Publications

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

in their paper, Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers. Cole says he was especially surprised to find that the nature of the incentive actually changed participants'... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

July 2010
Case

Mekong Capital: Building a Culture of Leadership in Vietnam

By: Christopher Marquis, Vinay Ganti, Kevin Smith and Doug Guthrie

Mekong Capital, a private equity firm specializing in investing in Vietnam, had grown dramatically since its inception in 2002 and faced numerous organizational issues in 2007. There was a shortage of qualified middle managers, an overall lack of leadership, and a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Alignment; Financial Services Industry

March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Arck Systems (C)

By: Ian Larkin

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a... View Details

Keywords: Change; Framework; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Management; Organizational Design; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; System; Applications and Software

Research Summary

Inheriting Losers (with Li Jin)

New managers who take over mutual fund portfolios, typically proceed to sell off inherited momentum losers. Relative to continuing fund managers holding the same stocks, new managers tend to reduce their holdings of losers at a higher rate than of winners or stocks in... View Details

04 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Want to Make Diversity Stick? Break the Cycle of Sameness

predecessors,” says Chang, who coauthored the study with Erika Kirgios of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. The findings were recently published in the journal Management Science. The departing leader’s identity... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

October 1986 (Revised November 1989)
Case

Becton Dickinson & Co.: VACUTAINER Systems Division

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Concerns negotiations between managers of Becton Dickinson's (BD) VACUTAINER division (which manufactures and sells blood collection products) and managers of a large hospital buying group. Recent changes in the health care industry are the background for the... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Process; Price; Sales; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; United States

Research Summary

The Individualized Corporation

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Christopher A. Bartlett has recently concluded (with Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School) a study of changing organizational processes and management roles in twenty diverse companies in various stages of corporate transformation. The research is expected... View Details

December 1998 (Revised July 2016)
Background Note

Tools of Cooperation, The

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Howard H. Stevenson and Jeremy Dann

Presents a theory about the tools a manager can use to get people to agree on a coordinated course of action and effect change in his or her organization. The extent to which people in the organization agree on the way the world works, and agree on what they want,... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Framework; Managerial Roles; Organizations; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation

11 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard

for change and understood the importance of communicating the vision and strategy to every employee. Without such strong leadership at the top, even the comprehensive management system we introduce in this... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Leslie A. Perlow

Leslie A. Perlow is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. She leads the LIFE Special Project, dedicated to helping individuals make purposeful life choices while gathering insights that will... View Details

January 2018 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Michael E. Porter, Thomas W. Feeley and Alee Hernandez

Medtronic is adapting its strategy to changes in healthcare competition and payments. It has decided to develop new relationships with payers, hospitals, and physicians to become more accountable for patient outcomes and total costs. The case describes new forms of... View Details

Keywords: Value Based Health Care; Bundled Payments; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Value Creation; Supply Chain Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States; Netherlands

Thomas J. DeLong is a Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice and the former Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice in the Organizational Behavior Department at the Harvard Business School. He is an expert in leader development, organizational... View Details

14 Jul 2021
News

Job-Hopping Toward Equity

01 Jun 2012
News

Leadership Is a Conversation

22 Sep 2011
News

Critics Fault H-P's Board, Not Just CEO

19 Sep 2011
News

Bill Clinton and How to Use Convening Power

April 1998
Case

Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged)

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Becton Dickinson's Vacutainer business was largely based in the United States, but in 1980 management determined to grow the business aggressively first in Europe and then Japan. These areas demanded new products that were tailored to local markets. Despite the change... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Growth and Development Strategy; Change Management; Product Development; Global Strategy; Expansion; Innovation and Invention; Multinational Firms and Management; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States; Europe; Japan

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

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. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

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