Publications

14 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities

Keywords: by R. Gibbons & R. Henderson

Research Summary

Building Capabilities in Professional Service Firms

One of the most distinctive aspects of professional service firms is that the vast majority of the people who work in them are directly involved in serving clients. Long-term success in a professional service firm requires obtaining and developing the right... View Details

30 May 2019
What Do You Think?

Is There a Distinctive West Coast Style of Management?

Jamie_Hall SUMMING UP: Does West Coast Management Need Adult Supervision? There is a distinctive West Coast style of management in the United States. It is characterized by, among other things, open-minded leadership, fast... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

2008
Article

Market Leadership and Strategic Investments in Innovation: The Adoption of E-Business Capabilities

By: Kristina Steffenson McElheran

This study focuses on whether more-productive firms are more likely to adopt process innovations and why. The empirical context is the adoption of e-business practices among U.S. manufacturing plants in early 2000. Based on detailed data from the U.S. Census of... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Advantage; Technology Adoption; Manufacturing Industry; United States

04 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating the 'Dynamics' in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani

August 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 2: Building a Successful Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading describes the basics of building a successful strategy. Topics in this module include a discussion of the distinction between corporate and business strategy; how to conduct a SWOT analysis of market dynamics and internal capabilities; the use of... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Business Strategy; Five Forces; Distinctive Capabilities; Emergent Strategy; Mission Statements; Strategy; SWOT Analysis; Competitive Advantage

Article

The Translucent Hand of Managed Ecosystems: Engaging Communities for Value Creation and Capture

By: Elizabeth J. Altman, Frank Nagle and Michael Tushman

Management research has increasingly explored the domains of ecosystems, platforms, and open/user/distributed innovation—governance structures focused on engaging with external communities. While these research areas include substantial empirical and theoretical work... View Details

Keywords: Ecosystems; Platforms; Open And User Innovation Strategy; Capabilities; Governance; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Value Creation

Register to Read

August 2016
Article

'Meso'-Foundations of Dynamic Capabilities: Team-Level Synthesis and Distributed Leadership as the Source of Dynamic Creativity

By: Ikujiro Nonaka, Ayano Hirose and Yusaku Takeda

This article examines the theoretical foundations of an organization's dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing, and transforming—from the perspective of organizational knowledge creation. Making a distinction between the creative and adaptive aspects of dynamic... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory; Dynamic Capabilities; Middle-up-down Management; Wise Leadership; Phronesis; Multinational Enterprise; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Practices and Processes; Creativity; Organizational Structure; Knowledge

2015
Working Paper

A Normative Theory of Dynamic Capabilities: Connecting Strategy, Know-How, and Competition

By: Gary P. Pisano

The field of strategy has mounted an enormous effort to understand, define, predict, and measure how organizational capabilities shape competitive advantage. While the notion that capabilities influence strategy dates back to the work of Andrews (1971), attempts to... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Organizations

SSRN

April 2015 (Revised December 2018)
Case

Steve Jobs: Leader Strategist

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and David B. Yoffie

Strategically, Steve Jobs got it brilliantly right some times and terribly wrong other times. This case examines Jobs' development as a leader strategist over the course of his entire career. The successes and failures of Apple, NeXT, and Pixar are used to probe the... View Details

Keywords: Strategist; Steve Jobs; Apple; Leadership; Competitive Advantage; Personal Development and Career; Strategy

Educators

Fall 2012
Article

Enacting Our Field

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

This keynote address, delivered to the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council at its 25-year "benchmark" conference, examines the pedagogical challenges facing the field of nonprofit management in American higher education. It interrogates four binary distinctions commonly... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Higher Education; Teaching; Social Issues; Innovation and Invention; Programs; Management; Nonprofit Organizations

2023
Working Paper

Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality

By: Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Edward McFowland III, Ethan Mollick, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Katherine C. Kellogg, Saran Rajendran, Lisa Krayer, François Candelon and Karim R. Lakhani

The public release of Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked tremendous interest in how humans will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accomplish a variety of tasks. In our study conducted with Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, we examine... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Model; AI and Machine Learning; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement

SSRN

26 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

7 Leadership Principles for Managing in the Time of Coronavirus

Collaboration. You are not going to know all the answers; no one expects you to. This is a time for you to call on the resources, the capabilities of all of your employees, all of your team members, and bring them together in taskforces,... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Coursera's Foray into GenAI

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Michael Parzen and Radhika Kak

In early 2023, Maggioncalda, CEO of US EdTech firm Coursera, launched Project Genesis to develop a strategy for incorporating GenAI capabilities into the firm's offerings, asking his teams to focus on value to the firm and cost of implementation. The team identified... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Technological Innovation; Education Industry; Technology Industry; United States

Educators

03 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Learning by Supplying

Keywords: by Juan Alcácer & Joanne Oxley

Article

Variety of Innovation in Global Value Chains

By: Giulio Buciuni and Gary P. Pisano

This article analyzes how the geography and organization of pre- and production stages in Global Value Chains (GVC) contribute to lead firms' innovation development. A novel approach in GVC studies is introduced based on transaction cost economics (TCE) and the... View Details

Keywords: GVC; Global Value Chains; Manufacturing; Production; Global Range; Innovation and Invention

Article

When Does Familiarity Promote Versus Undermine Interpersonal Attraction? A Proposed Integrative Model from Erstwhile Adversaries

By: Eli J. Finkel, Michael I. Norton, Harry T. Reis, Dan Ariely, Peter A. Caprariello, Paul W. Eastwick, Jenna H. Frost and Michael R. Maniaci

This article began as an adversarial collaboration between two groups of researchers with competing views on a longstanding question: Does familiarity promote or undermine interpersonal attraction? As we explored our respective positions, it became clear that the... View Details

Keywords: Attraction; Relationship Stage Model; Adversarial Collaboration; Familiarity; Marketing

May 2006 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Codon Devices

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

In December 2005, 40-year-old John Danner was about to make his first presentation to the board of directors of Codon Devices, a one-year-old biotechnology start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a month as the company's CEO, Danner was prepared to lay out... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Intellectual Property; Governing and Advisory Boards; Genetics; Competitive Advantage; Science-Based Business; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Cambridge

2006
Working Paper

Cross-Functional Alignment in Supply Chain Planning: A Case Study of Sales and Operations Planning

In most organizations, supply chain planning is a cross-functional effort. Functional areas such as sales, marketing, finance, and operations traditionally specialize in portions of the planning activities, which results in conflicts over expectations, preferences, and... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Planning