BMW: The 7-Series Project (B)

Gary P. Pisano; Sharon L. Rossi

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 1994 (Revised January 2002)

BMW: The 7-Series Project (B)

by Gary P. Pisano and Sharon L. Rossi

Abstract

Describes the decision made on the 7-Series project with respect to prototyping and its impact on quality.

Keywords: Research and Development; Quality; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Germany;

Format: Print

6 pages

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Citation:

Pisano, Gary P., and Sharon L. Rossi. "BMW: The 7-Series Project (B)." Harvard Business School Case 695-013, September 1994. (Revised January 2002.)

About the Author

Gary P. Pisano

Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development

Technology and Operations Management

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | May 2019

Engineering Company Culture at Zaimella Ecuador (B)

Gary P. Pisano and Francesca Gino

Citation:
Pisano, Gary P., and Francesca Gino. "Engineering Company Culture at Zaimella Ecuador (B)." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 919-706, May 2019. View Details

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Working Paper | 2019

Long-Term Firm Growth: An Empirical Analysis of US Manufacturers 1959-2015

Giovanni Dosi, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Gary P. Pisano and Federico Tamagni

Firm growth is an essential feature of market economies, shaping together macroeconomic performance and the evolution of industry structures. As a po-tential indicator of organizational “ﬁtness” within a competitive environment, ﬁrm growth is also a central concern to both the practice and theory of business strategy. Despite both its theoretical and practical importance, though, growth remains a poorly understood property of ﬁrms. While previous studies have documented the highly skewed nature of ﬁrm growth rates, we know far less about the persistence of growth rates over long-periods of time. For instance, do “fast growers” tend to maintain their relative growth rates advantages over long-periods or is superior growth a transitory phenomenon? Is, as predicted by evolutionary and capability based theories of the ﬁrm, the process of ﬁrm growth path-dependent or is it more akin to a random walk? The answers to these questions are central to building a robust theory of ﬁrm growth. This paper attempts to address this gap in our empirical knowledge of ﬁrm growth using a dataset that spans 50 years, which al-lows the abandonment of the assumption, common to all incumbent studies, that the stochastic paths of all ﬁrms stem from the same generating process. These exploratory results indicate that growth rate persistence is there and my be even substantial for some ﬁrms, but it is rare. We also study the links between the micro-properties of ﬁrm growth within sectors and the patterns of aggregate growth of these same sectors. Indeed, we ﬁnd circumstantial but widespread evidence that heterogeneity across ﬁrms correlates with industry dynamism.

Citation:
Dosi, Giovanni, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Gary P. Pisano, and Federico Tamagni. "Long-Term Firm Growth: An Empirical Analysis of US Manufacturers 1959-2015." Working Paper, May 2019. View Details

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Article | Industrial and Corporate Change | April 2019

Response to Comments on Toward a Prescriptive Theory of Dynamic Capabilities

Gary P. Pisano

Citation:
Pisano, Gary P. "Response to Comments on Toward a Prescriptive Theory of Dynamic Capabilities." Industrial and Corporate Change 28, no. 2 (April 2019): 419–421. View Details

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BMW: The 7-Series Project (B)

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