Publications

08 Nov 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Arbitration with Uninformed Consumers

Keywords: by Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos, and Amit Seru; Legal Services

November 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Warner Bros. Entertainment

By: Gary P. Pisano and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Examines the process used by a major motion picture studio to develop and select movie projects. Warner Bros.' strategy is to focus its efforts on a small number of major "event" films (i.e., films with the potential to generate gross box office receipts of $300... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Film Entertainment; Risk Management; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Projects; Sales; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

Research Summary

Decision making

Dr. Bos investigates how unconscious processes aid and improve performance. His work contests the common-sense notion that conscious deliberation always leads to the best outcomes. Dr. Bos and colleagues propose that, for complex decisions, the best outcomes result... View Details

August 1994 (Revised May 2001)
Case

ITT Automotive: Global Manufacturing Strategy (1994)

By: Gary P. Pisano and Sharon L. Rossi

ITT Automotive is in the process of developing a new-generation antilock brake system (ABS), designated the MK-20. The case focuses on the level of automation to be used in the production of this new system, and whether all plants should use the same process... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Innovation Strategy; Production; Product Development; Globalized Firms and Management; Performance Productivity; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Belgium; Germany; United States

October 2002 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Intermountain Health Care

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

Intermountain Health Care (IHC), an integrated delivery system based in Utah, has adopted a new strategy for managing health care delivery. The approach focuses management attention not only on the facilities where care takes place but also on physician decision making... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Innovation Strategy; Cost Management; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Technology Adoption; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Adoption; Change Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Utah

May 1988 (Revised June 2023)
Case

National Cranberry Cooperative, 1996

By: Roy D. Shapiro

Describes the continuous flow process used to process cranberries into juice and/or sauce. Requires student to analyze process flows to determine where the bottlenecks are and to decide how, and whether, to expand capacity. Original version written by J.G. Miller and... View Details

Keywords: Logistics; Performance Capacity; Performance Improvement; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Cost vs Benefits; Production

July 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Background Note

Running and Growing the Small Company: Project-Paper Writing Recommendations

Students are required to do a team project. During the project, they are to do a benchmarking study of a business process to determine best practice or to study a single business process for the purposes of discovering improvement opportunities. The student teams are... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Business Processes; Management Skills

November 1986 (Revised August 1989)
Case

Paul Revere Insurance Co. (A)

The Paul Revere Insurance Co. lost its number one position in disability insurance, its main product, and formulated a strategy to regain the lead through a comprehensive quality improvement effort. The case describes the forces influencing the strategic direction of... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Productivity; Competitive Advantage; Insurance Industry; United States

May 2013
Article

The Performance Frontier: Innovating for a Sustainable Strategy

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

By now most companies have sustainability programs. They're cutting carbon emissions, reducing waste, and otherwise enhancing operational efficiency. But a mishmash of sustainability tactics does not add up to a sustainable strategy. To endure, a strategy must address... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Innovation; Environment; Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility; Governance; Strategy; Value; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention

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05 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: January 5

Involvement in Process Improvement Author:Anita L. Tucker Abstract Managers play a critical role in process improvement. However, research has found that many View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November–December 2022
Article

Can AI Really Help You Sell?: It Can, Depending on When and How You Implement It

By: Jim Dickie, Boris Groysberg, Benson P. Shapiro and Barry Trailer

Many salespeople today are struggling; only 57% of them make their annual quotas, surveys show. One problem is that buying processes have evolved faster than selling processes, and buyers today can access a wide range of online resources that let them evaluate products... View Details

Keywords: Sales; AI and Machine Learning; Customers

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Article

Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change

By: A. Tucker and A. Edmondson

The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

February 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

OpenIDEO

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa

The case describes OpenIDEO, an online offshoot of IDEO, one of the world's leading product design firms. OpenIDEO leverages IDEO's innovative design process and an online community to create solutions for social issues. Emphasis is placed on comparing the IDEO and... View Details

Keywords: Social Issues; Product Design; Social and Collaborative Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Ghana; New Zealand

June 2004
Case

AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (A)

By: Rogelio Oliva, Elizabeth Keating and James Quinn

The newly appointed director of the project dedicated to reducing product development time for AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (TSBU) is trying to decide how best to sustain the momentum of its Achieving Process Excellence (APEX) teams. During the past three... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Groups and Teams; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Product Development; Telecommunications Industry

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

how to preserve ethical discipline when the legal rules of the game are ambiguous and executives stand to reap enormous rewards by exaggerating or camouflaging a company's true economic performance, I outline organizational processes that... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

July 2007
Article

A Two-Person Game of Information Transmission

By: Jerry R. Green and Nancy L. Stokey

We consider a statistical decision problem faced by a two player organization whose members may not agree on outcome evaluations and prior probabilities. One player is specialized in gathering information and transmitting it to the other, who takes the decision. This... View Details

Keywords: Game Theory; Cheap Talk; Communication Games; Communication; Information

22 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

A Randomized Field Study of a Leadership WalkRounds™-Based Intervention

Background: Leadership WalkRounds have been widely adopted as a technique for improving patient safety and safety climate. WalkRounds involve senior managers directly observing frontline work and soliciting employees' ideas about View Details

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker & Sara J. Singer; Health

Article

Agility Hacks

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ranjay Gulati

In the past 20 years, the agile approach to improving products, services, and processes has swept the business world. Rooted in software development, agile has spread to many other functions, and some companies have turned much of their organization, including the... View Details

Keywords: Agile Practices; Agile Project Management; Projects; Management Practices and Processes; Groups and Teams; Innovation Strategy