Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,598)
- Faculty Publications (401)
- December 2017 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
OCP Group
By: Kristin Fabbe, Forest Reinhardt, Natalie Kindred and Alpana Thapar
This case explores the strategy of OCP Group, the 95% state-owned Moroccan firm charged with managing the North African country’s vast reserves of phosphate. Phosphate was one of the most vital macronutrients for plant health, along with nitrogen and potassium, and... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
NatureSweet
By: Jose Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
This case describes the business model and workplace philosophy of NatureSweet, a privately owned, vertically integrated greenhouse grower and marketer of fresh tomatoes with sales across the United States and $329 million in 2016 revenues. CEO Bryant Ambelang treated... View Details
Keywords: NatureSweet; Tomatoes; Agriculture; Greenhouse; Ambelang; Cherry Tomatoes; Incentives; Worker Empowerment; Empowerment; Toyota Production System; Leadership; Branding; Produce; Manufacturing; Organizational Change; Agribusiness; Business Model; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Success; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Mexico; North America
- November 2017 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
Royal Philips: Designing Toward Profound Change
By: Srikant M. Datar, Rajiv Lal and Caitlin N. Bowler
This case explores Royal Philips CEO Frans van Houten's bold use of design research to inform a critical strategic decision: Should Philips leave its storied lighting business behind in favor of complete focus on health technology and consumer lifestyle products?... View Details
- November 2017
- Case
The Digital Factory – Siemens: Electronic Works Amberg
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott F. Johnson
The Electronic Works Amberg (EWA) was Siemens' most advanced factory. The plant built industrial automation equipment using state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques. Siemens was considering creating a consulting business for its manufacturing clients. Given the EWA's... View Details
Keywords: Siemens; Internet Of Things; Industrie 4.0; Manufacturing; Consulting; Digital Factory; Ewa; Amberg; Electronic Works Amberg; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Production; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Germany
- Article
What Managers Need to Know About Social Tools: Avoid the Common Pitfalls So That Your Organization Can Collaborate, Learn, and Innovate
By: Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley
Workplaces have adopted internal social tools—think stand-alone technologies such as Slack, Yammer, and Chatter, or embedded applications such as Microsoft Teams and JIRA—at a staggering rate. In an ambitious study of 4,200 companies, conducted by the McKinsey Global... View Details
- Article
Why Every Organization Needs an Augmented Reality Strategy
By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann
While the physical world is three-dimensional, most data is trapped on two-dimensional pages and screens. This gulf between the real and digital worlds prevents us from fully exploiting the volumes of information now available to us. Augmented reality (AR), a set of... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Intermediation in the Supply of Agricultural Products in Developing Economies
By: Kris J. Ferreira, Joel Goh and Ehsan Valavi
Problem Definition: Farmers face several challenges in agricultural supply chains in emerging economies that contribute to extreme levels of poverty. One common challenge is that farmers only have access to one channel, often an auction, for which to sell their crops.... View Details
- September 2017 (Revised March 2023)
- Background Note
Production Processes
By: Willy Shih and Michael W. Toffel
This note describes four broad categories of process architectures and then examines the nature of task assignment that typically would be found in a factory organized along the lines of each process type. It then delves more deeply into work flow policies, materials... View Details
- June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (A)
By: Raffaella Sadun, Michael Beer and James Weber
In late 2015, CEO Vince Forlenza was reviewing Becton Dickinson’s transformation efforts designed to enable the company to innovate and grow in a changing environment. Becton Dickinson had been a successful medical device company for over 100 years. In recent years,... View Details
Keywords: Transformation; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States
- June 2017
- Teaching Note
The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle
In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details
Keywords: Diamonds; Go-to-market Strategy; Secondary Market; Willingness To Pay; Pilot Program; Strategy Development; Strategy Execution; Scope; Marketing; Advertising; Branding; Customer Value; Pawn Shops; Jewelry; Supply And Demand; Corporate Strategy; Business Strategy; Vertical Integration; Advertising Campaigns; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Africa; Botswana; South Africa; Namibia
- June 2017
- Article
Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency
By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay
We investigate whether organizations can create value by introducing visual transparency between consumers and producers. Although operational transparency has been shown to improve consumer perceptions of service value, existing theory posits that increased contact... View Details
- 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
- Article
Reclaim Your Commute: Getting To and From Work Doesn't Have to be Soul Crushing
By: Francesca Gino, Bradley Staats, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia J. Lee and Jochen I. Menges
Every day, millions of people around the world face long commutes to work. In the United States alone, approximately 25 million workers spend more than 90 minutes each day getting to and from their jobs. And yet few people enjoy their commutes. This distaste for... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections
By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel
Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details
- April 2017
- Case
The Future of Patent Examination at the USPTO
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Sarah Mehta
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal government agency responsible for evaluating and granting patents and trademarks. In 2015, the USPTO employed approximately 8,000 patent examiners who granted nearly 300,000 patents to inventors. As of April... View Details
Keywords: Machine Learning; Telework; Collaborating With Unions; Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Intellectual Property; Copyright; Patents; Trademarks; Knowledge Sharing; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Performance Improvement; District of Columbia
- Article
Highways and Spatial Location within Cities: Evidence from India
By: Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover Goswami and William R. Kerr
We investigate the impact of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project on the spatial organization and efficiency of manufacturing activity. The GQ project upgraded the quality and width of 3,633 miles of road in India. We use a difference-in-difference estimation... View Details
- March 2017
- Article
Variation in the Cost of Care for Primary Total Knee Arthroplasties
By: Derek A. Haas and Robert S. Kaplan
The study examined the cost variation across 29 high-volume U.S. hospitals for delivering a primary total knee arthroplasty without major complicating conditions. Hospital and physician personnel costs were calculated using time-driven activity-based costing.... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Kameda Seika: Cracking the U.S. Market
By: Elie Ofek, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In spring 2016, Kameda’s CEO, Michiyasu Tanaka, is facing difficult questions from board members over the lackluster performance of the company’s U.S. subsidiary. Kameda was the leading player in the Japanese rice cracker market and was looking to expand overseas to... View Details
- February 2017
- Supplement
The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle
In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore the $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details
Keywords: Diamonds; Go-to-market Strategy; Secondary Market; Willingness To Pay; Pilot Program; Strategy Development; Strategy Execution; Scope; Marketing; Advertising; Branding; Customer Value; Pawn Shops; Jewelry; Supply And Demand; Corporate Strategy; Business Strategy; Vertical Integration; Advertising Campaigns; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Africa; Botswana; South Africa; Namibia
- February 2017 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle
In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore the $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details
Keywords: Diamonds; Go-to-market Strategy; Secondary Market; Willingness To Pay; Pilot Program; Strategy Development; Strategy Execution; Scope; Marketing; Advertising; Branding; Customer Value; Pawn Shops; Jewelry; Supply And Demand; Corporate Strategy; Business Strategy; Vertical Integration; Advertising Campaigns; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Africa; Botswana; South Africa; Namibia