Publications

Forthcoming
Article

Human Capital and the Managerial Revolution in the United States: Evidence from General Electric

By: Tom Nicholas

This paper estimates the returns to human capital accumulation during the first era of mega-firms in the United States by linking employees at General Electric—a canonical enterprise associated with the “visible hand” of managerial hierarchies—to the 1940 census. I... View Details

Keywords: Returns To Education; Management Practices; Hierarchies; Management Practices and Processes; Rank and Position; Human Capital; Talent and Talent Management; Business History; United States

June 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Continental Media Group: Business Highlights

By: Robert L. Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

Continental Media Group has a series of business reviews struggling to achieve profitability. This case focuses on the use of management control systems to identify emerging opportunities and the formulation of new strategies. The interactive system used by top... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Governance Controls; Management Systems; Risk Management; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry

2011
Book

Detour: My Unexpected, Amazing, Life Changing Journey With OnStar

By: Chet Huber

Detour is the story behind the launch of OnStar’s now well known blue button, as told through the eyes of its founder and CEO of over fourteen years, Chet Huber. It’s a personal narrative that describes the events that led up to General Motors’ unexpected choice... View Details

Keywords: General Motors; OnStar; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Transportation; Safety; Personal Development and Career; Creativity; Success; Business History; Auto Industry

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

The dot-com boom of the 1990s had changed the rules of business forever, it seemed; all you needed was a sexy IPO, cold nerve, and the magic carpet of momentum trading. But even as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists were dismissing... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

September 1996 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Mobil USM&R (C): Lubricants Business Unit

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The general manager of a Lubricants Business Unit in Mobil's U.S. Marketing and Refining division launched a project to develop a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for his unit. The purpose was to provide focus for all employees of the unit, enabling it to operate on an... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Employees; Customization and Personalization; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Management Teams; Projects; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; United States

2008
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Business History

By: G. Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin

The Handbook of Business History contains 25 original chapters from around the world to present a comprehensive, critical and interdisciplinary examination of current research in business history. The Handbook reveals business history as a wide-ranging and... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Research; Economics; Government and Politics

March 2008
Case

Novartis AG: Science-Based Business

By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington

Novartis is a science-based drug company, which has important implications for its business strategy. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with over $38B in sales in 2007. Pharmaceuticals account for slightly over $24B of that total. In 2007,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2011 (Revised November 2011)
Case

CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses

By: William C. Kirby and Tracy Yuen Manty

As a second generation business leader, Chairman Dhanin Chearavanont took over the family agribusiness company and built it to become a major diversified conglomerate in Thailand and expanded the business in SE Asia and China. While growing the business, he and his... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Conglomerates; Family Ownership; Growth and Development; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Thailand; China; Southeast Asia

2024
Working Paper

Business Experiments as Persuasion

By: Orie Shelef, Rebecca Karp and Robert Wuebker

Much of the prior work on experimentation rests upon the assumption that entrepreneurs and managers use—or should optimally adopt—a "scientific approach" to test possible decisions before making them. This paper offers an alternative view of experimental strategy,... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Decision Making; Innovation Strategy

Read Now

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Bringing History into International Business

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones & Tarun Khanna; Financial Services

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Organizing the Family-Run Business

Generational Changes In The Family Business Board The board of directors in the family firm usually changes over generations and as the ownership of the firm progresses through... View Details

December 2000
Article

Triad Lessons: Generalizing Results on High Performance Firms in Five Business-to-Business Markets

By: Rohit Deshpandé, John U. Farley and Frederick E. Webster Jr.

Keywords: Learning; Performance; Business Ventures; Markets

February 2008 (Revised February 2015)
Exercise

Your Strategy—A Strategy Formulation Exercise for the General Management Program (GMP)

By: Tarun Khanna, Robyn C. Davis and Stephanie R. Khurana

This exercise is meant to help students take strategy concepts learned and adapt/apply them to their organizations. View Details

Keywords: Learning; Business or Company Management; Practice; Strategy

15 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

The New Global Business Manager

In a 1992 article for Harvard Business Review, HBS professor Christopher A. Bartlett and co-author Sumantra Ghoshal tackled the question, "What is a Global Manager?" Their answer then was that "there is no such thing as a... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

09 Jan 2024
In Practice

Harnessing AI: What Businesses Need to Know in ChatGPT’s Second Year

with a sense of responsibility. Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at HBS. Jacqueline Ng Lane: Gain advantage via human-AI collaboration Generative AI surged in... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology

February 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Doing Business in Santiago, Chile

By: Willis Emmons, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Ruth Costas

The case uses the example of the opening of the first IKEA furniture store in Chile – which is operated by Chilean group Falabella – to discuss the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country. It gives readers an overview of Chile’s economic... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economy; Macroeconomics; Business History; Chile; Latin America

17 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

The Lessons of Business History: A Handbook

generated rich empirical data that in some cases confirms and in other cases contradicts many of today's fashionable theories and assumptions by other disciplines, says Harvard Business School professor... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January – February 2011
Article

How to Design a Winning Business Model

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan E. Ricart

Most executives believe that competing through business models is critical for success, but few have come to grips with how best to do so. One common mistake is enterprises' unwavering focus on creating innovative models and evaluating their efficacy in standalone... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Design; Strength and Weakness; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

April 2012 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Social Strategy at Harvard Business Review

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and David Chen

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) Group was an early adopter of social media, boasting a robust presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Now the company is seeking to evolve the Group's efforts from social media to social strategy—and start moving both revenue... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Social and Collaborative Networks; Web; Publishing Industry; United States