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- 30 Apr 2012
- Research & Ideas
India’s Ambitious National Identification Program
The Unique Identification Authority of India has been charged with implementing a nationwide program to register and assign a unique 12-digit ID to every Indian resident—some 1.2 billion people—by 2020. In a new case, Professor Tarun Khanna and HBS India Research Center Executive Director Anjali Raina discuss the complexities of this massive data management project. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Apr 2012
- What Do You Think?
How Will the “Age of Big Data” Affect Management?
Summing up: How do we avoid losing useful knowledge in a seemingly endless flood of data? Jim Heskett's readers offer some wise suggestions. What do you think? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jan 2011
- What Do You Think?
How Should Management Deal With “Anonymous”?
Summing Up When it comes to the leaky Web, Jim Heskett's readers say assume the worst and act accordingly. (New forum on February 3.) Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Oct 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
Using What We Know: Turning Organizational Knowledge into Team Performance
An organization's captured (and codified) knowledge--white papers, case studies, documented processes--should help project teams perform better, but does it? Existing research has not answered the question, even as U.S. companies alone spend billions annually on knowledge management programs. Looking at large-scale, objective data from Indian software developer Wipro, researchers Bradley R. Staats, Melissa A. Valentine, and Amy C. Edmondson found that team use of an organization's captured knowledge enhanced productivity, especially for teams that were geographically diverse, relatively low in experience, or performing complex work. The study did not find effects of knowledge use on the quality of the team's work, except for dispersed teams. Key concepts include: Using captured knowledge had a positive effect on the team's project efficiency (delivering on budget) but not on project quality (number of defects in the code). When use of knowledge was concentrated in a small number of team members, efficiency improved but quality declined. Knowledge use improved project efficiency but not quality for teams with less experience. For more dispersed teams, knowledge use was related to improved quality but not efficiency. Team knowledge use was related to improved efficiency and quality for teams completing more complex work. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Aug 2010
- Research & Ideas
Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers
To improve patient safety, hospitals hope their staff will use error-reporting systems. Question is, how can managers encourage employees to take the next step and ensure their constructive use? New research by Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer, and HBS professor Michael W. Toffel. Key concepts include: Patient-safety information campaigns can help hospital staff do more than just report problems when they occur. Thanks to information campaigns, frontline workers increased the rate of suggesting constructive solutions to problems by 74 percent. The frequency increased even more when unit managers joined in problem solving. By serving as role models, managers who actively engage in problem solving can lead their frontline workers to create and share solutions. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 16 May 2005
- Research & Ideas
Confronting the Reality of Web Services
Web services have made huge strides, but two hurdles remain, one technical, the other organizational, says HBS professor Andrew P. McAfee. "It is in fact getting easier to integrate applications, but it's never going to be easy." Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Apr 2005
- What Do You Think?
Can an Organization’s “Deep Smarts” Be Preserved?
When employees leave, they take more than their coat and hat. How can companies better preserve the accumulated knowledge of individuals? Isn’t that what separates average companies from truly great ones? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 Feb 2005
- Research & Ideas
Desktop Search and Revenue Streams
Search is a hot topic in high tech right now, so industry experts at Cyberposium’s "Search Visionary" panel drilled down for the most promising avenues to growth. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Jan 2005
- Research & Ideas
The Knowledge Coach
Make sure the knowledge gained by top employees doesn't leave with their retirement, say Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap in their new book, Deep Smarts. One solution: Develop a knowledge transfer coach. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Jun 2003
- Research & Ideas
Computer Security is For Managers, Too
Computer security isn’t just an IT headache, say HBS professor Robert D. Austin and co-author Christopher A.R. Darby. Here are eight to-do items for managers to protect their digital assets. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Mar 2003
- Research & Ideas
The Future of IT Consulting
A new Harvard Business School working paper traces the evolution of IT management consulting and trends for the future. Read our e-mail interview with professor Richard Nolan and HBS Interactive Senior Vice President Larry Bennigson. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 16 Dec 2002
- Research & Ideas
Mentoring—Using the Voice of Experience
Companies crave experienced executives—so why don't they do more to make sure that wisdom is captured in the corporate DNA? Harvard Business Professor Dorothy Leonard discusses the differences between mentoring and coaching; why it can be difficult for "masters" to reach "novices" and who should be responsible for managing a corporate mentoring program. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Nov 2002
- What Do You Think?
- 19 Aug 2002
- Research & Ideas
Here Comes Internet2—Time to Shed Dot Vertigo
Managers who believe the Internet is dead and gone do so at their own peril, says HBS professor Richard L. Nolan, who's studied computer use in organizations for many years. Watch out for a new kind of Internet, he says: Internet2. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Nov 2001
- Research & Ideas
Wrapping Your Alliances In a World Wide Web
HBS professor Andrew McAfee researches how the Internet affects manufacturing and productivity and how business can team up to get the most out of technology. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 18 Jun 2001
- Research & Ideas
- 13 Nov 2000
- Research & Ideas
Managing to Learn: How Companies Can Turn Knowledge into Action
New ideas are important, says HBS professor David Garvin, but they're not enough: A true "learning organization" must enable every member of the organization to act in an informed way upon what's been learned before. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Oct 2000
- Research & Ideas
The Strategy-Focused Organization
In the ten years since it was introduced, Robert Kaplan's and David Norton's Balanced Scorecard has become not just a measurement tool but a means of putting strategy at the center of a company's key management processes and systems. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Sep 2000
- Research & Ideas
More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The Impact of Modularity on the Computer Industry
The "power of modularity," write HBS Dean Kim Clark and Professor Carliss Baldwin in their new book, rescued the computer industry from a problem of nightmarish proportions and made possible remarkable levels of innovation and growth in a relatively short period of time. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
The Rich Get Richer: Enabling Conditions for Knowledge Use in Organizational Work Teams
Individuals on the periphery of organizational knowledge-sharing networks, due to inexperience, location, or lack of social capital, may struggle to access useful knowledge at work. An electronic knowledge repository (KR) offers a practical solution to the challenges of making knowledge available to people who might otherwise lack access to relevant expertise. Such a system may function as a knowledge-access equalizer. However, the presence of a knowledge repository will not solve the problem of access to knowledge for those at the periphery of the organization unless it is used. In this paper, the authors begin to theorize the social and structural conditions that support KR use by exploring whether individuals on the organizational periphery take advantage of KRs, or whether KRs function more to enrich individuals whose experience and position already provide them better access to other knowledge sources. Using extensive data on KR use at a global, outsourced provider of software services, the authors' results show that despite the seeming promise of a KR to integrate or equalize peripheral players, it instead enriches knowledge access for people who are already well positioned. Findings thus suggest that KR use is not simply an individual activity based on need, but is instead enabled by certain social conditions (such as familiarity and experience) and inhibited by others (such as status disparities and remote location). An organizational KR thus fails to serve as an equalizer absent intervention. Key concepts include: There is a cautionary note for managers: In this study, KRs supported team performance by enriching the knowledge access of central players in the organization. KRs were less effective at ensuring much-needed access for those on the periphery. If individuals cannot get the knowledge that they need, then both their performance and their careers may suffer. Although some individuals are deployed into positions seen as organizationally necessary - such as remote offices or onto teams where they all may not know each other - in these positions they are less likely to make use of available organizational resources. There is a pattern of greater use of a KR and success for teams working in more supportive conditions. Individual and team characteristics enable people to support each other, make use of available resources, and perform effectively. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.