Publications

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Awards

Accenture Award

Lee Fleming and Matt Marx have won the 2007 Accenture Award for the article "Managing Creativity in Small Worlds." California Management Review 48, no. 4 (summer 2006). The Accenture Award is given each year to the author (or authors) of the article published in the... View Details

November–December 2020
Article

Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

By: Robin Ely and David A. Thomas

Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Change; Trust

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July 1977 (Revised April 1995)
Background Note

Managing a Task Force

Describes several principles for improving the effectiveness of internal task forces. Suggests a number of guidelines for starting up a task force, conducting the first meeting, managing the group's activities, and completing the project. View Details

Keywords: Management; Groups and Teams

May 2013 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Ron Johnson: Retail at Target, Apple, and J.C. Penney

By: Das Narayandas, Kerry Herman and Lisa Mazzanti

In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his innovation and success in shaping the retail image at Target and Apple, introduced dramatic departures... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Situation or Environment; Failure; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

September 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Case

Ganesh Natarajan: Leading Innovation and Organizational Change at Zensar (A)

By: Michael Tushman and David Kiron

In 2005, Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, a Pune, India-based software company, and his senior management team are considering consolidating staff and resources at the firms. Natarajan proposes an additional, possible controversial business unit to the proposed new... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Product Launch; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Information Technology Industry

2018
Book

Driving Digital Strategy: A Guide to Reimagining Your Business

By: Sunil Gupta

Disruption and transformation get a lot of hype and for good reason. Digital technologies have disrupted entire industries and incumbents have often struggled in this new world. Typical approaches used by legacy players such as using technology to improve efficiency,... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Information Technology; Transformation; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Organizational Structure; Digital Strategy

September 2010 (Revised April 2017)
Case

Aspen Skiing Company (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice

Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Aspen

14 Oct 2019
News

A Guide to the Big Ideas and Debates in Corporate Governance

15 Jun 2016
News

Google's Bold Move To Reinvent Every Device On The Planet

May 2011
Case

The Morrison Company

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Paul Meyers

The Morrison Company develops and manufactures radio frequency identification tags (RFID) known as smart labels for the retail and pharmaceutical industries. RFID technology is a fast-growing and increasingly competitive industry. Sales have risen dramatically over the... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Technology; Operations Management; Product Lines; Manufacturing; Capacity Planning; Production Planning; Information Technology; Strategy; Production; Organizational Structure; Infrastructure; Product Development; Information Infrastructure; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Electronics Industry

July 2013
Teaching Note

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

By: David A. Garvin

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Business Policy; General Management; Human Resource Management; Management; Leadership; Human Resources

Video

Narayanan Vaghul

Narayanan Vaghul, Former Chairman of ICICI Bank Limited, recounts discovering and establishing strong financial backing for Pratham, an NGO that seeks to improve the quality of education for children throughout India (Filmed October 26, 2017). View Details

Fall 2012
Article

Innovation Strategy and Entry Deterrence

By: Ozge Turut and Elie Ofek

We model an incumbent's decision to pursue radical or incremental innovation when facing a rival entrant. The radical innovation may yield lucrative financial returns but entails significant technological and market-related uncertainties. It is also particularly... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Mathematical Methods

April 1996
Case

Southern Pulp and Paper

A paper mill's paper machines are a bottleneck in the operation. The causes include poor scheduling, lack of investment, and ineffective process control. The plant manager is charged with improving this situation fairly rapidly and has a number of proposals for change... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Performance Improvement; Infrastructure; Pulp and Paper Industry

Ethan Rouen is an associate professor of business administration in the Accounting and Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches the elective course Reimagining Capitalism. From 2020 to 2022, he served as the faculty co-chair of the View Details

Ramana Nanda

Ramana Nanda is Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance and Academic Lead of the Institute for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. His research examines financing frictions facing new ventures, with an aim to help entrepreneurs with fundraising and... View Details

Keywords: banking; biotechnology; energy; financial services; green technology; microfinance; nonprofit industry; venture capital industry

September 2014
Article

Defining the Value of Proton Therapy Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing

By: N.G. Thaker, A.B. Guzman, Thomas W. Feeley, T.M. Jones, J.R. Incalcaterra, C. Kolom, S.J. Frank, L.S. Tatum, Ronald S. Walters, Scott B. Cantor, D.I. Rosenthal, A.S. Garden, G.B. Gunn, C.D. Fuller and M.B. Palmer

Technological innovations in radiation therapy (RT) have rapidly improved the quality of care for patients with head and neck cancer. Intensity-modulated proton therapy (MPT) holds promise of further improving outcomes compared with the current photon-based technique... View Details

Keywords: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Activity Based Costing and Management

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2013
Book

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

By: Max Bazerman and Don A. Moore

Is your judgment influenced by personal biases? In situations requiring careful judgment, we're all influenced by our own biases to some extent. But, with Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, you can learn how to overcome those biases to make better... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Managerial Roles; Performance Improvement; Prejudice and Bias