Publications

June 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Lana Ghanem: Pushing the Boundaries of Health Care through Venture Capital

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Ahmed Dahawy

Lana Ghanem, managing director of Hikma Ventures, the corporate venture arm of larger pharmaceutical group Hikma, is considering how to grow the venture arm as well as progress her own career. Over the past few years Hikma's executive team had been pressuring the... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment; Corporate Governance; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership Development; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Jordan

Article

The Influence of Ownership on Accounting Information Expenditures

This paper analyzes the association between ownership, top management incentives, and expenditures on accounting information. We argue that organizations with privately appointed boards of directors such as for-profit and non-governmental nonprofit organizations use... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Motivation and Incentives; Accounting; Health Care and Treatment; Ownership; Health Industry

30 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers

Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human, a groundbreaking report that pushed the issue of medical errors into the public spotlight. That we all make mistakes was certainly nothing new: Operational failures occur... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

October 1984
Case

NIKE (D): Leisure Shoes

Focusing on middle manager Harry Leidboldt, this case presents a clear-cut strategic issue--should Nike move into the leisure shoe business? The teaching objective is to first view the decision as a business problem--can Nike succeed in this business? and secondly, to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Management Teams; Product Development; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

November 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Warner Bros. Entertainment

By: Gary P. Pisano and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Examines the process used by a major motion picture studio to develop and select movie projects. Warner Bros.' strategy is to focus its efforts on a small number of major "event" films (i.e., films with the potential to generate gross box office receipts of $300... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Film Entertainment; Risk Management; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Projects; Sales; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

2024
Chapter

The Private Economy Under Party-State Capitalism

By: Margaret M. Pearson, Meg Rithmire and Kellee S. Tsai

This chapter addresses the evolution of China’s approach to the private sector from the early reform era until the beginning of Xi Jinping’s third term. It argues that China has evolved from a familiar form of state capitalism, in which economic growth is the primary... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; International Relations; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economic Systems; China

Find at Harvard

January 2024
Case

National Football League and Private 5G

By: Andy Wu, Grant Son and Shuoyu Chen

On September 9, 2021, the National Football League (NFL) designated Verizon as its official 5G partner in a 10-year deal, committed to enhance the experience for NFL teams, players, and fans in stadiums. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Verizon will help us... View Details

Keywords: Football; National Football League; 5G; Verizon; Communication Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Sports Industry; Telecommunications Industry

09 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 9

failures are likely to spur problem solving. We hypothesize that problem solving activities are especially likely to follow reported operational failures that provoke financial and legal liability risks. We also hypothesize that View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Alibaba's Taobao (A)

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie M. Wulf

This case examines the decision of Alibaba Group to diversify from an international business-to-business (B2B) exchange (Alibaba.com) into a B2C and C2C exchange (Taobao.com) for Chinese retailers and consumers. In China, Taobao had managed to displace the once... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Demand and Consumers; Market Transactions; Service Operations; Diversification; Internet and the Web; China

16 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Can Decades of Military Overspending be Fixed?

States has often turned to cutting-edge technology solutions to solve strategic and operational challenges. “Costs tend to rise in all organizations unless managers and their staffs are skilled in industrial... View Details

Keywords: by J. Ronald Fox; Service

May 2003
Module Note

Building Capabilities for Experimentation, Learning, and Prototyping

By: Stefan H. Thomke

Describes the conceptual foundations and pedagogy for a module on managing experimentation, learning, and prototyping in the development of products and services. Can also be used as part of a more general course on Managing Technology and Innovation. Shows how... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Product Development; Learning; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Management

July 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Lenovo: Building A Global Brand

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Announced in December 2004, the $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's PC division by Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, made headlines around the world. A relative upstart in the business, Lenovo acquired the division of IBM that invented the PC in 1981. While Lenovo was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Information Infrastructure; Global Strategy; Acquisition; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry; China

12 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Publish or Perish: What the Research Says About Productivity in Academia

lab operations at the Digital, Data, Design Institute. An inside look at academia Myers and his coauthors gathered and analyzed responses from roughly 4,300 researchers representing fields across the academic spectrum, including... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Education

November 1997
Background Note

Note on Knowledge Management, A

By: David A. Garvin and Artemis March

Provides an overview of knowledge management, including descriptions of knowledge management strategies, processes, organization, infrastructure, systems, and challenges. Describes the approaches at two leading consulting firms, Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young, that... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Management Style; Management Systems; Infrastructure; Organizations; Business Strategy

Research Summary

THEME #2: BUILDING CAPABILITIES THROUGH VARIATION

Prior work has yet to establish definitively the role that variation (e.g. in individuals' activities or organizational processes) plays in the development of capabilities. Variation is usually either not considered (e.g., the learning curve examines... View Details

April 2004 (Revised November 2004)
Background Note

Why Complex Systems Fail

Operationally excellent organizations create competitive opportunities for themselves that are not available to their peers. One view of the manager's competitive dilemma is to pick the right position for his organization, differentiating it, for example, as a... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Complexity

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details

August 1994 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Taco Bell Corporation (Abridged Update)

By: James L. Heskett

Taco Bell's management has developed plans to establish 100,000 points of service for its fast food business. Clearly, this will require significantly different approaches to management and organization. View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry