Publications

December 2009 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Neoprene

By: Tom Nicholas and Felipe Tamega Fernandes

In 1931, during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history, Du Pont announced the discovery of an innovative rubber synthetic product—neoprene. Yet at the time of the announcement, Du Pont did not have any neoprene to sell. Manufacturing facilities were still... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Business History; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Science-Based Business; Commercialization; Chemical Industry; United States

Nov 07 2022
Testimonial

The General Management Program Impact

24 Nov 2014
News

Inventing Products is Less Valuable Than Inventing Ideas

2019
Working Paper

‘Organizing’, ‘Innovating’ and ‘Managing’ in Complexity Space

By: Michael C. Moldoveanu

We two-dimensional measure of organizational complexity that distinguishes between the informational and computational dimensions of complexity and aims to function as a maximally context-invariant environment for posing fundamental questions about organizational... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Dynamics; Organizations; Complexity; Adaptation; Innovation and Invention

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November 2009 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Rose Smart Growth Investment Fund

By: Arthur I Segel and Justin Seth Ginsburgh

The Jonathan Rose Companies must decide how to design and launch an innovative new real estate fund focused on green and transit oriented properties. JRC seeks to show through the fund that smart growth and green buildings provide superior economic returns to sprawl... View Details

Keywords: Property; Buildings and Facilities; Transition; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Investment; Marketing; Energy Conservation; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Finance; Real Estate Industry

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Managing Multi-Media Audiences at WHDH (Boston)

By: Thales Teixeira and V. Kasturi Rangan

WHDH's Channel 7 News rose to the #1 position in Boston-area news broadcasting through its embrace of an innovative format and for affiliating with NBC. Since the early 2000s, however, other news programs had copied their format, and young audiences had begun to use... View Details

Keywords: Online News; Television Advertising; Attention Economics; Cross-media Efforts; Competition; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Marketing; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Boston

October 2024
Case

Nvidia

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

This case study examines Nvidia's strategic pivot from gaming GPUs to becoming a leader in general-purpose computing and AI. It explores how Nvidia leveraged its GPU architecture to dominate the growing fields of data center acceleration and AI training, outpacing... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry; United States; China; Taiwan

July 2011
Case

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation-Enabling a Performance Driven Philanthropic Capital Market

By: Allen Grossman and Aldo Sesia

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF), which... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Financial Strategy; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets; United States

November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Microsoft Office: Finding the Suite Spot

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Steven Sinofsky

Describes a key decision-making process within Microsoft's Office products division. At a time when the PC software business has a great deal of uncertainty, Microsoft's management has to make a key decision regarding the future of software suites. A strengthening of... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Applications and Software; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Goals and Objectives; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

November 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Technical Note

Rechargeable Batteries, 2017: Gigafactory Wars in the Offing?

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2017, the global market for rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries was 126 gigawatt-hours (GWh) valued at $37 billion, growing by $10 billion in two years. Once confined largely to consumer electronics and appliances, the rapid increase in demand was spurred by... View Details

May 2024
Article

Design of Off-Grid Lighting Business Models to Serve the Poor: Field Experiments and Structural Analysis

By: Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Serguei Netessine, Ioanna Popescu and Rowan P. Clarke

A significant proportion of the world's population has no access to grid-based electricity and so relies on off-grid lighting solutions. Rechargeable lamp technology is gaining popularity as an alternative off-grid lighting model in developing countries. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Developing Countries and Economies; Consumer Behavior; Poverty; Logistics; Business Model; Utilities Industry

06 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

What We Learned from Reading Jeff Bezos’ Patents

Jeff told her he’d found a local professor who was letting him experiment with airplane wings and friction and drag.” Flash forward to today. Amazon is not only one of the world’s most powerful and innovative companies, but one of the... View Details

Keywords: by Tricia Gregg and Boris Groysberg; Retail

September 2024
Case

The Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski and Katie Sonnefeldt

This case describes how Boston Medical Center, a hospital and safety net organization, changed its strategic approach to health equity after realizing that previous efforts were not sufficient to address the health disparities among their patients. In 2021, the Health... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Decisions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Diversity; Race; Ethnicity; Urban Scope; Local Range; Equality and Inequality; Health Industry; Boston

11 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

U.S. Tops Business Competitiveness Index 2006

The United States and Germany remain atop the latest Business Competitiveness Index, with China continuing to slip in the rankings while India ascends, according to a report released from Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Jan 2023
In Practice

8 Trends to Watch in 2023

As 2023 begins, businesses and employees face an uncertain economy and labor market, as the twin dilemmas of inflation and interest rates weigh on forecasts. Harvard Business School faculty share the top trends that they believe will shape the workplace and markets... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

19 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

What Chandrayaan-3 Says About India's Entrepreneurial Approach to Space

appeared in the Harvard Gazette. Interview has been edited for clarity and length. You Might Also Like: 5 Qualities That Help Companies Thrive for Decades—Even Centuries When Experts Play It Too Safe: Innovation Lessons from a NASA... View Details

Keywords: by Clea Simon, Harvard Gazette; Aerospace

February 2013
Article

Digitization, Innovation, and Copyright: What Is the Agenda?

By: Shane Greenstein, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

This essay discusses the need for research on the consequences of digitization, as well as the impact of alternative policies governing the creation and use of digital information. This agenda focuses on the development of research to investigate the economics of... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Research; Copyright; Information Management; Innovation and Invention