Publications

April 2014
Supplement

Ingrid Johnson: Reflections on Leading Change

By: Michael Tushman

This case discusses the issue of leading change at the business banking division of Nedbank, a prominent South African bank, between 2005 and 2009. (This timeframe, beginning just 11 years after Apartheid's end, covers Ingrid Johnson's leadership of this division... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Restructuring; Personal Development and Career; Commercial Banking; Banking Industry; South Africa

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System

must have built-in tests that signal problems immediately. And it is the continual response to those problems that makes this seemingly rigid system so flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances. The... View Details

Keywords: by H. Kent Bowen & Steven Spear; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

How Technological Disruption Changes Everything

serve. Why are more and more beds in hospitals vacant? With improving technology, complex work done only at hospitals can now be accomplished at stand-alone sub-system centers, out-patient and in-office care, and through in-home care. The ability to improve the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health

April 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Levels: The Remote, Asynchronous, Deep Work Management System

By: Joseph B. Fuller and George Gonzalez

Levels is a highly innovative startup in the health care space. They intend to revolutionize health by linking behavior—eating, exercise, sleeping, etc.—to changes in metabolism. They believe metabolic health can be managed through careful monitoring of changes in... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Business Startups; Organizational Culture; Management Style; Technology Industry; United States

2012
Other Book

Redefining German Health Care: Moving to a Value-Based System

By: Michael E. Porter and Clemens Guth

The German health care system is on a collision course with budget realities. Costs are high and rising, and quality problems are becoming ever more apparent. Decades of reforms have produced little change to these troubling trends. Why has Germany failed to solve... View Details

Keywords: Health

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26 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

How Humans Outshine AI in Adapting to Change

automated vehicle having to respond to changing environments—this is where humans are going to shine more than automation systems,” De Freitas says. “If you more deeply understand why your AI systems are... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

August 2007
Background Note

Assessing and Enhancing Individual Power in the Family Business System

By: John A. Davis

Describes how to asses and enhance an individual's bases, sources, and levels of power in a family business system. Relies on Franch and Raven's framework that identifies five bases of social power (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert), describing how... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Situation or Environment; Power and Influence

September 30, 2019
Article

Climate Change and Our Emerging Cultural Shift

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Today, we have made climate change trivial by making its solutions easy, looking for simple answers that are palatable, generally framing it in the language of commerce. In the long run, it won’t work. There is no technological or political silver bullet to solving our... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Climate Change; Values and Beliefs; Transition

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11 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Four Ways to Create Lasting Change

systems and processes. Moreover, the firm had experienced a slight decline in performance and increasing competition from major rivals prior to his arrival. We were intrigued by the changes taking place at... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2025
Chapter

Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones

This chapter explores when and why private regulatory governance systems became the primary form of global environmental governance. The chapter explores two different historical paths in such private regulation and how they came about. The first path involved... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Entrepreneurship; Environment; Climate Change; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Environmental Regulation; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

July 2014
Article

Project Complexity and Systems Integration: Constructing the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games

By: Andrew Davies and Ian Mackenzie

Our study of the London Olympics 2012 construction programme showed that systems integration is one of the major challenges involved in delivery of a complex "system of systems"—or array—project. Organizations cope with complexity by decomposing a project into... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Construction; Complexity; Sports; Projects; Construction Industry; Sports Industry; London

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March 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Analog Devices, Inc.: The Half-Life System

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The company has committed to major improvements in quality, cost, and on-time delivery performance. Despite strong senior management support, however, the actual rate of improvement was disappointing until a new measurement philosophy was introduced. The new approach... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Earnings Management; Financial Reporting; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Business or Company Management; Cost Management; Measurement and Metrics; Management Teams; Semiconductor Industry

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Why the Internet Doesn’t Change Everything

entrepreneurs eventually found themselves caught by a system that bit back—by markets that reasserted their old ways or governments that outraced the technological frontier and claimed it for themselves. The new world in these cases fell... View Details

Keywords: by Debora L. Spar

2021
Working Paper

The Changing Role of Business in Society

By: Michael E. Porter

Business interaction with the U.S. government, historically based on securing industry or company special interests at the expense of the public good, has enabled and furthered government dysfunction. Gridlock within the American political system has precluded the... View Details

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2015
Chapter

How Leaders Use Values-based Guidance Systems to Create Dynamic Capabilities

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Matthew Bird, Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Raffaelli

How do strategic leaders create change-adept organizations? Based on qualitative field research, this chapter argues that well-defined institutionalized purpose, values, and principles act as an organizational guidance system that integrates and strengthens the... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Capabilities; Field Research; Intrinsic Motivation; Organizational Identity; Ecosystem; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Research; Management Systems; Change

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2024
Working Paper

Demographically Biased Technological Change

By: Victor Manuel Bennett, John-Paul Ferguson, Masoomeh Kalantari and Rembrand Koning

Who gets the jobs that automation creates? A consensus has begun to emerge that said technologies complement rather than substitute for labor. However, they also shift the demand for specific types of skills and other worker competencies. Such shifts imply unequal... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Employment; Equality and Inequality; Demographics

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October 1991 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER Systems Division (Condensed)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Frank V. Cespedes

Becton Dickinson, a phenomenally successful company with an 80% market share in the blood collection needles and syringes market faces a change in the customer buying environment (cost containment pressures at hospitals). This forces a reevaluation of the company's... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Customer Satisfaction; Demand and Consumers; Market Participation; Distribution Channels; Success; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Health Industry