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    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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      • 20 Apr 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      What Went Wrong with the Boeing 737 Max?

      How did the evolution of Boeing’s organization and management lead up to two tragic plane crashes—the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 on March 9, 2019, in Ethiopia—in which a total of 346 people died? What role did cost cutting, FAA pressure, and CEO succession play in laying the foundation for this tragedy? Professor Bill George discusses the long roots that ultimately led to two tragic Boeing 737 Max crashes, and examines the response of Boeing executives to the crisis in his case, “What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?”  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

      Read the Transcript

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      Product DevelopmentRemove Product Development →

      New research on product development from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including what marketers can learn from consumers whose preferences lie outside of the mainstream, and how to best incorporate customer opinion when creating a new product.
      Page 1 of 10 Results
      • 23 Mar 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Effects of Hierarchy on Learning and Performance in Business Experimentation

      by Sourobh Ghosh, Stefan H. Thomke, and Hazjier Pourkhalkhali

      Do senior managers help or hurt business experiments? Analyzing a dataset of more than 6,300 experiments on the A/B/n testing platform Optimizely, this study suggests that involving senior executives in experimentation teams can have surprising consequences.

      • 17 Feb 2020
      • Sharpening Your Skills

      How Entrepreneurs Can Find the Right Problem to Solve

      by Julia Austin

      Identifying a customer's pain points is the first step for entrepreneurs in developing a new product. Julia Austin offers tips for choosing the right "job to be done." Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 16 Sep 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Crowdsourcing Is Helping Hollywood Reduce the Risk of Movie-Making

      by Michael Blanding

      Hollywood insiders have created "The Black List," which helps surface good but often overlooked scripts. Does the wisdom of the crowd work at the box office? Research by Hong Luo. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 19 Dec 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Find and Replace: R&D Investment Following the Erosion of Existing Products

      by Joshua Krieger, Xuelin Li, and Richard T. Thakor

      This study sheds light on how product outcomes shape the direction of innovation and markets for technology. In the drug development industry in particular, negative product shocks appear to spur investment changes both within the directly affected firm and in competing firms in the same R&D markets.

      • 21 Feb 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      When a Competitor Abandons the Market, Should You Advance or Retreat?

      by Rachel Layne

      Companies pay close attention when a competitor drops out of the market, according to new research by Joshua Lev Krieger. Too often, though, they come to the wrong conclusion. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 06 Dec 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Trials and Terminations: Learning from Competitors' R&D Failures

      by Joshua Lev Krieger

      When companies terminate R&D projects, it has ripple effects on the project selection decisions of rival firms and the broader competitive environment. Examining firm responses to others’ failures, this paper introduces a new model of R&D investment decisions, and empirically investigates when knowledge generated by rivals directly enters specific project investment decisions.

      • 14 Jul 2014
      • Research & Ideas

      Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

      by Michael Blanding

      Jill Avery and Michael Norton explain what marketers can learn from consumers whose preferences lie outside of the mainstream. Open for comment; 5 Comment(s) posted.

      • 11 Apr 2011
      • Lessons from the Classroom

      Teaching a ‘Lean Startup’ Strategy

      by Carmen Nobel

      Most startups fail because they waste too much time and money building the wrong product before realizing what the right product should have been, says HBS entrepreneurial management professor Thomas R. Eisenmann. Closed for comment; 56 Comment(s) posted.

      • 05 Aug 2010
      • What Do You Think?

      What Is Customer Opinion Good For?

      by Jim Heskett

      Summing Up: Are customer wishes irrelevant when creating a new product? Jim Heskett's readers say it depends on the product, on market goals, and where you are in the development cycle. (Online forum has closed; next forum opens September 2.) Closed for comment; 73 Comment(s) posted.

      • 30 Apr 2001
      • Research & Ideas

      Why Evolutionary Software Development Works

      by Alan MacCormack

      What is the best way to develop software? HBS professor Alan MacCormack discusses recent research proving the theory that the best approach is evolutionary. In this article from MIT Sloan Management Review, MacCormack and colleagues Marco Iansiti and Roberto Verganti uncover four practices that lead to successful Internet software development. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

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