Publications

May 2024
Background Note

Net Revenue Retention: Unpacking the Dynamics of Customer Monetization

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Firms and investors alike are beginning to recognize the importance of tracking how revenues from existing customers are evolving over time and to appreciate the value in understanding what might explain changes in these revenues. Consequently, in addition to looking... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Revenue; Measurement and Metrics; Customer Value and Value Chain

July 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Background Note

Electronic Commerce: Trends and Opportunities

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Janis Lee Gogan

In a 1966 Harvard Business Review article, Felix Kaufman implored general managers to think beyond their own organizational boundaries to the possibilities of interorganizational systems (IOS)--networked computers that enable companies to share information and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Trends; Opportunities

Article

Real Effects of Relational Contracts

By: Steven Blader, Claudine Gartenberg, Rebecca Henderson and Andrea Pratt

How important are factors such as "firm culture" and "employee engagement" in driving firm performance? Increasing evidence from a wide range of fields suggests that productivity differs widely across firms, even after the inclusion of careful controls for factors such... View Details

August 2019
Case

Simón Cohen at Henco: Sustaining 'High Performance, Happy People'

By: Francesca Gino, Jeff Steiner, Arianna Camacho and Paul Green

Simón Cohen—Founder of Henco Logistics—transformed a small Mexican logistics company into a major player within the industry. Cohen credits the firm’s focus on employee happiness as the key ingredient to its success, an approach he developed following a personal... View Details

Keywords: Work/life Balance; Growth Strategy; Corporate Culture; Motivation; Values; Authentic Leadership Development; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Motivation and Incentives; Values and Beliefs; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

January 2002 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Strategic Planning at NFTE

By: Allen S. Grossman and Daniel F. Curran

The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), is a successful nonprofit poised on the verge of explosive growth. The senior management contracted with McKinsey consultants to help guide the process. The founders of NFTE brought it from a small program... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations

26 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Where is Home for the Global Firm?

[PDF]. To start, responding strategically to these changes requires a reconceptualization of what a corporate home is, says Desai. "Managers need to make conscious choices about how to unbundle the activities that have traditionally been... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

1998
Book

Global Climate Change: A Senior Level Dialogue at the Intersection of Economics, Strategy, Technology, Science, Politics and International Negotiation

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Based on the 1997 conference organized by the Kellog Environmental Research Center and sponsored by the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Global Climate Change presents the views of key players in the debate over global climate change... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Policy; Goals and Objectives; International Relations

2015
Working Paper

Bottlenecks, Modules and Dynamic Architectural Capabilities

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

How do firms create and capture value in large technical systems? In this paper, I argue that the points of both value creation and value capture are the system's bottlenecks. Bottlenecks arise first as important technical problems to be solved. Once the problem is... View Details

Keywords: Architecture; Architectural Knowledge; Dynamic Capabilities; Bottleneck; Modularity; Organization Design; Organization Boundaries; Property Rights; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

SSRN

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14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

challenge on her hands. Perhaps you are attempting to manage your way through a similarly exigent scenario. Trying to accomplish everything that used to be done by two or three people, you may be feeling stressed, maybe more than a bit... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

August 2008
Case

Progressive Corporation: Variable Dividends

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Brenda W. Chia

In 2006, Progressive Corporation announced a change in its dividend policy. Henceforth, dividends would be paid annually rather than quarterly and, more importantly, would be set according to a formula that would result in considerably greater year-to-year variability... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Policy; Goals and Objectives; Performance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Insurance Industry

22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

the line, are not directly replicable in software as there is no line to stop. "What we hope to do," Upton says, "is to distill the relevant aspects of lean manufacturing so that managers can see how these tools were... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

October 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Novo Nordisk: A Commitment to Sustainability

By: Robert G. Eccles and Michael P. Krzus

The case describes the early commitment of a European pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk, to integrated reporting. Novo Nordisk is one of the pioneers of integrated reporting and it emerged out of its commitment to a "Triple Bottom Line approach to managing the... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Business Ventures; Business or Company Management; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Business Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

14 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

A Strategy For Steady Leadership in an Unsteady World

change—business leaders have entered a new era requiring new ways of leading. Traditional management methods seem no longer sufficient to address the volume of change we are seeing. I label this VUCA 2.0. In... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

20 Aug 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Hedge Fund Investor Activism and Takeovers

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood & Michael Schor; Banking

07 Dec 2022
Blog Post

2022 Climate Symposium: Tackling Climate Together

The theme of the 2022 Annual Climate Symposium was “Tackling Climate Together” with a focus on the intersectionality of climate change and the critical need for businesses, individuals, policy makers, and consumers to come together to... View Details

2012
Teaching Note

UFIDA (F) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li and Guo Jia

As an extension of UFIDA (A-E), UFIDA (F), using early 2012 as the time node, looks at UFIDA's major steps taken during 2010-2011, accomplishments, and major future opportunities and challenges. The case focuses on the new market development of Cloud Computing and... View Details

Keywords: China; Strategy; China

May 1997 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Teradyne: The Aurora Project

By: Joseph L. Bower

Three cases deal with the introduction of a new product to Teradyne's line of semiconductor test equipment. Teradyne: Managing Strategic Change provides historic and administrative background for the other two cases. This case deals with the problems facing the head of... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Business Startups; Customer Satisfaction; Product Launch; Product Development; Corporate Strategy; Semiconductor Industry

February 1993 (Revised May 1997)
Supplement

India (B)

By: Richard H.K. Vietor, Waleed J. Iskandar and Max L. Weston

Outlines the changes implemented by the new government led by Prime Minister Rao. View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Change Management; India

2008
Working Paper

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of competition from trade liberalization on various characteristics of organizational design. We exploit a unique panel dataset on firm hierarchies (1986-1999) of large U.S. firms and find that increasing competition leads firms... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy