Publications

Read Now

10 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Harnessing Our Inner Angels and Demons: What We Have Learned About Want/Should Conflicts and How That Knowledge Can Help Us Reduce Short-Sighted Decision Making

Keywords: by Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers & Max H. Bazerman

January 1999
Exercise

Seneca Systems (B): General and Confidential Instructions for R. Thompson, Vice President, Marketing

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Participants; Business Divisions; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry

February 1996
Case

CIGNA Property and Casualty Reengineering (B)

By: Richard L. Nolan, Donna B. Stoddard, Chiara Francalanci and Elise C Martin

In 1993 CIGNA Property and Casualty embarked on a full transformation effort under a new leadership team headed by Gerry Isom. This case presents progress through September 1995. View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Leading Change; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams

Educators

May 2014
Case

Sasol: U.S. Growth Program

By: Richard H. K. Vietor

Sasol, the world's largest producer of synthetic oil from coal and gas, has announced plans to build a huge Catalytic cracker and gas-to-liquids plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This $21 billion venture will be the single largest foreign direct investment in US... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Risk; Risk And Uncertainty; Petroleum; Synthesis; Diesel; Foreign Direct Investment; Chemicals; Strategy; Energy Industry; United States

Educators

Blog

HBS Online and Executive Education Leadership: Q+A with Patrick Mullane and Luis Viceira

This article originally appeared in the Harvard Business School—Newsroom. Can you tell us a bit about the new role and what it means organizationally for HBS Online and Executive Education? Patrick Mullane... View Details

03 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Pricing and Efficiency in the Market for IP Addresses

Keywords: by Benjamin Edelman & Michael Schwarz; Publishing

02 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Kevin Boudreau, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, London Business School

September–October 2016
Article

Growing New Corporate Businesses: From Initiation to Graduation

By: Sebastian Raisch and Michael Tushman

Large companies initiate many new businesses, but few of them reach scale. The ambidexterity literature describes how companies create exploratory businesses, but says little about how they subsequently scale these businesses. The strategy literature uses real option... View Details

Keywords: Ambidexterity; Comparative Case Study; Corporate Venturing; Exploration; Organization Design; Real Option Theory; Organizational Design; Corporate Strategy; Corporate Entrepreneurship

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

monitoring their profits—often using even more sophisticated methods than manufacturers in the North. Several of the slave owners' practices, such as incentivizing workers (in this case, to get them to pick more cotton) View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

Article

Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Repositioning; Cost-cutting; Intra-firm Learning; Multi-Sided Platforms; Cost Management; Product Positioning; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Journalism and News Industry

November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 12: Aligning Performance Goals and Incentives

By: Robert Simons

This module reading explains how managers use performance goals and incentives to ensure that employee actions align with the overall business strategy of the organization. The module begins by discussing how managers use goals to communicate business strategy, the... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Performance Goals; Performance Measures; Incentives; Benchmarks; Motivation; Compensation; Bonuses; Strategy

June 1997 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Walker and Company: Profit Plan Decisions

By: Robert L. Simons and Ramsey Walker

Ramsey Walker, a second-year MBA student, must decide how to control a family business as an absentee owner. After providing background details on the publishing industry, the case requires the reader to: 1) make a product segmentation decision; 2) prepare a profit... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Family and Family Relationships; Market Design; Management Systems; Planning; Profit; Performance Evaluation; Segmentation; Corporate Strategy; Investment Return; Publishing Industry

Educators

07 Oct 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen & William H. Meckling

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

cost, worthwhile profits can be made, while bringing enormous health and happiness to large populations.” The approach turns traditional marketing on its head This model encourages manufacturers to offer... View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

01 Dec 1996
News

Starting Up and Starting Over

ill-prepared entrepreneurial aspirants. Mace's course, The Management of New Enterprises (MNE), was initially offered as a second-year elective in 1947 and saw one hundred students enroll. According to the course catalog, MNE was View Details

November–December 2023
Article

Network Centralization and Collective Adaptability to a Shifting Environment

By: Ethan S. Bernstein, Jesse C. Shore and Alice J. Jang

We study the connection between communication network structure and an organization’s collective adaptability to a shifting environment. Research has shown that network centralization—the degree to which communication flows disproportionately through one or more... View Details

Keywords: Network Centralization; Collective Intelligence; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Communication; Decision Making; Networks; Adaptation

Read Now

2015
Working Paper

A Normative Theory of Dynamic Capabilities: Connecting Strategy, Know-How, and Competition

By: Gary P. Pisano

The field of strategy has mounted an enormous effort to understand, define, predict, and measure how organizational capabilities shape competitive advantage. While the notion that capabilities influence strategy dates back to the work of Andrews (1971), attempts to... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Organizations