Publications

David Thomas is H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His research addresses issues related to executive development, cultural diversity in organizations, leadership and organizational change. He recently served as a... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; consulting; consumer products; education industry; financial services; media

10 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 10, 2007

media content. Raises issues of how technology interacts with creative processes and outcome possibilities, and also invites discussion of strategic and organizational questions raised by the very different business models of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

Casadesus-Masanell decided to dive in. Most research to date into the OSS movement has focused on the organization and management issues surrounding OSS. Ghemawat and Casadesus-Masanell chose to explore the fundamental competitive View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

Research Summary

The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur

Noam's dissertation, entitled The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur, won Harvards George S. Dively award for dissertation research. In the dissertation, Noam examined the organizational dynamics and characteristics within venture capital firms themselves, viewing... View Details

December 2022
Article

Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald

In nascent industries—whose new technologies are often poorly understood by regulators—contending with regulatory uncertainty can be crucial to organizational survival and growth. Prior research on nonmarket strategy has largely focused on established firms in mature... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Qualitative Methods; New Categories; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

Find at Harvard

Article

Turbulent Stability of Emergent Roles: The Dualistic Nature of Self-Organizing Knowledge Co-Production

By: Ofer Arazy, Johaness Daxenberg, Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Oded Nov and Irene Gurevych

Increasingly, new forms of organizing for knowledge production are built around self-organizing co-production community models with ambiguous role definitions. Current theories struggle to explain how high-quality knowledge is developed in these settings and how... View Details

Keywords: Wikipedia; Knowledge Production; Organizational Structure; Knowledge; Information Publishing

Find at Harvard

2007
Working Paper

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

By: Christopher Marquis and Julie Battilana

We develop an institutional theory of how local communities continue to matter for organizations, and why community factors are particularly important in a global age. Since globalization has taken center stage in both practitioner and academic circles, research has... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Local Range; Globalization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Power and Influence

01 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 1, 2006

context of race within today's dynamic and diverse organizations. First, we delineate several important reasons why it is critical to discuss mentoring and race. We explore how race has been positioned within the literature to provide a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Team Scaffolds: How Minimal In-Group Structures Support Fast-Paced Teaming

Keywords: by Melissa A. Valentine & Amy C. Edmondson

Other Article

Introduction

By: Stefano Brusoni, Joachim Henkel, Michael G Jacobides, Samina Karim, Alan MacCormack, Phanish Puranam and Melissa Schilling

In 2000, Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark published Design Rules: The Power of Modularity, a book that introduced new ways of understanding and explaining the architecture of complex systems. This Special Issue of Industrial and Corporate Change celebrates... View Details

Keywords: Complex Systems; Industry Structure; Systems Design; Complexity; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Innovation and Management

Research Summary

Overview

I am interested in the individual experience of learning in organizational settings, particularly how employees learn to learn from the challenging work they do. I am currently researching the role of reflection for raising awareness of learning opportunities that... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Learning And Development; Learning Organizations; Intrinsic Motivation; Reflection; Goal Setting; Performance Measurement; Innovation; Job Design; Biotechnology Industry; Consulting Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

June 2008 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Bernd Beetz: Creating the New Coty

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Considers the creation of the world's largest fragrance company by Bernd Beetz, appointed chief executive of Coty Inc. in 2001. In 1990 the German consumer goods company Benkiser began acquiring fragrance and cosmetics brands with the intent of developing a beauty... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Germany; United States

February 2018
Background Note

Patent Trolling

By: Lauren H. Cohen, Umit G. Gurun, Scott Duke Kominers and George Hou

The U.S. Intellectual Property (IP) Ecosystem is one of the most robust and dynamic in the world—and has been for centuries. The bedrock of this system is the "patent," a legal document that allows its holder exclusive commercialization rights of a part of the "idea... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; United States

March 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Alibaba Group

By: Julie M. Wulf

Discusses how Alibaba Group successfully managed new business ventures to become a leader in China's online marketplaces. Students follow Alibaba Group's transition from a startup to a multibusiness firm with over 15,000 employees in just over a decade. They analyze... View Details

Keywords: History; Business Subsidiaries; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Executive Compensation; Business Headquarters; Cooperation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; China

2011
Chapter

Developing an Effective Organization: Intervention Method, Empirical Evidence, and Theory

By: Michael Beer

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)-a platform... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Governance; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Research; Alignment; Theory; Value