Publications

March 1999
Case

Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (A): The First Month

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Dr. Hans Fritz is 37 years old when he arrives in Bangkok on March 1, 1998 to assume his position as general manager of Novartis Thailand. Novartis is the world's largest pharmaceutical company. He had lobbied to transition from a staff position to this line management... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Organizational Structure; Transition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Pharmaceutical Industry; Thailand

01 Jun 2016
News

3-Minute Briefing: Derek Bouchard-Hall (MBA 2004)

When I graduated from Stanford, I had the opportunity to travel with an elite amateur team doing bike races, or I could go join a structural design firm in Pittsburgh. That was my choice. I chose to race bikes. I love the sport. I love... View Details

Keywords: April White; photographed by Scott Clark

25 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

business moved on. Not aligning experiments to broader organizational goals. Failing to understand the end goal can lead to misguided decisions about when and how to run such tests. Experiments should answer clear questions that bring an... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Web

Private Equity Finance - Course Catalog

Educational Objectives This course has two objectives. First, it builds a rigorous approach and toolkit for sourcing, analyzing, negotiating, structuring and managing PE investments. The second goal of the course is to provide students... View Details

06 Feb 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: February 6, 2018

how the composition of patenting teams relates to both the scope of their patent applications and the speed of their patent approvals by examining the main effects of team members’ intra-organizational diversity (based on affiliations with formal View Details

01 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 1

primarily on substitutes but copied from rivals. Next, they actively tested their assumptions and made major resource commitments to the business model they identified as the most lucrative. Finally, they deliberately maintained a loosely View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2014 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

Chorus and Telecom: Building the Boards

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2011, Telecom, the largest telecom provider in New Zealand, was being divided into two publicly traded companies. In connection with this split, Sarah Naudé and Matt Stanley worked with the chairman of Telecom New Zealand, Wayne Boyd, to create two new boards of... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Women's Empowerment; Governance; Leadership; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Structure; Decision Making; Human Resources; Diversity; Telecommunications Industry; New Zealand

May 2008 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Intel NBI: Handheld Graphics Organization

By: Willy C. Shih and Thomas Thurston

The Handheld Graphics Organization (HGO) was an internal start-up under Intel's New Business Incubator program. The unit designed a graphics co-processor for the handheld PDA market, to be sold with Intel's Xscale processor. Though NBI ventures were designed for a high... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Resource Allocation; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Semiconductor Industry; United States

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01 Dec 2002
News

What You Know Depends on Where You Go

were largely gained in the trenches of a multiyear research project with Professor Tarun Khanna that explores the implications of conglomerate business structures in emerging markets. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, research showed... View Details

22 Aug 2018
Blog Post

The National Park Services: A Mini-Business with a Twist

must make collaborative tradeoffs to ensure that the “enjoyment” and the “unimpaired” elements of the mission statement are met. Thus, parks are not dissimilar from businesses in that day-to-day operations can present tough tradeoffs and that their View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

01 Dec 2011
News

Professors Recognized with New Chair Appointments

Margolis is the James Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration. A member of the Organizational Behavior Unit, Margolis joined the HBS faculty in 2000. His research focuses on the distinctive ethical challenges that... View Details

March 2022 (Revised March 2025)
Technical Note

Ethical Analysis: Society

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

How should managers determine and deliver on their responsibilities to society? This note summarizes prevailing approaches to this question and outlines an approach centered on what distinguishes society from other key constituencies, such as investors or customers.... View Details

Keywords: Social and Collaborative Networks; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Structure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Ethics; Analysis

June 2010
Article

The Circulation of Ideas across Academic Communities: When Locals Re-import Exported Ideas

By: Julie Battilana, Michel Anteby and Metin Sengul

The circulation of ideas across academic communities is central to academic pursuits and has attracted much past scholarly attention. As North American-based scholars with European ties, we decided to examine the impact of Organization Studies in North American... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Dissemination; Organizational Structure; Learning; Archives; Civil Society or Community; North and Central America; Europe

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Read Now

September 1986 (Revised June 1989)
Background Note

Managing Rapid Growth

Describes the issues that entrepreneurs and their firms must deal with in attempting to make the transition from entrepreneurial to professional management. The note suggests that the delegation of responsibility and the implementation of formal controls are two key... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Governance Controls; Growth Management; Resource Allocation; Organizational Structure

October 2012
Case

GSK's Acquisition of Sirtris: Independence or Integration? (Abridged)

By: Toby Stuart and James Weber

An executive from pharmaceutical company GSK must choose how much to integrate a recently acquired biotechnology firm, Sirtris. Moncef Slaoui, GSK's global head of R&D, championed the acquisition of Sirtris to gain access to its potentially revolutionary science.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Resource Allocation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Integration

11 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 11

Perspectives on Organizational Social Networks Bringing Agency Back Into Network Research: Constrained Agency and Network Action By: Gulati, Ranjay, and Sameer B. Srivastava Abstract—We propose a framework of constrained agency grounded... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2019
Case

LaCroix Sparkling Water

By: Tomomichi Amano, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

Launched in 1981 as an “all occasion” sparkling water brand, LaCroix Sparkling Water has had a number of ups and downs as a brand. After being purchased by National Beverage in 1996, the brand was re-positioned as a new, colorful, fun alternative to the other sparkling... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Industry Structures; Food and Beverage Industry

2010
Working Paper

Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms To Decentralize?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

There is a widespread sense that over the last two decades firms have been decentralizing decisions to employees further down the managerial hierarchy. Economists have developed a range of theories to account for delegation, but there is less empirical evidence,... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Employees; Managerial Roles; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Asia; Europe; North America