Publications

January 2015 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Mauboussin

By: Anat Keinan, Sandrine Crener and Audrey Azoulay

Mauboussin is a French jewelry brand founded in 1827 in Paris. In the 1920s, the company earned a huge notoriety for capturing the aesthetic and emotional dimension of the Art Deco movement in its design and gained a worldwide reputation for innovation and expertise in... View Details

November 2013
Article

Learning from My Successes and from Others' Failures: Evidence from Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

By: D. KC, B. Staats and F. Gino

Learning from past experience is central to an organization's adaptation and survival. A key dimension of prior experience is whether an outcome was successful or unsuccessful. While empirical studies have investigated the effects of success and failure in... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Health Care; Knowledge Work; Attribution Theory; Quality; Success; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Failure; Learning; Health Industry

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November 2001 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Children's Hospital and Clinics (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Michael Roberto and Anita L. Tucker

Describes the major phases of an initiative designed to transform the organization and enhance patient safety. Raises interesting questions about how to encourage candid discussion about failures while continuing to hold people accountable for their performance. View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Leading Change; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Safety; Health Industry

September 2000
Case

Japanese Financial Crisis and the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, The

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Andrew Eggers

Illustrates the failure of Japan's banking elite to adjust to new economic conditions. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Behavior; Japan

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May 2008
Case

Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics and a Career in Crisis

By: W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Heather Beckham

The case describes the dilemma of a marketing manager, Thomas Green, who, after being rapidly promoted, is harshly criticized by his boss, Frank Davis. Green and Davis disagree on work styles and market projections. Green believes the sales goals set by Davis are based... View Details

Keywords: Superior ＆ Subordinate; Performance Management; Personal Strategy ＆ Style; Management Style; Conflict Management; Communication; Rank and Position; Personal Characteristics; Power and Influence

04 Feb 2016
Cold Call Podcast

The Space Shuttle Columbia’s Final Mission

Keywords: Re: Amy C. Edmondson

August 2016
Supplement

Videojet (B)

By: Raffaella Sadun, Bharat Anand and Eric Van den Steen

In 2005 Craig Purse, the CEO of Videojet, a company recently acquired by the conglomerate Danaher, is dealing with the unexpected failure of a new high tech printer just launched in the market. The new product exemplified the first real instance in which the Videojet... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Processes; Conglomerates; Diversification; Relational Contracts; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Background Note

Government Policy and Clean-Energy Finance

By: Ramana Nanda, Sanjay Aggarwal and Nilam Ganenthiran

What leads to market failures in finance of clean energy startups? How do different governments approach this issue? View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Finance; Policy; Energy Industry

February 21, 2025
Article

How a Company’s Ownership Model Shapes the Mistakes It Makes

By: Josh Baron

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Like many kinds of accidents, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Failure; Ownership

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June 2012
Article

Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes

By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton

We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Failure

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

or fail to analyze the utter breakdown in board governance and Enron's internal controls, and the failure of credit rating agencies to blow the whistle," he says. "They also overlook the collusion of investment banks in... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

05 May 2003
Research & Ideas

SEC Commissioner Sees “Healing and Reform”

Despite the wrongdoings that have convulsed corporate America in recent months, SEC Commissioner Harvey J. Goldschmid believes that the business world is on the mend. "I have a very optimistic view," he said. "Out of scandal comes healing and... View Details

Keywords: by Catherine Walsh

August 2016 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Videojet (A)

By: Raffaella Sadun, Bharat Anand and Eric Van den Steen

In 2005 Craig Purse, the CEO of Videojet, a company recently acquired by the conglomerate Danaher, is dealing with the unexpected failure of a new high-tech printer just launched in the market. The new product exemplified the first real instance in which the Videojet... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Processes; Conglomerates; Relational Contracts; Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Diversification; Management Practices and Processes; Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; United States

May 29, 2019
Article

A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail

By: David B. Yoffie, Annabelle Gawer and Michael A. Cusumano

This piece explores why digital platforms fail. We collected data on 250 failures over the last 20 years, analyzed the most common causes for a platform to disappear or morph into an alternative business. View Details

Keywords: Platform; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Failure; Analysis

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21 Dec 2016
Cold Call Podcast

Target's Expensive Cybersecurity Mistake

Keywords: Re: Suraj Srinivasan; Retail

July 2001
Case

Regal Cinemas LBO (A)

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Daniel Green

This case describes one of the greatest LBO failures of the 1990s. It presents an overview of the difficulties two experienced buyout sponsors were forced to deal with. View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Corporate Governance; Failure

October 1960 (Revised December 1982)
Case

Texas Instruments, Inc. (B)

Discusses the reorganization of Texas Instruments Metals & Controls Division, the formulation of the profit plan, and the courses of action available to the manager in the face of his department's failure to meet forecasted sales and profits. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring