Curriculum Innovation

The purpose of the web-based Finance Prematriculation Tutorial is to provide the basic principles and tools of finance at an introductory level. Senior Lecturer Tim Luehrman describes several of the tutorial's innovations including its intended use before students come to campus. View the tutorial (not available without HBS login).

The Offshoring Exercise was created by the BGIE and Strategy teaching teams to give students first-hand experience at assessing the offshorability of many different jobs. Professor Jan Rivkin talks about the eye-opening outcome of the students' discoveries. View the Case.

Professor Lynda Applegate explains how the Crafting Business Models online tutorial enables her Owner/President Management (OPM) participants to return home with a complete set of tools for making changes in their companies. View the tutorial (not available without HBS login).

Assistant Professor Karim Lakhani describes the Threadless multimedia case and its focus on the company's community-driven distributed innovation model. The case has been used with both MBA and Executive Education participants and included an online T-shirt design contest for MBAs. View the case. (not available without HBS login).

Wintel is an in-class game designed to simulate strategic interactions between Microsoft and Intel in the market for Wintel PCs. Associate Professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell explains the decisions and tradeoffs students must make while playing the game and how having to actually make those decisions is harder than just talking about them.

Professor and Senior Associate Dean Howard Stevenson created the personal financial planner to help students model their long-term financial goals. By answering questions about their current situations and about what they plan or hope to be doing ten, twenty, and fifty years later in life, students are confronted with the financial consequences of the way they decide to live their lives.

The process of putting a bid together in real-time is exciting, energetic, and fraught with drama. Lecturer John Macomber wanted to bring this energy to the classroom it was something that couldn't be accomplished by reading or lecture. He describes the resultant construction bidding simulation how it is played and debriefed, and how putting students in the vendors' shoes enhances learning.

The ability to find and then analyze information is a critical part of any general manager's decision-making process. Professor Amy Edmondson talks about the exercise she created to help students compare the quality of information they found using different search methods and information sources. Working in teams, students used a variety of approaches to research solutions to business problems. Through analysis and reflection, the students compared their findings then developed frameworks to guide decision making as informed leaders.

Senior Lecturer Michael Chu developed this video case study to illustrate the realities of microfinance today. Filmed on location in Lima, Peru, the video clips take viewers inside Mibanco, one of the world's leading microfinance institutions, as well as to the open air markets and farms of its clients.

When Professors Nabil El-Hage and Richard Ruback created a new MBA course on the private equity industry, they wanted to supplement the class discussion with an analysis of the industries surrounding the potential investments presented in the cases. They developed an exercise using critical thinking skills and research resources on a wide range of industries from hospital management to food processing. Students worked in teams to research industries, posted their analysis to the web, and acted as industry experts during class.

Professor Kasturi Rangan and Senior Lecturer Michael Chu describe their collaboration to create an Internet-based research portal for the rapidly changing field of business at the base of the pyramid. Designed to give students faster access to complex and diverse resources, the BBOP Knowledge Center has grown with student input and changing world events. As a result, students have identified significant business opportunities and the faculty have further refined the course based on new content. View the site.