Publications

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

The Simple Economics of Open Source

outwardly the situation smells of economic anarchy. Where are the market forces, when thousands of talented programmers—and even many commercial firms—spend inordinate amounts of time writing and sharing computer source code: an activity... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Technology

December 2009 (Revised January 2024)
Case

A Letter from Prison

By: Eugene Soltes

Stephen Richards, the former global head of sales at Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), is serving a seven-year prison sentence for financial fraud. In the case, Richards responds to a number of questions about managerial responsibility and the manipulation of financial... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Managerial Roles

2010
Case

New Heritage Doll Company: Capital Budgeting: Brief Case No. 4212.

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Heide Diener Abelli

A manufacturer and retailer of specialty doll products must decide which of two projects to fund. The decision requires the student to compute cash flows for the 2 projects, discount values to the present and compare and contrast different project performance measures. View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Projects; Decision Making; Cash Flow; Performance Evaluation; Production

15 Feb 2011
News

Digital effects

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Digital Designs on the Inner City

An increasing number of inner city residents own computers and have online access, but government agencies and private companies need to do more to bridge the digital divide that still exists among income groups, according to business and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

December 2015
Case

Stephen Richards: Addressing FAQ

By: Eugene Soltes

Stephen Richards, former global head of sales at Computer Associates, addresses frequently asked questions from "A Letter from Prison." View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Managerial Roles

March 1999 (Revised December 2001)
Case

Ford Motor Company: Supply Chain Strategy

Describes Ford's examination of its supply chain to evaluate whether the company should "virtually integrate" on the Dell Computers model. View Details

Keywords: Integration; Information Technology; Supply Chain Management; Auto Industry

Carolyn Fu is an assistant professor of business administration in the Strategy Unit. She studies innovation strategy—specifically, how firms can uncover new sources of value through their interactions with the wider innovation ecosystem. Her research explores... View Details

November 2008 (Revised June 2009)
Case

Sole-Sourcing the Intel 386: A Company and Industry Transformed

By: Richard S. Tedlow and David Ruben

Intel's precedent-breaking decision not to second-source its groundbreaking 386 microprocessor in 1986 propelled Intel to new heights and fundamentally transformed the computer industry. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Technological Innovation; Production; Information Infrastructure; Transformation; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Computer Industry; United States

October 1971 (Revised September 1983)
Case

Sturdivant Electric Corp.

By: Richard L. Nolan

A unit manager on a field computer installation job is faced with recurring conflict between a programmer and his immediate supervisor. View Details

Keywords: Planning; Rank and Position; Problems and Challenges; Conflict and Resolution; Attitudes; Jobs and Positions; Management Teams; Managerial Roles; Computer Industry; Computer Industry

March 1992 (Revised June 1992)
Background Note

Strategic Industry Model: Emergent Technologies

By: Robert J. Dolan

Describes computer model and output from conjoint analysis and perceptual mapping for product line planning. View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Product Marketing

April 2004 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Hewlett-Packard-Compaq: The Merger Decision

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Jonathan Barnett

Hewlett-Packard's proposed $24 billion acquisition of rival Compaq marked the largest merger in the history of the computer industry. The merger was Hewlett-Packard's response to sweeping changes impacting the technology industry. The severity of the stock market's... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business and Shareholder Relations; Computer Industry; Computer Industry

Mengjie (Magie) Cheng is a Ph.D. student in Marketing at Harvard Business School. She received her B.S. in Finance from Chu Kochen Honors College at Zhejiang University and M.S. in Management Science and... View Details

17 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

Man vs. Machine: Which Makes Better Hires?

numbers, they found that once computer testing was introduced at a company, workers ended up staying on the job for an average of 15 percent longer. The result indicates mechanical testing can be helpful in hiring decisions, but it... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment

August 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Grupo Martica

Grupo Martica commissions a computer security expert to conduct an audit of its systems, network, and processes. This audit reveals that Martica is quite vulnerable, and the company's de facto CIO must decide what steps to take to improve security. He wonders how... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Complexity

December 2022
Article

The Rise of People Analytics and the Future of Organizational Research

By: Jeff Polzer

Organizations are transforming as they adopt new technologies and use new sources of data, changing the experiences of employees and pushing organizational researchers to respond. As employees perform their daily activities, they generate vast digital data. These data,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Analytics and Data Science; Technology Adoption; Employees

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2016
Chapter

Deriving an Optimally Deceptive Policy in Two-Player Iterated Games

By: Elisabeth Paulson and Christopher Griffin

We formulate the problem of determining an optimally deceptive strategy in a repeated game framework. We assume that two players are engaged in repeated play. During an initial time period, Player 1 may deceptively train his opponent to expect a specific strategy. The... View Details

Keywords: Deception; Strategy; Game Theory

February 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

QuickenInsurance: The Race to Click and Close (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

ES Technologies started in 1976 as a storefront in Tempe, Arizona selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. Twenty years later, revenues exceeded $3.5 billion, and the business had evolved from a computer store to a master reseller and full-line integrator of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Structures; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; Arizona

Find at Harvard

2019
Working Paper

Intelligent Artificiality: Algorithmic Microfoundations for Strategic Problem Solving

By: Mihnea Moldoveanu

This paper introduces algorithmic micro-foundations for formulating and solving strategic problems. It shows how the languages and disciplines of theoretical computer science, “artificial intelligence,” and computational complexity theory can be used to devise a set of... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Analysis; Strategy; Framework; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Mathematical Methods