Publications

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Building Competitive Advantage Through Operations

It's the set of processes that transforms either materials or information into a product or service. EE: How has this definition evolved over the past decade? Upton: There have been some exciting changes in recent years. First, operations... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

October 2012
Case

Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC.

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre and Jeffrey Sweeney

David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information,... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Information Technology; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation

05 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Building Bridges Between Education and Business

Argentine branch of BankBoston Corporation. At the same time, Sacerdote said, many companies want to hide certain information from the authorities. These barriers make it all the more important, he suggested, to get businesses closer to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

28 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 28, 2008

Information for Euro Elektrische Keramische Vorrichtungen (Euro EKV), GmbH Harvard Business School Exercise 908-033 In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell the Elcer Products Division to one of four potential... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 1991 (Revised July 1993)
Case

Kyocera Corp.

By: John P. Kotter

Examines the three factors critical to this company's remarkable success in the high tech field. The first factor is the founder, Dr. Inamori's powerful leadership. The second is the strong corporate culture or philosophy of the firm. The third element in Kyocera's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Information Infrastructure; Leadership Style; Management Systems; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Practice; Profit; Planning; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry

2024
Working Paper

Generative AI and the Nature of Work

By: Manuel Hoffmann, Sam Boysel, Frank Nagle, Sida Peng and Kevin Xu

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate considerable potential to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid... View Details

Keywords: Generative Ai; Digital Work; Open Source Software; Knowledge Economy; AI and Machine Learning; Open Source Distribution; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Labor

SSRN

Read Now

June 2018 (Revised July 2023)
Case

John Chambers, Cisco, and China: Upgrading a Golden Shield

By: Geoffrey Jones and Emily Grandjean

This case examines the role of Cisco led by John Chambers in facilitating web filtering in China. It begins by tracing the origins of Cisco as a pioneer of networking equipment. John Chambers, who had worked as a sales manager at IBM and Wang Laboratories, joined Cisco... View Details

Keywords: Cisco; Internet and the Web; Governance Controls; Ethics; Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Technology Industry; China

October 2008
Article

Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game

By: Hannah Riley Bowles and Kathleen McGinn

We propose taking a two-level-game perspective on gender in job negotiations. At Level One, candidates negotiate with employers. At Level Two, candidates negotiate with household members. In order to illuminate the interplay between these two levels, we review research... View Details

Keywords: Perspective; Negotiation; Research; Organizational Culture; Body of Literature; Jobs and Positions; Gender; Labor

Find at Harvard

Read Now

05 Jul 2016
First Look

July 5, 2016

of press. Proponents hail them as "flat" environments that foster flexibility, engagement, productivity, and efficiency. Critics say they're naive, unrealistic experiments. We argue, using evidence from a multi-year research agenda at several mainstream View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2002 (Revised June 2005)
Case

AOL Time Warner, Inc.

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Erin Sullivan

AOL Time Warner, which has been billed as the "first fully integrated media and communications company of the Internet Century," raises the fundamental question of how value will be created and captured by the merger of AOL and Time Warner. This case describes just how... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Internet and the Web; Value Creation; Organizational Culture; Consolidation; Change Management; Telecommunications Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

07 Apr 2011
What Do You Think?

When Should the Public Sector Take Over in a Meltdown?

clear significance to private and public entities around the world. In a sense, the situation raised the question of intervention among public organizations as well as between private and public. Recall the debate over whether or not the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Energy; Utilities

06 Mar 2006
What Do You Think?

The China Dilemma for U.S. Firms: Comply, Resist, or Leave?

involvement and participation from the inside. Even though the process may be slow and, yes, profitable, they argue that abdication negates an organization's power to foster change. Further, if all U.S. information utilities operating in... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

16 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

Why ‘Sleep on It’ No Longer Sounds Like Great Advice

consolidation.” “The idea is that when you sleep you stabilize the information you’ve learned,” says Karmarkar. “It’s somewhat like moving information from short-term to long-term storage.” It’s as if you... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

11 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 11, 2007

had already raised. Were small steps building on small successes going to get the job done fast enough? With the ever increasing challenge of successfully managing information technology (IT), organizations... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

organizations have made sizable investments in information technology. They’ve used their IT systems to replace paper records with electronic ones and to improve billing processes, thereby boosting revenue.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

20 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 20, 2018

organizations is based on value, on average. While three-quarters of their revenue remains fee-for-service, we see a remarkable change to a reimbursement system that was static for decades. In particular, survey respondents’ View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

27 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Gen AI Marketing: How Some 'Gibberish' Code Can Give Products an Edge

machines that included information about the product’s name, price, description, and consumer ranking. Two of the 10 products included in their product information pages a strategic text string, a sequence... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology

15 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

A Better Business Model for Fighting Cancer

question—it’s clear.” Simply put, inefficiencies in the development of precision medicine can best be addressed by a business-analysis approach. With the mapping of the human genome completed 15 years ago, the sci-fi concept of using a cancer patient’s genetic View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health; Pharmaceutical

Article

Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy

By: Edward Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca

The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to... View Details

Keywords: User-generated Content; Operations; Tournaments; Policy-making; Machine Learning; Online Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods; City; Infrastructure; Business Processes; Government and Politics