Harvard Business Research Articles

The Harvard Connection: How the Case Method Spawned Problem-Based Learning at McMaster University

This paper proposes a historical analysis of the connection and differences between the Harvard case method in medical education and business education and the original problem-based learning method of McMaster University as it was developed in the late 1960s. The article focuses on the pedagogy of Harvard Medical School in 1900, Harvard Business School in 1920 and McMaster University in 1969, giving an account of how the respective approaches of these institutions became entangled yet divergent. Using data from archive materials and oral history accounts, a history of the pedagogical connection between Harvard and McMaster is drawn focusing on the use of cases versus problems. The paper concludes by arguing that specific innovations in PBL compared with the case method justify considering them as separate educational methods rather than more of the same.

Management Education and Duff McDonald’s Report on the Harvard Business School

Management Education and Duff McDonald’s Report on the Harvard Business School

Chapter 6 – Mobility, migration and transnational connectivity

Chapter 6 – Mobility, migration and transnational connectivity

Issues concerning relations between business and society in teaching Business History in the United States and Poland

Based on empirical material in the form of case studies prepared at Harvard Business School and Kozminski University, the article analyses the content of teaching materials in the field of business history. The Harvard case studies served as a model for the Polish ones. In contrast to the United States, at Kozminski University and in other Polish business schools, business history is not taught as a separate subject. The article puts forward the thesis that history education could provide an opportunity for future managers to broaden their knowledge of the social environment in which they will operate and to shape attitudes of responsibility for the social consequences of decisions made. However, this opportunity remains largely untapped in both the United States and Poland. American teaching materials are still influenced by the Chandlerian paradigm, and therefore they focus on the evolution of structures and changes in the strategy of large multinational corporations. These materials present students with role models of successful entrepreneurs and companies. Their social environment is presented in a sketchy manner, and questions about the motivations of human actions or hierarchies of values are rarely asked. The teaching materials also shy away from questions about the social consequences of managerial decisions. This is so, despite the fact that scientific publications are moving away from concentrating solely on the centre of global capitalism, the history of the largest corporations, and the treatment of the social environment as a variable on which the entrepreneur or company have no influence. Business history as a scientific discipline in Poland is still at an early stage of development. However, one can notice a gap between research and teaching similar to the one that exists in the USA: there are works critically analysing the period of transformation and showing the peripheral character of Polish capitalism as well as the social consequences of this peripheral nature that are completely ignored in teaching.

Competing in Ecosystems

Marco Iansiti studies ecosystem strategy at the Harvard Business School. In this interview, he discusses the rising power of digital hubs and describes why they emerge, and what makes the ecosystem...

The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, The Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite, by Duff McDonald. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2017. 672 pages, hard coverThe Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, The Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite, by Duff McDonald. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2017. 672

<i>The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, The Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite</i>, by Duff McDonald. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2017. 672 pages, hard coverThe Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, The Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite, by Duff McDonald. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2017. 672

Global action for training in malaria elimination

The Rethinking Malaria Leadership Forum, held at Harvard Business School in February 2017 with collaboration of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, identified this training gap as a high priority for both analysis and action. The gap in human resource training for malaria elimination needs to be addressed in order to assure continued progress. This paper identifies major gaps in skills and human resources, suggests institutions that can assist in filling the training gaps, and proposes global actions to implement expanded training for malaria elimination in endemic countries.

On Love and War: Reflections on the Abuse of Technical Rationality

On Love and War:Reflections on the Abuse of Technical Rationality Michael S. Sherwin O.P. "Militat omnis amans." —Ovid, Amores 1.9 "El amor y la guerra son una misma cosa." —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha 2.3.21 "Militat omnis amans: Every lover battles, and Cupid holds his fort; Atticus, believe me, every lover battles. The age that's good for war, is also right for love."1 Ovid expresses an ancient insight when he describes the affinities between love and war (artistically represented in song already by Homer and later in the many classical and Renaissance images of the attraction between Ares and Aphrodite, between Mars, the god of war, and Venus, the goddess of love).2 Cervantes expresses [End Page 259] this even more succinctly when he has Quixote exclaim, in defense of a young lover's behavior in winning the hand of his beloved: "love and war are one and the same thing."3 In both quotations, the poets are affirming that the ways of love are like the ways of war. If this is the case, might the study of one help us better understand the other, especially in the American context? The ways of love and the ways of war: a striking feature of the last fifty years is that Americans are becoming less and less successful at both. During these past fifty years, our wars have rarely attained the stated goals for which they were undertaken and have wreaked cultural, economic, environmental, and human havoc on friend and foe alike.4 The American way of love has fared no better. The marriage rate in the United States is now at an all-time low, while the divorce rate, although down from its record levels, is still troublingly high (around 45% of all US marriages now end in divorce).5 Cohabitation [End Page 260] has not proved to be a panacea, either: only about thirteen percent of those couples stay together.6 Perhaps the most disturbing statistics concern the growth of American solitude: over the last half century the number of Americans living alone has doubled, with almost a third of our country living alone.7 And when it comes to raising children, if in 1960 less than 10 percent of our children were raised in single parent homes, that number has now reached a staggering 34 percent: one third of our children.8 Clearly, Americans are having difficulty pursuing the ways of love and family life. Thus, in the pages that follow, I will offer some reflections on the American way of war and suggest how they might help us better understand the current limitations in the American way of love. I wish to do so by focusing on one war in particular, the Vietnam war, and to suggest that the way we fought that war also has important things to teach us about the way we make love. Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate the point I wish to make is by focusing on the example of one particularly influential actor in that war, because of how well he illustrates the issue I wish to address: the abuse of technical rationality to solve human problems. The person in question is Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.9 [End Page 261] Although it would be tempting to give a detailed biography of Secretary McNamara, these facts will suffice: when President-elect Kennedy tapped him to serve in his cabinet in the autumn of 1960, Robert McNamara was already a distinguished public figure, He began his professional career as the youngest and highest paid assistant professor at Harvard Business School. Then, during the Second World War, he played a key role in the Army Air Corps' Office of Statistical Control, applying systems analysis technics developed at Harvard to help the Air Corps efficiently bomb its targets in both Europe and Japan. Upon returning from the war, he was part of an elite group of Statistical Control veterans hired by Ford Motor Company to help turn the ailing company around. They were known as the Whiz Kids. Within fourteen years, McNamara was president...

Between Management and Leadership—A Comparative Study with Reference to (Sheikh Zayed AL Nahyan and Nelson Mandela)

In this paper, I am reflecting on Abraham Zaleznik’s paper “managers and leaders: are they different?” He was a prominent Harvard business school professor who attacked management style for depending only on rationality and achieving goals. He believed that managers and leaders are totally different persons. He described managers as inscrutable, detached and manipulative. Plus, while managers are interested in control and how things are done, leaders are more concerned with ideas and innovation. I try to probe into various questions related to both management and leadership to approach a clearer opinion for these inquires: do managers and leaders really have completely different personalities? Or are they both competing for the same target of getting work done through people? Is management upgradable with more knowledge and hard work? Are leaders more empathetic than managers? What makes managers inscrutable and manipulative? Is this innate or acquired? In which way leaders are different? Seems a huge task but I will tackle this issue by conducting a comparative study among two prominent figures as Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan and Nelson Mandela. I will trace some points of similarities and differentiations based on the timeless lessons from their life stories that will endure for years to come. Both were gifted visionary individuals who exercised full range of cognitive, emotional and behavioral abilities to bring about profound change in their countries.

Innovation Policy and the Economy: Introduction to Volume 18

Innovation Policy and the Economy: Introduction to Volume 18

Development of Strategic Value Chain Framework for Indian Car Manufacturing Industry

A comprehensive strategy of an automobile-manufacturing company describes the methodology to create value for its shareholders, i.e., customers, suppliers, employees and society at large. A strategic value chain framework has been developed for the Indian car manufacturing industry. The concept of balanced scorecard, Kaplan and Norton (Harv Bus Rev 70(1):71–79, 1992), and strategy maps, Kaplan and Norton (Strategy maps—converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes. Harvard Business School Publishing Corp., Boston, 2004), has been used in the present research. The detailed design of the strategic value chain framework has been provided by making use of decomposition approach, Carrus and Cochran (in: 2nd international conference on engineering design and automation, Maui, HI, August 9–12, 1998). The decomposition approach is based on axiomatic design principles, Suh (The principles of design. Oxford University Press, New York, 1990). The detailed design of strategic value chain framework can be used for implementing the comprehensive strategy by the car manufacturing industry. The framework can be used for formulating and implementing a comprehensive strategy depending on the short-term/long-term financial perspectives of the car manufacturing company. The application of the research work has been illustrated with the help of an industrial case study.

The live act of business and the culture of realization

The concept of reality saturates today’s business curriculum. Educational methods that emphasize an experiential approach to business reality, practical training through real cases, or an active realization of business insights have become almost inescapable in contemporary business education. The case method of instruction in business administration, famously developed at the Harvard Business School, stands perhaps as the most widely acknowledged pedagogical vehicle for this sense of the business real. Ethnographic investigation on the practice of the case method demonstrates the pregnancy of a concept of reality that revolves around the idea of the subjective confirmation of a contextualized experience. But it also suggests the paradoxical centrality of a concept of reality as what cannot be realized. An anthropological examination of the problem of the business real thus requires attention to what appears to be a form of anxiety.

Looking Outside Health Care to Teach Innovation in Physical Therapy Business Practice: Use of Harvard Business School Cases at Emory University

Background and Purpose. With profound changes in health care and the need for innovation to deliver exceptional value to patients receiving physical therapy, it is incumbent that students are prepared to look outside health care to adopt business practices from other industries and foster innovation as they begin to practice physical therapy. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the case-based analysis of Harvard Business School (HBS) cases from a variety of industries was implemented to teach business disciplines and promote innovative thinking in Doctor of Physical Therapy students at Emory University. Method/Model Description and Evaluation. The process for developing the course including course content and objectives, pedagogical, methods, student assessment including course evaluation and alumni survey at Emory University is described in this study. In addition, quantitative and qualitative analysis of students' course evaluation outcomes has been described in this paper. Outcomes. A total of 57 students participated in the elective course over the past 4 academic years. Class participation, written assignments, and quantitative analysis of course evaluations indicate that students agree the course objectives were met. Qualitative analysis of anonymous student comments revealed core themes of innovative course format and innovative learning, showing that the course instilled an innovation mindset in our students. Finally, 94% of course alumni survey respondents agreed that the course created an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset that impacted their practice of physical therapy. Discussion and Conclusion. We successfully introduced a course in a physical therapist education program to include training in innovation using HBS cases. To deliver exceptional value to patients receiving physical therapy, we must innovate. Thus, preparation of physical therapist practitioners who can innovate is critical to achieve our vision of optimizing movement to improve human experience and thereby transform society.

Fixing Healthcare: Understanding the (Big) Job We Have to Do

Healthcare TransformationVol. 2, No. 2 Open AccessFixing Healthcare: Understanding the (Big) Job We Have to DoStephen K. KlaskoStephen K. KlaskoSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Nov 2017https://doi.org/10.1089/heat.2017.29046.skkAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail After a year of debate about reforming, repairing, or repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we don't appear to be getting anywhere. But lack of federal direction makes it even more imperative that we define our own future—that we write the narrative of transformation in healthcare. To me, there are several key questions that you will find throughout this issue of Healthcare Transformation.How do we select and educate the doctors of the future to work in a world of augmented intelligence, where patients are looking for understanding, empathy, and a sense of meaning? We don't need physicians to be better robots than a robot. We need physicians to be human. The head of IBM's Watson initiative in healthcare, Deborah DiSanzo, joins me in sharing her “audacious goals.” And two physicians debate the role of artificial or augmented intelligence for their own practices.How do we redesign hospital systems from buildings to consumer-facing entities? Historically, we built hospitals and then set up the entire delivery of healthcare around those hospitals. But what people need is care where they are. We have two calls for a consumer revolution in this issue: one by someone just beginning his career, Phil Burrell, and one by me.How do we address the disparities in healthcare that contribute to the 20-year gap in longevity between two zip codes in Philadelphia? Two health economists recount trends that are defeating, and ways to drive change locally.Lastly, the financial new math of sustaining academic health centers gets a deep look by a team led by Kevin Mahoney, the Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of the UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA HEALTH SYSTEM. This debate takes me back to January 2017. Shortly after President Trump was elected, I got to interview Clayton Christensen, as I called him, the “boss of innovation and disruption.” I was the host for the ARTS AND BUSINESS COUNCIL OF GREATER PHILADELPHIA, bringing Christensen to talk about his new book, Competing Against Luck.In his book, Christensen argues that we can understand a product or behavior by understanding the “job it has to do.” A milkshake, he discovered, must be hard to drink quickly—its job is to occupy you through a conversation or a commute drive. It should take 20 minutes to drink.I asked Christensen how it is that the hospital business has escaped the entire Christensen-disruption consumer revolution. He laughed. And in talking about the ACA, we came to this conclusion, using his “jobs theory.” The ACA did exactly the job it was meant to do. It gave a lot of people access to a fundamentally broken, fragmented, expensive, inequitable, and occasionally unsafe healthcare system. It did its job. It also hoped the system would self-correct—but no one gave us the job of correcting the system. No one gave us the job of disrupting the system to cut costs while access was increased.For Christensen, the answers lie in two jobs, each of which represents a disruptive change. The delivery system must make money when people are well, not when patients are sick—its job has to be keeping people well. And second, we have to create the job for our patients and communities to become and stay healthy.Clayton Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL in Boston. Credit: Betsy Weber/FlickrI recommend Clayton Christensen's work. I asked him what question he would pose to applicants if he sat on our admissions committee for medical school. He would ask, “What makes you want to become the doctor that I would see instead of seeing a nurse?” In general, he would prefer to see the nurse.For each job, he argues, we need to see things differently. His parting shot: “The ways we've been traditionally taught to think are wrong, and we have a hard time accepting that.”FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 2Issue 2Nov 2017 InformationCopyright 2017, Mary Ann Liebert, IncTo cite this article:Stephen K. Klasko.Fixing Healthcare: Understanding the (Big) Job We Have to Do.Healthcare Transformation.Nov 2017.57-59.http://doi.org/10.1089/heat.2017.29046.skkcreative commons licensePublished in Volume: 2 Issue 2: November 1, 2017PDF download

Definition of Competitiveness of the Enterprise Using the Five Forces of M. Porter

Рассмотрен анализ пяти конкурентных сил Майкла Портера для строительной организации с точки зрения применения систем автоматизированного проектирования (САПР). В настоящее время созданы программные комплексы, обеспечивающие автоматизацию рутинных процедур и операций, таких как подготовка текстовой документации, преобразование технических чертежей, построение графических изображений и т. д. Для определения уровня конкуренции применена методика анализа отрасли и выработки стратегии предпринимательства, разработанная Майклом Портером в Гарвардской школе бизнеса в 1979 г. Анализ проводится для идентификации благоприятных возможностей и опасностей, с которыми может столкнуться компания в отрасли. М. Портер предложил «модель пяти сил», которая аргументирована тем, что чем выше давление со стороны выделенных факторов, тем меньше у компании возможности увеличивать прибыль. Компания, изменив свою стратегию, может воздействовать на эти силы в свою пользу. Конкурентные силы сгруппированы в пять направлений: 1) рыночная власть поставщиков; 2) рыночная власть покупателей (заказчиков); 3) появление продуктов-заменителей; 4) выход на рынок новых участников-предприятий; 5) конкурентная борьба. Описаны силы и как они влияют на строительные организации. Анализ представлен в табличной форме.

Howard Raiffa: The Art, Science, and Humanity of a Legendary Negotiation Analyst

Negotiation JournalVolume 33, Issue 4 p. 283-307 Original Article Howard Raiffa: The Art, Science, and Humanity of a Legendary Negotiation Analyst James K. Sebenius, James K. Sebenius James K. Sebenius: is the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in Boston, the director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and a founder and principal of Lax Sebenius LLC, a negotiation advisory firm. His e-mail address is jsebenius@hbs.edu.Search for more papers by this author James K. Sebenius, James K. Sebenius James K. Sebenius: is the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in Boston, the director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and a founder and principal of Lax Sebenius LLC, a negotiation advisory firm. His e-mail address is jsebenius@hbs.edu.Search for more papers by this author First published: 18 October 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12188 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume33, Issue4October 2017Pages 283-307 RelatedInformation

Economics Case Study: Harvard Business School Pedagogy Techniques: From Teaching Entrepreneurship to Influencing Business Policy through Research

The case study explains the need for social entrepreneurship while remaining in the premise of mainstream economics. A detailed discussion is carried out on the vulnerabilities of economic policy making that has led to some of the new initiatives at Harvard Business School to promote such pedagogy practices at Business Schools that may eventually influence national and international policy making to the benefit of the society and not only the economies of developed and developing countries. Two brief cases are presented. First one takes evolution of HBS course at a Pakistani university to develop superior pedagogy for student learning towards social entrepreneurship. The other case maps the journey of bilateral relationships between China and Pakistan from Free trade agreement to CPEC as a matter of national policy to evaluate local business risks and potentials.

An integrative methodology for creatively exploring decision choices

PurposeThe authors translate their the concept of integrative thinking into a repeatable methodology, supported by a set of tools for thinking through difficult or “wicked“ problems, a process that offers a better chance of rejecting false choices and of finding a way through to an innovative alternative.Design/methodology/approachThe authors divide their process into four phases. A case example illustrates each phase.FindingsThe four phases that make up the integrative thinking 10;process: articulating opposing ways to solve a vexing problem; analyzing those opposing models to truly understand them; attempting to resolve the antithetical approaches of the opposing models by creating new models that contain elements of the original alternatives but are superior to either one and testing the potential new solutions.Research limitations/implicationsAdditional examples and detailed guidance is provided in the authors new book “Creating Great Choices: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking,” (Harvard Business School Press, 2017).Practical implicationsSeveral corporate examples of “wicked” problems to which integrative thinking might be applied are: After a merger, the combined sales organization is riven by dissension between proponents of two opposite approaches – one using direct sales and the other channel partners. The CEO of a retail bank struggling to manage the conflicting goals of increasing efficiency and improving customer service.Originality/valueApplied thoughtfully, this new and tested methodology gives leaders at all levels a fighting chance at solving challenging problems and creating breakthrough choices.

MOBILE LEARNING FOR HIGHER AND CONTINUING EDUCATION

A fundamental revolution in higher education is being sparked by the ubiquity of mobile devices used by students, faculty, and administrators. The opportunity is ripe for institutions, instructors, and instructional designers to take advantage of mobile technology to enhance the learning experience. To do this, we need to understand the power on tap, examine fundamental principles, review illustrative examples, and ultimately think through ways to improve the learner experience (Quinn, 2011). In spring 2009, HBS executive education launched a pilot program using iPod Touch mobile devices and a custom application called the “Mobile Nexus” to be used on campus during a six-week executive education program at Harvard Business School. For the first time, participants had real-time access to relevant, time-sensitive information and content from any location within the HBS wireless network (Gorman and others, 2010). Therefore, this paper will focus on methods of mobile learning, the application of mobile learning in higher education and how adult learners will benefit from m learning. Article visualizations:

Ahead of the curvein the MBA bubble: Institutional narcissism and the narrative reconstruction of moral agency

AbstractAcademic criticism of institutional narcissism in business schools is well established. But little scholarly attention has been devoted to insider critics of business schools. Filling this research gap – from an interdisciplinary narrative perspective – is the aim of this article. It draws attention to one of the many autobiographical narratives that have recently been published by MBA graduates. Narcissism here appears as an important theme, both on an institutional and a personal level. What role does narration play for coping with narcissism? To explore this question, this paper offers a close reading ofAhead of the curve: Two years at Harvard Business School(2008) by Philip Delves Broughton. After a brief introduction to institutional narcissism and organizational narrative studies, the article illustrates how narrative functions as a sense-making tool for understanding institutional narcissism and as a means to reconstruct individual moral agency. The study pushes the frontiers of narrative studies by providing an innovative blend of empirical organizational research and literary studies, while also touching upon genre, interdisciplinarity, and the ethical responsibility of business in society.