Publications

SSRN

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22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

Wipro Technologies, an Indian outsource provider of software services, launches its own lean initiative. "In terms of operations and improvements, the service industries in general are a long way behind manufacturing," Upton says. "The motivation for... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Managing Innovation is Like Theater

clear objective. If you don't have a good fix on your destination—be it a product or service, a strategic or competitive outcome, or anything else—you may as well not start the journey. For a lot of your work, though, this so-called... View Details

Keywords: by Rob Austin & Lee Devin

April 1985 (Revised October 1988)
Case

Everest Computer (A): The Development of the SuperMOS Process

By: Kim B. Clark

The research and development lab at the semiconductor development and manufacturing facility of a computer systems manufacturer has embarked on a radically improved semiconductor manufacturing process for application in a new computer system. The case offers a detailed... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Governance Controls; Production; Research and Development; Hardware; Semiconductor Industry

13 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

The Consumer Appeal of Underdog Branding

attractive. Why? The reason might be an increasing willingness on the part of consumers to identify with the underdog. In today's economically difficult times, it appears, underdog brands are gaining psychological, and real, power in the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2014
Case

Oasys Water: Balancing Strategic Partnerships & Financing Decisions

By: Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Sid Misra

Oasys Water had developed a proprietary water treatment technology based on an innovative forward osmosis process that could remove dissolved solids from water more effectively and efficiently than existing technologies. As Oasys looked to scale, it was exploring... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; China

July 2019
Case

Instabeat—One More Lap?

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Nicole Tempest Keller and Alpana Thapar

This case follows Lebanese entrepreneur, Hind Hobeika, an engineer and competitive swimmer who spends seven years trying to launch a wearable heartrate monitor and motion sensor to help swimmers track their performance while swimming. While the Beirut-based... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Manufacturing; Prototyping; Female Protagonist; Business Startups; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Design; Organizational Culture; United States; Lebanon

February 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Quiksilver Inc. and Oaktree Capital Management

By: Kristin Mugford and Mike Harmon

Sports lifestyle company Quiksilver filed for bankruptcy in September 2015. Oaktree is considering an additional investment in the company to facilitate the restructuring. Students must consider whether Oaktree should invest given the risks of the turnaround... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Bankruptcy Reorganization; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Acquisition; Restructuring; Debt Securities; Transformation; Decision Making; Borrowing and Debt; Investment Return; Crisis Management; Negotiation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; France; United States

March 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Aurolab: Bringing First-World Technology to the Third-World Blind

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Aurolab is the in-house producer of IOLs (required in cataract surgery) for the Aravind Eye Care System, a group of charity hospitals with the largest volume of eye surgery in the world. Aurolab's manufacturing capability and capacity had long exceeded the requirements... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Production; Mission and Purpose; Performance Capacity; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Strategy; India

November 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

The Big 3 Roar Back

By: William W. George

The "Big 3"—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler—were all headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Born between 1903 and 1928, they dominated the automobile industry in the U.S. for decades until they became complacent. In the 1970s they started losing share to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Industry Clusters; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

September 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Blenheim Chalcot

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; United Kingdom; United States; India

16 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 16

technologies compete in production and innovation, in the sense that research can be directed to either clean or dirty technologies. If dirty technologies are more advanced to start with, the potential transition to clean technology can... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2008
Book

Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and John G. Woody

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today. And increasingly, it's become a crucial business issue. How will you and your company respond?

In Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? Andrew Hoffman and John... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Footprint; Climate Change; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Policy

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13 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

An Investigation of Earnings Management through Marketing Actions

Keywords: by Craig J. Chapman & Thomas J. Steenburgh

19 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Radical Design, Radical Results

the competitive advantage gained by how a product "speaks" to a customer is clear. Just think about how Apple began its resurrection in 1998 with the unthinkable design of computers made of... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products

May 2000 (Revised September 2000)
Exercise

Tyrell Web Developers Inc. (A)

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Andrew P. McAfee

An integrated exercise culminating in a team project to design and develop a Web site for a fictitious company. Allows instructors to establish a technical baseline for students prior to starting the team project. Students are asked to develop a personal web site which... View Details

Keywords: Web Sites; Software; Product Development; Design; Internet

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2015
Other Teaching and Training Material

Entrepreneurship Reading: Launching Global Ventures

By: William R. Kerr

Core Curriculum in Entrepreneurship is a series of Readings that cover fundamental course material in Entrepreneurship. Readings include Interactive Illustrations which help students master complex concepts quickly.
Global ventures are those that weave... View Details

September 2012
Supplement

Industrial Metrology: Getting In-Line? (B)

By: Willy Shih

Rainer Ohnheiser, the President of Carl Zeiss's Business Group Industrial Metrology (IMT), was focused on the threat that in-line metrology posed to Carl Zeiss IMT's core business. Historically, coordinate measurement machines (CMMs) that employed tactile measurement... View Details

Keywords: Performance Trajectories; Emerging Technologies; Manufacturing Tools; Carl Zeiss; Go-to-market Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Production; Performance Improvement; Measurement and Metrics; Manufacturing Industry; Germany

2023
Working Paper

Design-Based Inference for Multi-arm Bandits

By: Dae Woong Ham, Iavor I. Bojinov, Michael Lindon and Martin Tingley

Multi-arm bandits are gaining popularity as they enable real-world sequential decision-making across application areas, including clinical trials, recommender systems, and online decision-making. Consequently, there is an increased desire to use the available... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods

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February 2023
Case

Grupo Sancor Seguros: Facing the Digital Transformation of Insurance in Argentina (A)

By: Jorge Tamayo and Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago

In 2020, Alejandro Simón, CEO of Sancor Seguros Group, a nearly 75-year-old cooperative that had become Argentina’s insurance leader, had to decide about the Group’s digital transformation strategy. The Group’s values and history needed to be considered during the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Transformation; Organizational Culture; Cooperative Ownership; Strategy; Business Strategy; Adaptation; Technology Adoption; Insurance Industry; Latin America; South America; Argentina