Publications

Find at Harvard

2008
Working Paper

Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges are the Benefits

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ingrid M. Nembhard

The value of teams in new product development (NPD) is undeniable. Both the interdisciplinary nature of the work and industry trends necessitate that professionals from different functions work together on development projects to create the highest quality product in... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Learning; Management Skills; Product Development; Projects; Groups and Teams; Conflict Management; Social and Collaborative Networks

June 1997
Teaching Note

Innovation in Action: Product Development Projects and Action-Based Learning, Instructor's Note

By: Marco Iansiti

As a project-based course, Managing Product Development has been carefully designed so that classroom discussion and students' project team activities infuse each other: learning from course materials enhances project activities, which in turn enrich subsequent... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Management Style; Product Development; Projects; Groups and Teams

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

inside The future of the restaurant industry is especially of concern to us. We collectively share 35 years of restaurant and food industry experience, navigating our way through as waitstaff and bartenders, as managers and senior leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

11 Jul 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

Deconstructing 'Customer Experience'

With the help of LEGO bricks, business executives discover how design principles can serve as building blocks to create a great customer experience. How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.comIndy booksellers have survived brutal competition by... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Service

March 1993 (Revised June 1998)
Case

Commercial Fixtures, Inc.

Two equal partners arrange a sealed bid auction to decide which one buys out the other's interest in a lighting fixture company started by their fathers. After 25 years together, they had developed irreconcilable differences over how to manage the company. A rewritten... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Business or Company Management; Auctions; Partners and Partnerships

15 Jun 2021
News

Keeping Hourly Workers Focused on the Stock, Not the Clock

model has developed, it has grown beyond financial incentives. The ultimate goal is to foster a stronger relationship between the workforce and management by investing in the employees. That includes... View Details

Keywords: April White; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

October 1997 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Cultivating Capabilities to Innovate: Booz.Allen & Hamilton

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Bret J. Baird

Describes the efforts of the president of Booz.Allen, a major consulting firm, to understand and improve the way that products, services, and processes are developed and deployed throughout the firm. Proactive management of these processes proves very difficult because... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation and Management; Management Teams; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Consulting Industry

19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

J. DeLong, and Jevan SooHarvard Business School Case 411-031 Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a medical device company owned by a parent corporation. Raises issues of corporate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2016
Case

VMD Medical Imaging Center

By: Susanna Gallani and Eva Labro

VMD Medical Imaging Center, a local independent provider of medical imaging services, is facing some important challenges. Despite efficiency improvements and cost cutting initiatives carried out over the past few years, their profitability is shrinking; their prices... View Details

Keywords: Costing; Death Spiral; Transfer Pricing; Activity Based Costing and Management; Competitive Strategy; Medical Specialties; Health Industry

07 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

The Right Way to Cry in Front of Your Boss

frustration or sadness. Wolf differentiates those expressions from anger directed at others. In the paper Managing Perceptions of Distress at Work: Reframing Emotion as Passion, published in the November 2016 issue of Organizational... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

Web

Mid-US - Global

relationships with business and civic leaders in these regions. It serves as a key source for new case writing across a wide range of fields, supports faculty research and student programming, contributes to admissions efforts, and... View Details

April 2006 (Revised April 2020)
Case

"The Case of Leadership Inertia"

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The CEO of an international bank has raised the bank's performance by emphasizing a new culture of leadership that empowers people at all levels. Managers are rated both on their business results and their leadership—how they model new behaviors—but 12 senior managers... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Employee Relationship Management

05 Dec 2016
Research & Ideas

How To Deceive Others With Truthful Statements (It's Called 'Paltering,' And It's Risky)

Candidates Misled Us With Truthful Statements) In fact, in one of the pilot studies involving 184 mid- to senior-level business managers enrolled in an HBS Executive Education course—all of whom negotiate as part of their business... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

February 1986 (Revised March 1990)
Supplement

Copeland Corp.: Evolution of a Manufacturing Strategy--1975-82 (C)

By: David A. Garvin

In the preceding case, Copeland had to choose between two alternative plant layouts for organizing its Sidney plant. Now it must get work force approval for a change in "bumping" rules before proceeding with the change. Management must decide how to proceed--to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Production; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Labor and Management Relations; Restructuring; Decisions; Change Management; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio

2022
Working Paper

Capitalism and Global Governance in Business History: A Roundtable Discussion

By: Sabine Pitteloud, Grace Ballor, Patricia Clavin, Nicolás M. Perrone, Neil Rollings and Quinn Slobodian

This working paper brings together a diverse group of scholars to discuss the historiography of capitalism, business history and global governance and lay the foundations for further research in this area. Grace Ballor and Sabine Pitteloud open the discussion with a... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Business History; Multinational Corporation; Business And Government Relations; Business And Society; Business And The Environment; International Relations; Regulation; Business Interest Association; Lobbying; Private Governance; State-business Relations; Political Risk; Neo-Liberalism; Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Government and Politics

SSRN

Read Now

01 Sep 2023
News

In My Humble Opinion: Futures Investor

overlap between those two pursuits. But over the last 15 years, Roosevelt, now a managing director at Barclays, says he has seen “a remarkable convergence” of his career as an investment banker and his deeply held passion—inherited from... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; climate change; investment banking; leadership; carbon tax

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

The 26th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster. The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

2007
Working Paper

Evidence from Goodwill Non-impairments on the Effects of Unverifiable Fair-Value Accounting

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

SFAS 142 requires firms to use unverifiable fair-value estimates to determine goodwill impairments. Standard setters suggest managers will use the discretion given by such estimates to convey private information on future cash flows, while agency theory predicts... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Goodwill Accounting; Standards; Agency Theory