Publications

September 2009
Article

Virtue out of Necessity? Compliance, Commitment and the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains

By: Akshay Mangla, Richard Locke and Matthew Amengual

Private, voluntary compliance programs, promoted by global corporations and nongovernmental organizations alike, have produced only modest and uneven improvements in working conditions and labor rights in most global supply chains. Through a detailed study of a major... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Ethics; Supply Chain; Governance Compliance; Globalization

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02 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization

Keywords: by Maria Guadalupe & Julie M. Wulf

21 Mar 2023
Blog Post

Grundfos: Innovation & Inspiration for Sustainable Product Design

In January 2023, Professors Willy Shih and Mike Toffel led more than 40 HBS MBA students on site visits to witness the energy transition and innovative sustainable production activities throughout Denmark and the Netherlands, in their new... View Details

Web

Reconceiving Products & Markets - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Three Levels of CSV Reconceiving Products & Markets Redefining Productivity in the Value Chain Improving the Local & Regional Business Environment Reconceiving View Details

May 1997
Teaching Note

Product Development Process, Organization and Improvement, Instructor's Note

By: Marco Iansiti

Explores how development projects fit (or do not fit) within a firm's development strategy and its wider competitive goals. Module materials, and this note, focus on two broad approaches to process design (sequential and flexible) that were originally introduced in the... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Performance Improvement; Competition

2022
Book

The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth

By: Michael J. Andrews, Aaron Chatterji, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

We live in an era in which innovation and entrepreneurship seem ubiquitous, particularly in regions like Silicon Valley, Boston, and the Research Triangle Park. But many metrics of economic growth, such as productivity growth and business dynamism, have been at best... View Details

Keywords: Productivity Growth; Production Technologies; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Competition; Organizational Design; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

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21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

preparing to run a more ambitious experiment this fall with 1,000 subjects, giving those without CS&E experience hands-on training to see if it improves their abilities. “We will see if in the second stage, these people will catch up... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

25 Feb 2015
News

Why the Gap Between Worker Pay and Productivity Is So Problematic

26 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

How Electronic Patient Records Can Slow Doctor Productivity

productivity implications from increased information technology. "We often look at systems on the basis of their technical capability, the fact that they can store this many records or process that many requests in this period of time.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

Web

Industrial Production & Materials - Business & Environment

Confronting Climate Change Industrial Production & Materials Refrigerant gases, cement, and plastic are materials ripe for innovation Industrial activity that produces many of the materials used in commerce, as well as consumer View Details

02 Apr 2024
Research & Ideas

Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company's Creative Approach to Staying Productive

more effective to encourage more handshake contracts between managers to share workers than to create a central system for replacing employees, the researchers found. Since different people on production lines perform different tasks,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Fashion

2010
Book

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in insight: They have huge volumes of information at their disposal. But they're unsure of how to sort through it and use it to make smart decisions. The result? They're struggling with profit-sapping supply chain... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

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29 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

The $1 Trillion Link Between Mental Health and Economic Productivity

understanding the link between mental health and economics as we could be,” says Ashraf, an associate professor in the Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets unit at Harvard Business School. “And that’s on both sides—both in the way mental health can affect economic... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2025
Working Paper

Management and Firm Dynamism

By: Nicholas Bloom, Jonathan S. Hartley, Raffaella Sadun, Rachel Schuh and John Van Reenen

We show better-managed firms are more dynamic in plant acquisitions, disposals, openings and closings in U.S. Census and international data. Better-managed firms also birth better-managed plants, and improve the performance of the plants they acquire. To explain these... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Business or Company Management; Performance Productivity

November 2016 (Revised October 2018)
Case

IguanaFix

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Laura Urdapilleta

IguanaFix is a rapidly scaling Latin American startup that provides an online platform connecting consumers with home improvement contractors. The founders have acquired customers through both B2C and B2B methods. But in seeking to grow and scale the business, they now... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Home Improvement Services; Marketing Management; Scaling; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Sales; Online Advertising; Latin America

Educators

Article

The Perils of Excellence: Barriers to Effective Process Improvement in Product-Driven Firms

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Jesus del Alamo, Todd Becker, James Lawton, Peter Moran, Saul Shapiro and Dean Vlasak

Keywords: Product; Performance Improvement

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May 2017
Case

Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2017)

By: John Gourville

One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details

Keywords: Diffusion Processes; Product Adoption; Forecasting and Prediction; Product; Product Launch; Marketing

Educators

06 Aug 2024
Cold Call Podcast

How EdTech Firm Coursera Is Incorporating GenAI into Its Products and Services

Keywords: Re: Suraj Srinivasan; Education; Technology

2017
Working Paper

Carbon Tariffs: Effects in Settings with Technology Choice and Foreign Production Cost Advantage

By: David F. Drake

Emissions regulation is a policy mechanism intended to address the threat of climate change. However, the stringency of emissions regulation varies across regions, raising concerns over carbon leakage—an outcome where stringent regulation in one region shifts... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Competition; Pollutants; Taxation; Environmental Sustainability; Globalized Markets and Industries

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