Evaluating Business Performance - Publications - Faculty & Research

April 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Otis South Africa (A)

Otis Worldwide CEO, George David, was frustrated with the slow pace of nonwhite advancement within Otis South Africa. After a few years of trying to elicit action from South African management, he decided to send a 28-year old U.S. employee to take over as the human... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Race; Operations; Business Headquarters; Performance Improvement; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Industrial Products Industry; South Africa; United States

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September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Supplement

Student Success at Georgia State University (B)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

This is a supplement to the Student Success at Georgia State University (A) case. The (B) case includes the results of a randomized control trial that Georgia State conducted to test education technology start-up AdmitHub’s chatbot solution as a strategy for improving... View Details

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01 Mar 2008
News

Classroom Legend

Christensen is the first of four HBS “legends” to be profiled during the School’s Centennial year. Christensen and several colleagues conducted seminal research in corporate strategy and business planning that made the 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

12 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

Does Your HQ Operation Fit With Corporate Strategy?

The specter of "headquarters" usually looms large in the business world's imagination, but few managers—and few CEOs, especially new CEOs—understand how size, structure, and performance of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

07 Aug 2019
News

“The Star of the North”

employees, a long-view strategy, and keeping the family businesses home. For Bauerly, owning and growing Minnesota businesses made perfect sense. If you compare states across the country on a scatter plot,... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon

2019
Working Paper

Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design

By: Jodi L. Short, Michael W. Toffel and Andrea R. Hugill

Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and monitor suppliers for compliance, but it is unclear whether these formal organizational structures raise labor standards. Drawing on... View Details

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Transforming Health Care Delivery - Course Catalog

Susanna Gallani is the Tai Family Associate Professor of Business Administration. Her research focuses on performance management systems in health care organizations and how these systems operate to align... View Details

03 Feb 2018
Op-Ed

How to Heed BlackRock's Call for Corporate Social Responsibility

Larry Fink recently created a shockwave. As cofounder, chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest global asset management firms, in an open letter to CEOs he caught the attention of financial markets and beyond by insisting on the importance of... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Battilana

14 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Pay-for-Performance Doesn’t Always Pay Off

their ability to reach if not surpass the goals, start banking on the extra money. In practice, however, the process of connecting pay to performance may be far trickier that it at first appears, according to HBS professor Michael Beer.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

April 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Supplement

Fleet Oil Company: An Exercise

The exercise, which adapts a famous experiment by experimental psychologist Thomas Gilovich, is designed to show both the ubiquity of analogy or associative thinking more generally and its potential perils. Students are presented with a scenario in which an oil company... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Non-Renewable Energy; Cost; Production; Performance Productivity; Research and Development; Energy Industry; Atlanta; Houston

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February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Aquion Energy

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and David Kiron

Leaders at Aquion Energy, a Pittsburgh-based battery start-up, are deciding on a market entry strategy. Should they pursue the large but unproven grid utility market or a smaller, but higher margin market? View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Production; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Capacity; Energy Industry

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2019
Article

Go-Shops Revisited

By: Guhan Subramanian and Annie Zhao

A go-shop process turns the traditional M&A deal process on its head: rather than a pre-signing market canvass followed by a post-signing “no shop” period, a go-shop deal involves a limited pre-signing market check, followed by a post-signing “go shop” process to find... View Details

Keywords: Go-shop Process; Mergers and Acquisitions; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Deal; Performance Effectiveness; Technological Innovation

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October 2004 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Citizens Bank

By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han

In November 2004, Larry Fish, chairman of Citizens Bank, is wondering about the challenges posed by the latest and largest acquisition in the history of the bank. Fish has always believed that the success of Citizens thus far was facilitated by the credo he introduced... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Change Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Leading Change; Performance Effectiveness; Banking Industry

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November 1987 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Ethyl Corp. in 1979

Describes the competitive situation facing the market leader in antiknock additives, the Ethyl Corp. Demand is declining rapidly and Ethyl has to decide whether to close capacity, and if so, how. Raises issues of corporate as well as SBU strategy because antiknock... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Corporate Strategy; Performance Capacity; Auto Industry; Chemical Industry

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03 Sep 2009
What Do You Think?

Are Retention Bonuses Worth the Investment?

executives to do in light of the perception by many in the public that the money was being paid out of funds provided by a Government bail-out. DeSantis' action sparked a debate regarding pay for performance in general, and retention... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 Oct 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Leadership an Increasingly Difficult Balancing Act?

and customers will react in a business world populated by leaders with these characteristics is another matter. Gerald Nanninga's comment suggests that it may not be an issue. As he put it, "Leaders have never had all the answers.... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

Dishonest Self-Reports Authors:Lisa L. Shu, Nina Mazar, Francesca Gino, Dan Ariely, and Max H. Bazerman Abstract Many business and governmental interactions are based upon trust with the assumption that all actors generally comply with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Rethinking E-Leadership

you don't model the importance of sweating the details. Downturns expose the weaknesses in your internal systems, observes Chuang. Technical expertise—the ability to solve cash flow problems, interpret what customers are really saying, or set up effective View Details

Keywords: by Melissa Raffoni

Web

Articles - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Involved Videos Books Articles PUBLICATIONS: Articles HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW How to Solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW (September 2011) Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter This... View Details

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Gap, Inc., 2000

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

From humble beginnings as a Levi jeans store, by 2000 Gap, Inc. had grown to become the world's leading specialist clothing retailer. Its CEO, Millard S. Drexler, the "merchant prince," was credited with transforming Gap into a global empire, leading the company... View Details