Publications

February 2007
Case

IBM Culture in Its Architecture

By: A. Eugene Kohn and Kerry Herman

In 1992, Lou Gerstner was the CEO of IBM during a period where the firm was losing money and a turnaround was desperately needed. In a bold decision, Gerstner chose to build a new headquarters in Armonk, NY that had strict limits on expandability. His idea was to use... View Details

Keywords: Design; Leadership; Job Design and Levels; Organizational Structure; Buildings and Facilities; Business Headquarters; Decisions; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology Industry; New York (state, US)

08 Mar 2021
In Practice

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now?

A year ago, COVID-19 forced many companies to send employees home—often with a laptop and a prayer. Now, with COVID cases subsiding and vaccinations rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines appears more possible. But will employees want to flock back to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

November 2008 (Revised January 2009)
Case

The Restructuring of Daiei

By: Richard S. Ruback

In 2004, the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) was given the task of restructuring Daiei, one of the largest Japanese retailers and the country's most prominent zombie companies. The IRCJ was a government-sponsored organization that was funded with... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Capital Structure; Private Equity; Performance Effectiveness; Retail Industry; Japan

January 1990 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Cray Research, Inc.: Preparing for the 1990s

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the major changes Cray Research faced from 1985 (the time of the original case) to 1990. The dramatic decision to divide the company into two separate firms sets the stage for an analysis of the major strategic and organizational challenges facing senior... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Systems; Change Management; Technology Adoption; Business Units; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology

27 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

These Management Practices, Like Certain Technologies, Boost Company Performance

captivated Harvard Business School’s Raffaella Sadun for more than a decade. “The question is, Are there certain practices that are beneficial to firm performance regardless of the industry or the country in which you use them?” says... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Article

Turbulent Stability of Emergent Roles: The Dualistic Nature of Self-Organizing Knowledge Co-Production

By: Ofer Arazy, Johaness Daxenberg, Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Oded Nov and Irene Gurevych

Increasingly, new forms of organizing for knowledge production are built around self-organizing co-production community models with ambiguous role definitions. Current theories struggle to explain how high-quality knowledge is developed in these settings and how... View Details

Keywords: Wikipedia; Knowledge Production; Organizational Structure; Knowledge; Information Publishing

November 2012 (Revised May 2013)
Case

ASUSTeK and the Google Nexus 7 Tablet

By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang

Days after Jerry Shen introduced a new tablet computer at the Consumer Electronics Show, a Google meeting convinced him to go with a lower price point and co-branding as the Nexus 7. While his company would have a premier position at launch, companies like Samsung... View Details

2009
Report

Clusters, Cluster Policy, and Swedish Competitiveness

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

Proximity enables firms to take advantage of knowledge spill-overs and exploit supplierdemand linkages with other entities engaged in related activities. Cluster strength thus seems to be one of the important determinants of prosperity differences across geographies.... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Industry Clusters; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Sweden

Research Summary

Automotive Product Development

At present, my primary research focus is studying product development in the auto industry. I am working with Stefan Thomke (HBS) and Takahiro Fujimoto (University of Tokyo) on the 4th Round of the Global Automotive Development Study. The first round of this... View Details

July 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Teaching Note

Argentina Power—Don’t Cry for Me Argentina

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-041. This case concerns a complex potential energy infrastructure investment in Argentina by a global conglomerate shortly after Mauricio Macri (“Macri”) became President of Argentina in 2015. The central issues are (i) why was a country... View Details

Keywords: Argentina; Argentine Exceptionalism; Infrastructure Finance; Investing; Finance; Inflation and Deflation; Government and Politics; Energy Generation; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry; Utilities Industry; Utilities Industry; Argentina; South America

March 2013 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Corporate Solutions at Jones Lang LaSalle (2001) (A)

By: Ranjay Gulati and Luciana Silvestri

This case describes the strategic and organizational challenges that Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) faced at the turn of the millennium. Until then, JLL sold piecemeal commercial real estate services to its corporate clients, who maintained relationships with a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Strategy; Integration; Real Estate Industry; North America; South America; Central America

2007
Working Paper

Modularity, Transactions, and the Boundaries of Firms: A Synthesis

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

This paper constructs a unified theory of the location of transactions and the boundaries of firms. It proposes that systems of production can be viewed as networks of tasks. Transactions, defined as mutually agreed-upon transfers with compensation, are located... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Market Entry and Exit; Market Transactions; Industry Structures; Production; Boundaries; Theory

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

business in the United States. The book introduces readers to innovative business leaders, like Francis Cabot Lowell, who helped bring textile manufacturing, and the Industrial Revolution, to New England; Lydia Pinkham, who pioneered... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

21 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 21, 2007

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=807074 PublicationsPerspectives on Risk and Regulation: The FDA at 100 Author:Arthur A. Daemmrich Publication:Chemical Heritage Press, 2007 Abstract Perspectives on Risk and Regulation: The FDA at 100... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Model N Inc.

By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Trends; Communication; Customer Focus and Relationships; Selection and Staffing; Time Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Software; Computer Industry

16 Nov 2021
HBS Case

How a Company Made Employees So Miserable, They Killed Themselves

can make extreme means seem justifiable.” A company spiraling into debt France Télécom’s troubles started in the late 1990s, after the French government turned the national telephone monopoly into a publicly traded company, now known as Orange. The telecommunications... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Article

Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Repositioning; Cost-cutting; Intra-firm Learning; Multi-Sided Platforms; Cost Management; Product Positioning; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Journalism and News Industry

Article

Healthy Buildings in 2070

By: John D. Macomber and Joseph G. Allen

Fifty years seems a very long time in the future for most industries. Not so in buildings and real estate; built structures routinely last decades if not hundreds of years, as long as they are economically competitive. Any discussion of the 50-year future has to... View Details

Keywords: Health ＆ Wellness; Real Estate; Architectural Innovation; Public Health; Health; Buildings and Facilities; Well-being

July 2014
Case

Venture Capital at the Harvard Management Company in Historical Perspective

By: Felda Hardymon, Tom Nicholas and Vasiliki Fouka

The compromise between capital preservation and growth has always been central to the performance of the Harvard endowment. Setting an institutional structure for effectively governing this compromise became especially important when the Harvard Management Company... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Financial Management; Asset Management; Higher Education; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Cambridge