Publications

13 Jul 2016
HBS Case

How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers

a better job of making apartments appealing than the online classified site, but first they had to siphon away its customers. To do that, Chesky and Gebbia created software to hack Craigslist to extract the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail; Service; Transportation

October 2008
Case

Tegan c.c.c.

Examines a struggling IT outsourcing project from the perspective of the customer--Tegan. It should be used in conjunction with Hrad Technika (9-609-039), which illustrates the supplier's point of view. When Tegan, a Welsh toy distributor, outsources the development of... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Information Technology; Service Operations; Business Processes; Information Technology Industry; Wales; Czech Republic

April 2002 (Revised July 2003)
Case

Cisco Systems and its Community Fellowship Program (A)

By: Diana Barrett and Sheila McCarthy

Focuses on the introduction, implementation, and initial evaluation of Cisco Systems Community Fellowship Program. This program provided Cisco employees affected by the layoff the option of working with a nonprofit organization for one year. Instead of a severance... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

March 2007
Teaching Note

Bradley Marquez: Reduction in Force (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Terence Heymann

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing

June 2004 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Procter & Gamble: Global Business Services

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Warren Brackin, Alex Cabanas, Phil Shellhammer and David L. Ager

Dave Walker, vice-president of business service opportunities and chairman of the governance team at Procter & Gamble, must decide what to do with P&G's 5,700 employee Global Business Services (GBS) group. GBS brought together internal services such as finance,... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Change Management; Decision Making; Globalized Firms and Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Organizational Design

08 Feb 2023
Op-Ed

Building an Inclusive Workplace? Prepare to Shield It from Economic Fears

encourage productivity, collaboration, and innovation. "But you can protect those gains if you remember the intention and motivation that sparked this movement in the first place." As economic clouds form on... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and Nicole Gilmore

March 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Menem and the Populist Tradition in Argentina

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Eliseo Neuman

Argentina has flourished under a fixed exchange rate system, yet there are large income and employment fluctuations. The social cost of unemployment is threatening the viability of the economic model. Building a welfare state is one alternative, but this may be a... View Details

Keywords: History; Governance; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employment; Currency Exchange Rate; Welfare; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Argentina

03 Apr 2006
What Do You Think?

Has Globalization Reached Its Peak?

until such time that disparity between the haves (U.S., Europe, etc.,) and the have-nots is significantly bridged." One theme common to several of these comments is that globalization (and the View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

June 1998
Background Note

The Indian Software Industry

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Avnish S. Bajaj, Michael V. Kadyan, Devtosh K Khare and Suvir S Sujan

The increasing focus in the Western World on outsourcing has fueled the growth of the Indian software export industry. This note gives background on this phenomenen. View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Growth and Development; India

12 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Operations and the Competitive Edge

as outsourcing and information technology, that were moving so rapidly that we no longer felt we were the best informed people to write about them. So we enticed two of our colleagues, Gary Pisano View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

October 2008
Case

Hrad Technika

Examines a struggling IT outsourcing project from the perspective of the IT services provider-Hrad Technika. When used in conjunction with "Tegan c.c.c." (9-609-038), it provides an opportunity to see both sides of the issue. When Hrad enters into a contract to create... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Globalized Firms and Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Projects; Information Technology; Wales

August 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Supplement

Ockham Technologies (B): Building the Board

By: Noam Wasserman

Describes the issues facing a founder-ceo regarding building a board, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing development work. View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Management Teams; Groups and Teams

12 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 12, 2017

fulfillment drive work engagement. Employees have needs (e.g., a desire to be authentic) and they also have expectations for how their job or their organization will fulfill them. We argue that experiences... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 2, 2018

School Case 719-002 Donald Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act In January 2018, President Donald Trump was full of optimism. He had just signed... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

07 Nov 2007
Op-Ed

How Marketing Hype Hurt Boeing and Apple

damage to Apple brand equity among its core customers. After heavy blogging complaints about Apple exploiting its loyal followers, Steve Jobs had to apologize publicly (after a curt "That's technology" response fueled the fire)... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Aerospace; Consumer Products

16 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 16, 2018

via arms-length transactions and contracts. Furthermore, strong or weak complementarity are not innate properties of tasks and assets but can be the result of choices regarding task networks, incentives,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Cisco Systems (2001): Building and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture

By: Ranjay Gulati

Customer centricity has been an important part of the culture at Cisco Systems since its inception. While part of this is attributable to values put in place by the founders and retained by subsequent management, it is also closely interwoven with its organizational... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Research and Development; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employees; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Business Units

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

Bussgang, Jeffrey Abstract—Relative to established organizations, start-ups can be hard to figure out. What are the jobs to be done? The best entry points? How can you tell whether a company has potential for success View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

May–June 2018
Article

Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company: Better Approaches to Workforce Transition

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Today layoffs have become companies’ default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that job cuts rarely help senior leaders achieve their goals. Too often, they’re done for short-term gain, but the cost... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employees; Transition; Strategic Planning