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29 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles and Research Papers of 2014

2014 is simple but powerful—maybe the best way to improve your work performance is to devote time to reflecting on your actions. Now is also your chance to tell Working Knowledge readers in more than 200 countries around the world what... View Details

22 Nov 2015
News

Alan Horn, Walt Disney Studios Chairman: The Jedi-in-Chief

Keywords: Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

01 Mar 2008
News

Classroom Legend

to emphasize a point. “His hands perform a rapid-fire ballet of encouragement: palms outstretched to reassure the uncertain student, wrists moving in quick circles to urge onward the confident,” noted a 1976 article in the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Roland Christensen; George Albert Smith; Fritz J. Roethlisberger; Richard Meriam; Edmund P. Learned; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

January 1983 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.: Marketing Communications

By: John A. Quelch

Marketing executives at the company are considering the merits of a variety of communications programs designed to increase the effectiveness of the company's sales force of beauty consultants. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Salesforce Management; Decision Making; Performance Effectiveness; Management Teams; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

November 2008
Case

Syngenta International AG: Tropical Sugar Beet

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Alwin R. Kopse

Syngenta has developed a new sugar beet crop especially useful to tropical climates that enable double cropping to take place and provide both food and energy from the soil. Thus both the governments of Colombia and India are enthused about the new technological... View Details

Keywords: Food; Government and Politics; Technological Innovation; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Research and Development; Environmental Sustainability; Technology Adoption; India; Colombia

August 2023
Article

Do Rating Agencies Behave Defensively for Higher Risk Issuers?

By: Samuel B. Bonsall IV, Kevin Koharki, Pepa Kraft, Karl A. Muller III and Anywhere Sikochi

We examine whether rating agencies act defensively toward issuers with a higher likelihood of default. We find that agencies' qualitative soft rating adjustments are more accurate as issuers' default risk grows, as evidenced by the adjustments leading to lower Type I... View Details

Keywords: Credit Rating Agencies; Soft Rating Adjustments; Default; Credit; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Institutions; Risk Management

18 May 2020
Working Paper Summaries

No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm

Keywords: by Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo; Fashion

04 Jun 2008
News

Whistle While You Work

bought into that, too, until one day he had a transformational insight. “The conductor’s power depends on his ability to make other people powerful. I started paying attention to how I was enabling my musicians to be the best performers... View Details

Keywords: Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

August 1994
Case

Higashimaru Shoyu Company, Ltd. (A): Price Control System

Illustrates how Japanese firms use profit pressures to increase efficiency. In particular, explores how pseudo profit centers create pressure on workers to increase revenues and reduce costs, and the use of semiautonomous teams in a traditional Japanese workforce. View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Groups and Teams; Organizational Structure; Performance Efficiency; Management Systems; Japan

May 2008
Article

Working in the Gray Zone

By: Michel Anteby

Supervisors often turn a blind eye when employees use company resources and time to work on personal projects. They realize that stamping out such behavior may do more harm than good. View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Effectiveness; Behavior

Find at Harvard

February 2006 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Tad O'Malley: June 2005

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Tad O'Malley, a new associate at Empire Investment Group, a top-tier leveraged buyout firm, must evaluate three different deals and recommend which should receive additional resources for further investigation. He must consider the specifics of each company and each... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Resource Allocation; Private Equity; Projects; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Performance Evaluation; Leveraged Buyouts

26 Oct 2011
News

On Top, Down Under

Fookes: Leading the way at one of Australia's premier real estate firms. Photo courtesy Mark Fookes Mark Fookes (AMP 178, 2010) is head of investment management at The GPT Group, a Sydney, Australia, firm that View Details

Keywords: Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance

01 Jun 2006
News

33rd Annual HBS Show

33rd Annual HBS Show: Indecent Disclosure took satirical aim at the School’s quest to replace Dean Kim B. Clark, as disgruntled alumni hatch a plot to install an evil android as the new dean. Dylan Bourguignon (HBS ’07), on the left, played Harvard President Lawrence... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

June 2010
Supplement

FoldRite Furniture Company: Planning to Meet a Surge in Demand, Spreadsheet Supplement for Instructors (Brief Case)

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Afarin Bellisario

Keywords: Manufacturing; Production Capacity; Production Scheduling; Risk Management; Production; Performance Capacity; Manufacturing Industry

March 1997 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Alden Products, Inc.--European Manufacturing

By: Robert H. Hayes

The European organization of Alden Products, Inc. is contemplating a doubling of unit sales over the next ten years. Their largest plant, located in Holland, was set up 25 years earlier to supply all demands of the EEC countries on the continent. It has since expanded... View Details

Keywords: Production; Growth Management; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Strategic Planning; Performance Capacity; Business Strategy; Netherlands; Europe

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

they are managing their careers in the evolving context of their own professional and personal lives. Q: The book addresses aspects of business life that are vexing to many of us. For example, what are some ways to make meetings more... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

March 2017
Article

Variation in the Cost of Care for Primary Total Knee Arthroplasties

By: Derek A. Haas and Robert S. Kaplan

The study examined the cost variation across 29 high-volume U.S. hospitals for delivering a primary total knee arthroplasty without major complicating conditions. Hospital and physician personnel costs were calculated using time-driven activity-based costing.... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Performance Productivity; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry