Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(9,378)
- Faculty Publications (2,114)
- November 1994
- Background Note
Why Bad Things Happen to Good Companies
By: Benson P. Shapiro, Adrian J. Slywotsky and Richard S. Tedlow
Describes the Darwinian internal and external processes that lead to poor performance from a previously well performing company. Demonstrates why any business design eventually fails and the role of organizational calcification and poor leadership in the failure. Also... View Details
- August 1994 (Revised May 1995)
- Case
Engineering Inspection & Insurance Company
By: Robert H. Hayes
Engineering Inspection & Insurance Co. (EIIC) is a small but highly successful company that offers machinery and boiler inspection and insurance services. After years of above-average growth and profits, both are retreating toward the industry average, policy delivery... View Details
- July 1994
- Case
Microsoft: Multimedia Publications (A)
By: Marco Iansiti and Ellen Stein
Microsoft Corp. has built a highly successful business around computer software (both applications and system software) using a particular organizational structure. Now that the company has chosen to enter the consumer market with a CD-ROM product, how should Microsoft... View Details
- July 1994 (Revised March 1995)
- Case
Microsoft: Multimedia Publications (B)
By: Marco Iansiti and Ellen Stein
Microsoft is about to release an apparently successful CD-ROM baseball product. The company is trying to determine what product(s) should be developed next, how it should organize itself, and what role it should play in the development of such products. View Details
- July 1994 (Revised July 1995)
- Case
VeriFone: The Transaction Automation Company (A)
By: Richard L. Nolan, Donna B. Stoddard and Hossam Galal
Describes VeriFone's new organizational model and its role in catapulting VeriFone to a market leadership position. Examines the impact of information technology and information access on the ability to leverage global resources, market responsiveness, and... View Details
- May 1994
- Background Note
Managing Market Complexity: A Three-Ring Circus
Proposes models of organization that address the various product-market environments posed by the product life cycle. Frames these changes along the two dimensions of uncertainty and diversity. Offers three sets of organizational characteristics to reflect the three... View Details
- May 1994 (Revised August 1994)
- Case
Motorola-Penang
By: Shoshana Zuboff and Janis Lee Gogan
S.K. Ko managed Motorola's Penang, Malaysia factory, producing telecommunications components and equipment. As a female manager of a multi-ethnic and labor-intensive plant in Asia, Ko faced a number of challenges. She had already promoted quality circles and quality... View Details
- May 1994 (Revised November 2001)
- Case
Concord Center
By: William J. Poorvu and John H. Vogel Jr.
A major shopping center developer and an insurance company form a joint venture to develop a 900,000 square foot super-regional shopping center. Describes the nine-year struggle to deal with market, regulatory, and financial issues to get the project ready for... View Details
- March 1994 (Revised December 1998)
- Background Note
Managing Your Career
By: Linda A. Hill
Designed to serve as background reading for the "Managing Your Career" module of the second-year MBA elective Power and Influence. Describes the way in which managers learn and develop through on-the-job experience. Outlines a model for launching a "success syndrome"... View Details
Keywords: Personal Development and Career
- March 1994 (Revised October 1994)
- Case
Reading Energy
Reading Energy builds facilities that produce energy from nontraditional fuels. A privately held, entrepreneurial organization, it has spent six years developing a plan to build a waste-to-energy plant in the town of Robbins, Illinois. The plant would burn municipal... View Details
- September 1993 (Revised July 1995)
- Background Note
Public Policy and the Manager: Conceptual Framework
Government intervention in markets may have significant effects--both positive and negative--on a firm's strategic options and its performance outcomes. Thus the ability to analyze the origins, implications, and dynamics of public policy is a critical managerial skill... View Details
- July 1993 (Revised September 1995)
- Supplement
Block 16: Ecuadorian Government's Perspective
By: Malcolm S. Salter and Susan E.A. Hall
Supplements Block 16: Conoco's Green Oil Strategy (A). Provides the government perspective on Conoco's Ecuadorian strategy. Designed to be distributed to students who will be playing the role of Ecuadorian government officials. View Details
- May 1993 (Revised June 2004)
- Case
PepsiCo Bottling in Mexico
By: Kenneth A. Froot
This case describes Pepsico's program to restructure its Mexican bottling network. It wants to work with existing bottlers and find an organizational arrangement that will allow the bottlers to grow and change with the Mexican soft drink industry. View Details
- April 1993 (Revised May 1994)
- Case
General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corporation: Outsourcing the IS Function (A)
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Katherine Seger
Designed to generate discussion on the issues of outsourcing from the perspective of a firm thinking about turning over its IS activities to a third-party vendor. View Details
Keywords: Management Systems; Management Style; Information Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Business Strategy; Economic Systems; Business or Company Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Processes; Employment; Emerging Markets; Activity Based Costing and Management; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry
- April 1993 (Revised December 2001)
- Case
General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corporation: Outsourcing the IS Function (B)
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Katherine Seger
Designed to look at outsourcing from the perspective of a major computer services company trying to get into the business. View Details
Keywords: Communication Technology; Business Startups; Business Plan; Business Strategy; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Financial Management; Management Teams; Communication Strategy; Organizational Design; Product Design; Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry
- April 1993 (Revised December 1993)
- Case
NEC
By: Marco Iansiti
Investigates product development practices at NEC. The company provides an intriguing example of how to build capability through a stream of product development projects. Focuses in detail on an engineering group that develops the core component of its line of... View Details
- December 1992 (Revised September 1994)
- Background Note
Note on Organizational Effectiveness
By: Michael Beer
Discusses what is meant by organizational effectiveness. First, the concept of organizations as social systems is introduced. Second, a model of organization effectiveness is introduced and discussed. View Details