Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,107)
- Faculty Publications (203)
- October 2010 (Revised December 2015)
- Supplement
Toyota Motor Corporation: 1990-2010
By: Roy D. Shapiro and Stephanie van Sice
This case follows Toyota's remarkable growth and geographic expansion from 1990 to 2010 and, in the recalls of 2009 and 2010, poses questions about the impact of that growth. Issues of increasing technological complexity also play a part. View Details
- August 2010 (Revised March 2012)
- Supplement
The Dow Acquisition of Rohm and Haas (E)
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Melissa Barton
Dow completed the acquisition of Rohm and Haas and escaped a battle in a Delaware courtroom View Details
- January 2010 (Revised December 2011)
- Case
Jiamei Dental: Private Health Care in China
By: William C. Kirby and G.A. Donovan
With the recent announcement from the Chinese government that the country's healthcare system was going to undergo reform, Jiamei Dental Chairman Liu Jia wondered what that meant for his 15 year-old dental clinic business. Founded in 1993, Jiamei Dental Medical... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised August 2010)
- Background Note
Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Rakesh Khurana
Large-scale societal issues increasingly appear on the agenda of business leaders, including poverty, health, education, business-government relations, and the degradation of the environment. These problems are not entirely new, but the forces of globalization and the... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
Leadership in a Globalizing World
In this chapter, world-renowned business expert, author, and Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter asks the question, "Is leadership different in a globalizing world--one of broadening horizons and burgeoning sources of ideas and supplies--than in... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Architecture of Complex Systems: Do Core-periphery Structures Dominate?
By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak
Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some of which are core to system function while others are only peripheral. The dynamics of how such "core-periphery" structures evolve and become embedded in a... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions
The mirroring hypothesis predicts that the organizational patterns of a development project (e.g. communication links, geographic collocation, team and firm co-membership) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the system under development. Scholars... View Details
- Article
Mission-Driven Governance
By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson
The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details
- May 2009
- Case
Tokyo Electron Ltd.
By: Willy C. Shih and Andrew A. King
Tokyo Electron Ltd. operates in a constrained innovation environment, defined by modular boundaries that are long standing in the industry that it serves, the global semiconductor manufacturing industry. While the original motivation for these boundaries was division... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised June 2014)
- Supplement
CityCenter (B): Economics and Delivery
By: A. Eugene Kohn, John D. Macomber and Ben Creo
Bill Smith is informed by his general contractor that a key component of the Aria Resort is going to be delayed. Aria is the centerpiece of CityCenter: a $9 billion complex and a bet-the-firm decision for MGM Mirage. Smith must make a decision as to whether to force... View Details
- September 2008
- Article
Firm Heterogeneity and Credit Risk Diversification
By: Samuel G. Hanson, M. Hashem Pesaran and Til Schuermann
This paper examines the impact of neglected heterogeneity on credit risk. We show that neglecting heterogeneity in firm returns and/or default thresholds leads to under estimation of expected losses (EL), and its effect on portfolio risk is ambiguous. Once EL is... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard
The central role of "platform" products and services in mediating the activities of disaggregated "clusters" or "ecosystems" of firms has been widely recognized. But platforms and the systems in which they are embedded are very diverse. In particular, platforms may... View Details
- July 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
McDonald's Plan to Win (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karla Ingrid Gravis and Annette Kristine Rodriguez
As of 2007, McDonald's had made significant progress on its “Plan to Win,” and the company was rewarded by reaching an all-time high share price. However, McDonald's competitors had expanded beyond the typical fast food giants, such as Wendy's and Burger King, as... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization
By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman
This is a descriptive study of the structure of communications in a modern organization. We analyze a dataset with millions of electronic mail messages, calendar meetings and teleconferences for many thousands of employees of a single, multidivisional firm during a... View Details
- June 2008
- Case
System on a Chip 2008: Global Unichip Corp.
By: Willy C. Shih, Chintay Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Yuan-Chieh Chang
Though much of the semiconductor industry has shifted to a horizontal model, complexity driven by technological evolution is driving a shift in the perceived boundaries in the value chain. Global Unichip sees itself as a "virtual integrated device manufacturer," a... View Details
- February 2008
- Article
Where Do Transactions Come From? Modularity, Transactions, and the Boundaries of Firms
This article constructs a theory of the location of transactions and the boundaries of firms in a productive system. It proposes that systems of production can be viewed as networks, in which tasks-cum-agents are the nodes and transfers—of material, energy and... View Details
- December 2007 (Revised July 2010)
- Case
Who Killed Bhavani Manjula? A Story of Microfinance in Andhra Pradesh (A)
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee
- 2007
- Working Paper
Competition in Modular Clusters
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard
The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
The Impact of Component Modularity on Design Evolution: Evidence from the Software Industry
By: Alan MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin
Much academic work asserts a relationship between the design of a complex system and the manner in which this system evolves over time. In particular, designs which are modular in nature are argued to be more "evolvable," in that these designs facilitate making... View Details
- October 2007
- Article
The Art of Designing Markets
By: Alvin E. Roth
Traditionally, markets have been viewed as simply the confluence of supply and demand. But to function properly, they must be able to attract a sufficient number of buyers and sellers, induce participants to make their preferences clear, and overcome congestion by... View Details