Modularity - Publications - Faculty & Research

November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security

In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States

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August 2018
Case

Christine Lagarde

By: Julie Battilana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas and Noemie Assenat

For a modular presentation of the same material, please see “Christine Lagarde (A): A French Prime Minister Calls” (HBS No. 419-017), “Christine Lagarde (B): Being a Public Servant” (HBS No. 419-018), and “Christine Lagarde (C): Managing the IMF” (HBS No. 419-019).... View Details

Keywords: Change; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Leadership; Gender; Leading Change

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08 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Silos That Work: How the Pandemic Changed the Way We Collaborate

lifted.” Zuzul teamed up with 11 other researchers—including network scholars, theoretical statisticians, and computer scientists at the University of Washington, John Hopkins University, and Microsoft—to author the 2021 working paper, Dynamic Silos: Increased View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

30 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most

offered $10,000 bonuses to employees who moved closer to the company’s main campus in Menlo Park, California. Google went even further in 2017, providing affordable, modular housing for hundreds of workers in Silicon Valley. The research... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

Web

Batten Hall | About

milestones, educational TV’s first star, chef Julia Child, launched her career. The upper two levels of Batten Hall include 10 curved, modular learning classrooms known as “hives,” developed for small-group exercises and team-based... View Details

Research Summary

The Toyota Production System: Rules for Activity, Connection, and Pathway Design and Improvement

Researchers have established that Toyota enjoys advantages in cost, quality, lead time, and flexibility when compared to its competitors in automobile assembly. Differences in generating value have been attributed to differences between the Toyota Production System... View Details

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

meeting its customers' needs. By contrast, the modular architectures that characterize disintegration always sacrifice raw performance. Stitching together a system with partner companies reduces the degrees of design freedom engineers... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor & Scott D. Anthony

24 May 2021
Op-Ed

Can Fabric Waste Become Fashion’s Resource?

COVID-19 has broken fashion’s supply chain. As a result, an already wasteful industry has become more wasteful. Even before the pandemic, the global apparel industry was producing about 92 million tons of textile waste a year. That’s about one garbage truck’s worth of... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and Shelly Xu; Fashion

19 Sep 2023
Blog Post

2023 Summer Internships in Business & Environment

critical battery materials for the energy transition. They have developed an electro-extraction technology that saves up to 90% carbon emissions relative to traditional refining technologies. The technology has a small footprint that can be easily scaled with View Details

Web

Winners & Runners-Up | New Venture Competition

Social Enterprise Track Winner Scalable, low cost, available solution to meet the needs of the billion people in the developing world who need glasses yet don't have them. Modulo Juan Pablo del Valle, HBS Arturo Lopez, HBS Gerardo Ruiz Maza, HBS; Social Enterprise... View Details

23 May 2018
News

Claudio L. Haddad, OPM 12, 1987

Walking the halls of Insper, which now enrolls 10,000 students, one sees that Haddad has harnessed the vitality and creativity that is so prevalent in São Paulo: There are vibrant photos in the hallways and modern, modular classrooms... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

02 Apr 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Making the Move to General Manager

Manager Program (TGMP), which together have more than 11,000 alumni. As a modular program—with on-campus learning interspersed with work back at the organization—GMP's target market is executives with fifteen to twenty years of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

22 Feb 2022
News

New Urban Order

notes Yang. “We’re also working on supply-chain development, helping emerging technologies overcome research and validation barriers, and improving workforce productivity and opportunities,” he adds. Success for the initiative, says Yang, would be a future where View Details

Keywords: Kathleen Fu, Deborah Blagg, Julia Hanna, and Maureen Harmon; illustrations by; energy; environment; sustainability; entrepreneurship; Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation; Transportation; Water, Sewage and Supply Systems; Utilities; Construction of Buildings; Construction; Waste Management and Remediation Services; Corporate Services

Web

Involvement in Faculty & Student Ventures | About

longer modular programs such as OPM is challenging, as participants may spread out the completion of the program over multiple years, and many assume a key benefit of coming to HBS is access to faculty members who will help them implement... View Details

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

in such a way that it has “hooks” for outside firms to connect (like application programming interfaces for software platforms). Second, it must also be modular enough in design for outsiders to add significant innovations. Third, the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 18, 2007

to other firms than non-star analysts. Purchase the paper from SSRN.com ($5): http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13633 The Impact of Component Modularity on Design Evolution: Evidence from the Software Industry Authors:Alan MacCormack, John... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Oct 2000
News

Books

Design Rules: The Power of Modularity (Volume 1) by Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark (The MIT Press) Today's fast-paced global economy often seems to operate as an independent force, but its products, firms, and markets are all derived... View Details

19 Jul 2016
News

HBS Startup Is Developing Tech-Enabled Jewelry to Stop Rapists

sound files that might be used later in court. “It will be a modular piece that can be put in bracelets or necklaces,” Fitzgerald told the tech website BostonInno. “The modular component keeps it versatile... View Details

Keywords: Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores; Retail Trade

05 Mar 2001
What Do You Think?

Fine Coupling: Can Human Resource Management Learn from Supply Chain Management?

Summing Up Fine Coupling of People: An Idea Whose Time Has Come? Manufacturers and distributors are succeeding in various approaches — including postponement, computer-aided manufacture, robotics, rapid response, positive tracking, and View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Sep 2004
News

Home Sweet (Modular) Home

Starting a business is never easy. But staking your future — and your bank account — on a concept that’s never been tried before makes it especially difficult. Just ask Stephen Stuntz (MBA ’69), the founder and president of Greentech Housing Company, a start-up... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

Publications