Publications

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 14 Introducing Open Platforms and Ecosystems

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive theoretical investigation of open platform systems. To do this, we must first recognize that, although there is a strong family resemblance among all platform systems, there are different types of... View Details

Keywords: Open Platforms; Business Ecosystems; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Industry Structures; Digital Platforms

SSRN

Read Now

October 2016 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company

By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million... View Details

Keywords: Lean Management; Operation Management; Service Management; Commercialization; Operations; Management; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Performance; Energy Industry; Europe

02 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 2

years. It analyzes the effects of patent laws and innovation prizes that were designed to promote technical progress. It explores the challenge associated with the changing organizational structure of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Relational Investors and Home Depot (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kaitlyn Simpson

In 2006, amidst shareholder upset over CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation and Home Depot's declining stock price, Relational Investors decided to further investigate the situation. As experts in turning around underperforming and undervalued companies, Relational's... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Financial Management; Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Strategy

Article

Strong Leadership and Teamwork Drive Culture and Performance Change: Ohio State University Medical Center 2000–2006

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Fred Sanfilippo, Neeli Bendapudi and Anthony Rucci

Several characteristics of academic health centers have the potential to create high levels of internal conflict and misalignment that can pose significant leadership challenges.

In September 2000, the positions of Ohio State University (OSU) senior vice... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Service Delivery; Satisfaction; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Ohio

Read Now

January 24, 2025
Article

Behaviorally Designed Training Leads to More Diverse Hiring

By: Cansin Arslan, Edward H. Chang, Siri Chilazi, Iris Bohnet and Oliver P. Hauser

Many organizations have shown interest in increasing the diversity of their workforces for various reasons. Collectively, they have spent millions of dollars and countless employee hours on diversity training. Yet, there is little empirical evidence that such training... View Details

Keywords: Training; Diversity; Selection and Staffing; Behavior; Outcome or Result; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

May 1994 (Revised August 1994)
Case

Motorola-Elma

By: Shoshana Zuboff and Janis Lee Gogan

Motorola's old automative electronics plant in Arcade, outside Buffalo, New York, faced the prospect of closure in the mid-1980s, but leading customers persuaded Motorola to give the plant a second chance. The new plant manager, Dennis Fiehn, recognized that existing... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Exit or Shutdown; Customers; Leading Change; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Telecommunications Industry; New York (state, US)

September 2019
Case

Netflix: A Creative Approach to Culture and Agility

By: Ranjay Gulati, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

By 2018, Netflix had been credited for revolutionizing how viewers consumed entertainment—shifting from ad-fueled linear network programming to a highly personalized, on-demand, all-you-can-consume, ad-free model. The company was riding a long wave of revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Streaming; Video On Demand; International Expansion; Leadership; Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership Style; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Entertainment; Media; Change Management; Expansion; Technology Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

10 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Top Scholars Say About Leadership

negotiated relationship that individuals have with other individuals or that individuals have with society. In addition, there is a cultural quality about what constitutes a leader that changes across social situations, whether we are... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

Web

General Management Curriculum - Faculty & Research

Entrepreneurial Management) Michael S. Kaufman , Andy Pforzheimer Spring 2026 Q3Q4 3.0 Changing the World: Life Choices of Influential Leaders (also listed under Accounting & Management) Robert Simons Fall 2025 Q1Q2 3.0 Corporate... View Details

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

Abstract—Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for employees to submit project proposals for View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

Last year, the pioneering Black-owned global asset management firm Brown Capital Management found itself at a crossroads. The secret to its success had been a deliberately diverse hiring strategy, but with the looming retirement of its founder, safeguarding those... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

May 2007 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Biocon Limited

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ananth Chepuri

Biocon Limited was facing significant pricing pressure in their cash cow business, that primarily consisted of manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). To combat this commoditization, Biocon's leadership had chosen an innovation-led strategy. This new... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Biotechnology Industry; India

September 2019 (Revised September 2020)
Case

SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

By: Herman Leonard, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the... View Details

Keywords: Open Innovation; Crowdsourcing; Prototyping; Navy; Entrepreneurship; Public Equity; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Administration Industry; United States

October 2010
Article

Culture Clash: The Costs and Benefits of Homogeneity

By: Eric Van den Steen

This paper develops an economic theory of the costs and benefits of corporate culture-in the sense of shared beliefs and values in order to study the effects of "culture clash" in mergers and acquisitions. I first use a simple analytical framework to show that shared... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Organizational Culture; Economics; Information Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Values and Beliefs; Mergers and Acquisitions; Framework; Satisfaction; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Communication

Find at Harvard

February 2021
Case

A Cultural Transformation at Southeastern Grocers

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Jonah S. Goldberg and Joseph A. Paul

When Anthony Hucker, the CEO of Southeastern Grocers (SEG), took over in that role in July 2017, the company was in dire financial and operational condition and was headed towards bankruptcy. SEG, the fifth largest grocery chain in the U.S. in early 2021, operated... View Details

Keywords: Business Transformation; Strategy Execution; Retail; Organizational Culture; Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance; Success; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Florida