Publications

January 2014
Article

J. Richard Hackman (1940–2013)

By: Ruth Wageman and Teresa M. Amabile

When J. Richard Hackman died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 8, 2013, psychology lost a giant. Six and a half feet tall, with an outsize personality to match, Richard was the leading scholar in two distinct areas: work design and team effectiveness. In both... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Personal Development and Career; Education Industry; Cambridge

8 AM – 5 PM EDT, 01 Jun 2017
Career Events

Career Reboot Camp in Boston

Career Reboot Camp in Boston! Led by Professor Tim Butler and facilitated by HBS career coaches, participants will work through exercises to reflect on their key career interests, what's important to them in work and life, and create a plan to move forward towards a... View Details

Program

Managing Turbulence

raises the bar for everyone Attract and retain the best talent with a diversity and inclusion approach Build a powerful coalition of high-performing individuals and teams Cultivate self-awareness and authentic leadership at every level... View Details

April 1981 (Revised January 1997)
Case

Corning Glass Works: The Z-Glass Project

By: Kim B. Clark

Considers decisions facing the leader of a manufacturing staff project team assigned to a plant where yields have deteriorated sharply. The process is complex: the plant organization is not cooperative and there are deep disagreements about what is wrong and how to fix... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Production; Problems and Challenges; Conflict Management; Performance Productivity; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Groups and Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

18 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Innovating in the Hot Market of Cold Brew

Jackson Shuttleworth (HBS MBA 2020) had his first cold drip in a New Orleans coffee shop in February 2019, from which began his journey to obtain a decent cold drip device for the home. After giving up on four different cold drip makers, he’s View Details

March 1996 (Revised January 2002)
Case

CIBA Vision: The Daily Disposable Lens Project (A)

By: Gary P. Pisano

Examines CIBA Vision's decision on whether to launch a major new R&D initiative to develop a low-cost, daily disposable contact lens, and how to organize such a project should it proceed. One group of executives favors setting up a small, autonomous project team... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Operations; Research and Development; Decision Making; Production; Strategy; Management; Organizational Design; Globalization; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

18 Oct 2022
News

#TimTalk – Sales management that works with Frank Cespedes

25 Apr 2019
News

Who’s the Most Important Member of an NFL Franchise?

Rohit Deshpande

Rohit Deshpandé is a Baker Foundation Professor and Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing, Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where he has been teaching in the Advanced Management Program,... View Details

Keywords: advertising; agribusiness; airline; banking; beauty products; beverage; financial services; home video games; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals; telecommunications; tourism; video games

Program

Leadership for Senior Executives

team Take innovation to the next level Create a context that encourages the development of both bottom-up and top-down ideas for improvement Integrate design-thinking principles into your innovation practices Evaluate whether your culture... View Details

January 2006
Case

Jack Strang at SequenceLabs

By: Mukti Khaire, John J. Gabarro and Lynda M. Applegate

How can entrepreneur manage his firm if things go wrong despite having a great idea, a solid team, and financial backing? Jack Strang founded a biotech firm with his friend Peter Evans, to develop molecular pathway-based "cures" for metabolic disorders. The idea was... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Growth and Maturation; Failure; Biotechnology Industry

February 2005 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Phase Zero: Introducing New Services at IDEO (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

Focuses on whether world-renowned product design firm IDEO's new customer service fits with the firm's strategic position and organization capabilities. Over the course of IDEO's 13-year history, an increasing share of revenues are a result of "Phase 0"... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Service Operations; Product Design; Infrastructure; Customer Focus and Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Service Industry; Boston; United States

September 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

RightHand Robotics: Choosing the First Market

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Stacy Straaberg

In early 2015, RightHand Robotics’s (RHR) leadership faced several decisions in commercializing the startup’s robotic picking solution. RHR’s central product was the RightPick integrated robotic picking system which featured a robotic arm, a three-fingered robotic hand... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Market Entry and Exit; Product; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Information Infrastructure; Technological Innovation; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts

August 2022 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Boston Impact Initiative: Investing in Local Change

By: Emily R. McComb, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin

In fall 2021, Aliana Piñeiro, impact director at Boston Impact Initiative (BII) discovered that an entrepreneur the organization was considering for an investment had failed to disclose pre-existing debt with another lender. Although the business scored highly on BII’s... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Investment; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Society; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Wealth; Poverty; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Boston

February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry; Spain

January 27, 2010
Article

Leadership with a Small 'l'

By: Richard Bohmer

What exactly do we mean by leadership in health care? Does it mean to take formal positions in senior leadership teams in hospitals, trusts, health boards, ministries of health, and professional societies-what might be termed leadership with a big "L?" Or does it mean... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Health Industry