Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,891)
- Faculty Publications (202)
- February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
Utilis: Designing, Producing, and Selling Rapid Deployment Shelters for a Troubled World
By: Herman B. Leonard, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Simon Harrow
How can a company that supplies disaster response and humanitarian agencies best handle the intrinsically unpredictable and highly volatile demand for its products? Utilis is a French supplier of rapid-deploy high-end tent solutions for civilian and military uses (such... View Details
- January 2011 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
Mochi Media
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Amit Jain
In late 2009, the management of Mochi Media, a venture-backed startup, must decide how to invest scarce resources to achieve continued growth. Mochi has developed a three-sided platform, connecting Flash game developers, sites that aggregate these games, and... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
Developing an Effective Organization: Intervention Method, Empirical Evidence, and Theory
By: Michael Beer
The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)-a platform... View Details
- Article
Shadow of the Contract: How Contract Structure Shapes Inter-Firm Dispute Resolution
By: Fabrice Lumineau and Deepak Malhotra
This paper investigates how contract structure influences inter-firm dispute resolution processes and outcomes by examining a unique dataset consisting of over 150,000 pages of documents relating to 102 business disputes. We find that the level of contractual detail... View Details
- June 2010
- Article
The China Rules: A Practical Guide for CEOs Managing Multinational Corporations in the People's Republic
By: Lynn S. Paine
To achieve growth and profitability in the world's third-largest economy, multinationals need strong leadership--but China is tough on top executives. Pulsating with opportunity, China attracts foreigners, yet HR professionals continue to rank it as one of the most... View Details
- April 2010
- Article
Complex Business Models: Managing Strategic Paradoxes Simultaneously
By: Wendy K. Smith, Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman
As our world becomes more global, fast paced and hypercompetitive, competitive advantage may increasingly depend on success in managing paradoxical strategies - strategies associated with contradictory, yet integrated tensions. We identify several types of complex... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised April 2011)
- Case
Google Inc.
By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One... View Details
- Article
Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
The article focuses on career development and job change. The challenges, transaction costs, and risks associated with job moves are discussed. The authors' research with executives is noted. The mistakes in career development that job hunters make are not doing enough... View Details
- March 2010
- Article
The Desire to Win: The Effects of Competitive Arousal on Motivation and Behavior
By: Deepak Malhotra
The paper theoretically elaborates and empirically investigates the "competitive arousal" model of decision making, which argues that elements of the strategic environment (e.g., head-to-head rivalry and time pressure) can fuel competitive motivations and behavior.... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised August 2010)
- Case
NovoCure Ltd.
By: William A. Sahlman and Sarah Flaherty
Venture capitalist William Doyle must raise $35 million for a portfolio company with a promising, novel cancer therapy, just as global capital markets are imploding in the fall of 2008. NovoCure, Ltd., has developed an electrical-field-based therapy, called Tumor... View Details
- August 2009
- Case
Meeting the Diversity Challenge at PepsiCo: The Steve Reinemund Era
By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie Creary
This case profiles PepsiCo's diversity journey under the leadership of former chairman and CEO Steve Reinemund who instituted diversity as one of the company's strategic imperatives. It demonstrates the ways in which Reinemund partnered with his leadership team and... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making
By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Solvay Group: International Mobility and Managing Expatriates
By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Kerry Herman
Marcel Lorent, head of International Mobility at Brussels-based Solvay Group, faces decisions on the expatriation status of four of his firm's talented executives. Each decision will impact the candidate's professional and personal life and will have implications for... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised August 2011)
- Case
UnME Jeans: Branding in Web 2.0
By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery
This case introduces emerging Web 2.0 social media in virtual worlds, social networking sites, and video-sharing sites and encourages students to explore the opportunities and risks they present for brands. The case allows students to grapple with the strategic and... View Details
- Article
MIT Roundtable on Corporate Risk Management
By: Robert C. Merton
Against the backdrop of financial crisis, a distinguished group of academics and practitioners discusses the contribution of financial management and innovation to corporate growth and value, along with the pitfalls and unintended consequences of such innovation.... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize... View Details
- 2008
- Simulation
Strategic Innovation Simulation: Back Bay Battery
By: Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen
This online simulation allows students to play the role of a business unit manager at Back Bay Battery Company who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery space. Players have to manage R&D... View Details
- Article
Breaking up Is Never Easy: Planning for Exit in a Strategic Alliance
By: Ranjay Gulati, Parth Mehrotra and Maxim Sytch
This article highlights several important dimensions of planning for exit from strategic alliances and also offers several examples of the disastrous consequences of inadequate exit-planning. While many companies fall into the trap of having no exit plan, other... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Purolator Courier Ltd.
By: Rajiv Lal and Catherine Ross
On a fall day in September 2003, Robert Swanborough made his way down a thickly carpeted hallway in Purolator's headquarters in Toronto, Canada, toward a meeting with his two deputies. Several months earlier, Swanborough, then vice-president of Marketing, had been... View Details
- March 2008
- Article
When Growth Stalls
By: Matthew S. Olson, Derek C. M. van Bever and Seth Verry
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading.
An abrupt and lasting drop in revenue growth is a crisis that can strike even the... View Details