Publications

August 2016
Case

CSI Ingenieros

By: Jay Lorsch and Emily McTague

CSI's business unit managers gathered around the downstairs conference room for the company's weekly meeting to discuss project bids. Cristina WaldAshley Hartman, who was in charge of finding projects for the engineering firm to work on, read through several she had... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Board; Board Committees; Board Dynamics; Organization; Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organization Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Manufacturing Industry; South America; Uruguay

July–August 2016
Article

Beyond the Holacracy Hype: The Overwrought Claims—and Actual Promise—of the Next Generation of Self-Managed Teams

By: Ethan Bernstein, John Bunch, Niko Canner and Michael Lee

Holacracy and other forms of self-organization have been getting a lot of press. Proponents hail them as "flat" environments that foster flexibility, engagement, productivity, and efficiency. Critics say they're naive, unrealistic experiments. We argue, using evidence... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design

By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill

Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor suppliers for compliance, but it is unclear whether these formal organizational structures raise labor standards. Drawing on... View Details

SSRN

June 2016
Case

Big Spaceship: The Evolving Agency

By: Boris Groysberg and Matthew G. Preble

This case discusses the evolution of Big Spaceship, an advertising and marketing agency, from a product-focused business to a relationship-oriented one as clients seek deeper and more meaningful long-term partnerships. The 15-year-old company had already evolved... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Media; Advertising Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

May 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

In December 2015, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) has just made its third bid to acquire Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), one of the largest railroads in the United States. Having rejected the prior offers, NSC’s CEO James Squires and the NSC board must now value... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Activism; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Corporate Strategy; Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; United States; Canada

2016
Article

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence, and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Organization Design; Conway's Law; Knowledge Boundaries; Relational Contracts; Open Source Software; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Boundaries; Knowledge Management; Applications and Software

April 2016
Supplement

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern Spreadsheet Supplement

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Scott Mayfield

2016
Working Paper

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the work being performed. A thorough understanding of the... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Innovation; Product And Process Development; Organization Design; Design Structure; Organizational Ties; Mirroring Hypothesis; Industry Architecture; Product Architecture; Complex Technical Systems; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Product Development

SSRN

Winter 2016
Article

Analytics for an Online Retailer: Demand Forecasting and Price Optimization

By: Kris J. Ferreira, Bin Hong Alex Lee and David Simchi-Levi

We present our work with an online retailer, Rue La La, as an example of how a retailer can use its wealth of data to optimize pricing decisions on a daily basis. Rue La La is in the online fashion sample sales industry, where they offer extremely limited-time... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Price; Forecasting and Prediction; Revenue; Sales; Retail Industry

October 2015
Article

Managing the Performance Tradeoffs from Partner Integration: Implications of Contract Choice in R&D Projects

By: Alan MacCormack and Anant Mishra

Formal contracts represent an important governance instrument with which firms exercise control of and compensate partners in R&D projects. The specific type of contract used, however, can vary significantly across projects. In some, firms govern partnering... View Details

Keywords: ＂＂Partner Integration; Contract Choice; R＆D Project Management; Relational Contracts; Partnering Performance; Research and Development; Projects; Partners and Partnerships; Performance; Contracts

September–October 2015
Article

Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

By: Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein and David Lazer

Using data from a novel laboratory experiment on complex problem solving in which we varied the structure of 16-person networks, we investigate how an organization's network structure shapes performance of problem-solving tasks. Problem solving, we argue, involves both... View Details

Article

Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architecture: A Power Utility Case

By: Robert Lagerström, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Alan MacCormack

In this paper, we test a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) based method for visualizing and measuring software portfolio architectures. Our data is drawn from a power utility company, comprising 192 software applications with 614 dependencies between them. We show that the... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry

Article

Real Effects of Relational Contracts

By: Steven Blader, Claudine Gartenberg, Rebecca Henderson and Andrea Pratt

How important are factors such as "firm culture" and "employee engagement" in driving firm performance? Increasing evidence from a wide range of fields suggests that productivity differs widely across firms, even after the inclusion of careful controls for factors such... View Details

April 2015 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Japan's Missing Arrow?

By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White

In late December 2014, Shinzo Abe was elected to another term as the prime minister of Japan. His re-election was largely interpreted as a vote of confidence for his economics policies, collectively referred to as "Abenomics." Comprised of three "arrows," including... View Details

January 2015
Article

Collaboration in Multi-Partner R&D Projects: The Impact of Partnering Scale and Scope

By: Anant Mishra, Aravind Chandrasekaran and Alan MacCormack

How can firms design collaboration structures for effective performance in R&D projects that involve multiple partners? To address this question, we examine the theoretical underpinnings of collaboration structures in multi-partner R&D projects—i.e., the scale and the... View Details

Keywords: Multi-Partner R＆D Projects; Empirical Research; New Development; Collaboration Structures; Partnering Scale And Scope; Partners and Partnerships; Infrastructure; Performance Capacity; Research and Development; Collaborative Innovation and Invention