
What Do You Think?

Do We Underestimate the Importance of Generosity in Leadership?

below. References: Arthur C. Brooks, Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America—and How We Can Get More of It (Basic Books, 2008). Jenny Santi, The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories and Science Behind the Life-Changing... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

May–June 2025
Article

Sustainability as a Business-Model Transformation

By: Ivanka Visnjic, Felipe Monteiro and Michael L. Tushman

Many global companies have made public commitments to sustainability targets. Fulfilling these commitments will require firms to transform their business models and organizational architectures. A few pioneers are leading the way, demonstrating that companies can make... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Business Model

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30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

management and organisational practices. By this time, social science research had already shown that people’s behaviour is shaped as much by situational and contextual factors as by individual character. The 1963 Milgram experiments by... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

coauthor of the new book Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, for an intimate, powerful conversation that touches on: the mistake people make in thinking that money, power, and fame will bring them happiness;... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

28 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 28, 2007

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=407128 Intel 2006: Rising to the Graphics Challenge Harvard Business School Case 607-136 Examines the evolution of the PC hardware industry over the span of two and a half decades. The View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 4, 2008

the long-run adoption of a new product or technology. The new product under consideration here is the drug-eluting stent: a device which props open a clogged artery to the heart and then releases medication that reduces the risk of artery... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Sep 2023
Book

Thriving After Failing: How to Turn Your Setbacks Into Triumphs

open the door to major success down the road. In 1993, as a doctoral student at Harvard, Edmondson conducted a study at two local hospitals, where she hypothesized that teams that worked better together would make fewer medical errors.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

02 May 2023
What Do You Think?

How Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated—if at All?

(iStockphoto/Rost-9D) Artificial intelligence (AI) is the topic of the moment in circles ranging from science to business to religion. Its potential and implications are driven home when you see robot soccer players improve their game to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Information Technology; Technology

Research Summary

Understanding Customers

In conventional business case studies, protagonists almost never have the option of stepping back to seek a new understanding of the customer. But to be effective in practice, managers need both the self-assurance and ability to initiate and pursue, with rigor and... View Details

2021
Working Paper

Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage

By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein

How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details

Keywords: Server Software; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Analytics and Data Science; Economics; Value Creation; Measurement and Metrics

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November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security

By: Elie Ofek

In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States

May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens

By: Willy Shih

This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details