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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,838)
- News (157)
- Research (1,551)
- Events (7)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (654)
Robert Simons
Robert Simons is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School. For over 35 years, Simons has taught accounting, management control, and strategy execution courses in both the Harvard MBA and Executive Education Programs. For 2023/24, he is... View Details
- February 2012
- Article
Management Practices across Firms and Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing American, Japanese, and German firms are the best... View Details
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Competency and Skills; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizations; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Sectors; Performance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Private Equity; Multinational Firms and Management; United States; Germany; Japan; China; India
Bloom, Nicholas, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen. "Management Practices across Firms and Countries." Academy of Management Perspectives 26, no. 1 (February 2012): 12–33.
- 2020
- Working Paper
Digital Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing
By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji
Recent work argues that experimentation is the appropriate framework for entrepreneurial strategy. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the time-varying adoption of A/B testing technology, which has drastically reduced the cost of experimentally testing... View Details
Keywords: Experimentation; A/B Testing; Data-driven Decision-making; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Information Technology; Performance
Koning, Rembrand, Sharique Hasan, and Aaron Chatterji. "Digital Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-018, August 2019. (Revised September 2020. SSRN Working Paper Series, No. 3440291, August 2019)
- 22 Oct 2018
- Sharpening Your Skills
Motivate Me, Please
SolStock Former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy was known to criticize staff for being "coin-operated" instead of mission-driven. Understanding what motivates good performance is crucial for managers to master. Here is a... View Details
Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne
- 01 May 2006
- Research & Ideas
What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure
other research examines the design of performance measurement systems and incentive contracts for rewarding teams and channel partners. In short, this research explores the idea that career concerns,... View Details
- Research Summary
Corporate Governance
The characteristics and structure of boards of directors have important implications for firm performance. Professor Wang has found that firms with well-connected boards whose members have strong network connections provide economic benefits that are not immediately... View Details
- 24 Jun 2013
- Research & Ideas
Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?
Affects Our Behavior. It turns out that working on a relatively large machine (like a desktop computer) causes users to act more assertively than working on a small one (like an iPad). “We wanted to study how interacting with a device... View Details
Generating Higher Value at IBM
This case analyzes IBM's financial performance and its capital allocation decisions over a 10-year period from 2004-2013, during which IBM returned more than $140B to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. During this time, CEO Sam... View Details
- 06 Sep 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
FIN Around the World: The Contribution of Financing Activity to Profitability
- June 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Supplement
Generating Higher Value at IBM
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Scott Mayfield
This case analyzes IBM's financial performance and its capital allocation decisions over a 10-year period from 2004-2013, during which IBM returned more than $140B to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. During this time, CEO Sam... View Details
- May 2015 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Generating Higher Value at IBM (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield
This case analyzes IBM's financial performance and its capital allocation decisions over a 10-year period from 2004-2013, during which IBM returned more than $140B to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. During this time, CEO Sam... View Details
Keywords: Dividends; Share Repurchases; Earnings Guidance; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Ratios; Payout Policy; Earnings Per Share (EPS); Earnings Management; Change Management; Leadership; Transformation; Financial Strategy
Esty, Benjamin C., and E. Scott Mayfield. "Generating Higher Value at IBM (A)." Harvard Business School Case 215-058, May 2015. (Revised September 2017.)
- September 2009
- Article
Labor Market Institutions and Global Strategic Adaptation: Evidence from Lincoln Electric
By: Jordan I. Siegel and Barbara Zepp Larson
Although one of the central questions in the global strategy field is how multinational firms successfully navigate multiple and often conflicting institutional environments, we know relatively little about the effect of conflicting labor market institutions on... View Details
Keywords: Institutions; Labor Market; Complementarity; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Labor Unions; Laws and Statutes; Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Manufacturing Industry
Siegel, Jordan I., and Barbara Zepp Larson. "Labor Market Institutions and Global Strategic Adaptation: Evidence from Lincoln Electric." Management Science 55, no. 9 (September 2009): 1527–1546. (Although one of the central questions in the global strategy field is how multinational firms successfully navigate multiple and often conflicting institutional environments, we know relatively little about the effect of conflicting labor market institutions on multinational firms' strategic choice and operating performance. With its decision to invest in manufacturing operations in nearly every one of the world's largest welding
markets, Lincoln Electric offers us a quasi-experiment. We leverage a unique data set covering 1996–2006 that combines data on each host country's labor market institutions with data on each subsidiary's strategic choices and historical operating performance. We find that Lincoln Electric performed significantly better in countries with labor laws and regulations supporting manufacturers' interests and in countries that allowed the free
use of both piecework and a discretionary bonus. Furthermore, we find that in countries with labor market institutions unfriendly to manufacturers, Lincoln Electric was still able to overcome most (although not all) of the institutional distance by what we term flexible intermediate adaptation.)
- 2024
- Working Paper
Choosing and Using Information in Evaluation Decisions
By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Scott Kostyshak and Perihan O. Saygin
Most studies of gender discrimination consider how male versus female candidates are assessed given otherwise identical information about them. But, in many settings of interest, evaluators have a choice about how much information to acquire about a candidate before... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
Too Motivated?
I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details
Keywords: Governance Controls; Employees; Wages; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Performance; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives
Van den Steen, Eric J. "Too Motivated?" Sloan School of Management Working Paper, No. 4547-05, April 2006. (Available at SSRN.)
- 29 Apr 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
The Great Leap Forward: The Political Economy of Education in Brazil, 1889-1930
Tatiana Sandino
Tatiana Sandino is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration in the Accounting and Management Unit, most recently teaching and undertaking the role of course head for the required first-year MBA course Financial Reporting and Control. She has... View Details
- January 2011
- Supplement
Vodafone in Japan (C)
By: Juan Alcacer, Mary Furey and Mayuka Yamazaki
An update to Vodafone cases A and B, describing Softbank's acquisition of Vodafone and its performance in Japan. View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Knowledge Acquisition; Performance; Motivation and Incentives; Adaptation; Diversification; Expansion; Telecommunications Industry; Japan
Alcacer, Juan, Mary Furey, and Mayuka Yamazaki. "Vodafone in Japan (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 711-470, January 2011.
- October 2000 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals: The EVA Decision
By: Robert Simons and Indra A. Reinbergs
In 2016, the new CEO of Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals introduces an Economic Value Added (EVA) program to focus the company on long-term shareholder value. The EVA program consists of three elements: EVA centers (business units), EVA drivers (operational practices that... View Details
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Evaluation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Washington (state, US)
Simons, Robert, and Indra A. Reinbergs. "Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals: The EVA Decision." Harvard Business School Case 101-019, October 2000. (Revised June 2017.)
- November 2021
- Article
The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training
By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Byoung G. Park
This study provides a comprehensive model of an agent’s behavior in response to multiple sales management instruments, including compensation, recruiting/termination, and training. The model on agents’ behavior takes into account many of the key elements that... View Details
Keywords: Salesforce Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Training; Behavior; Analysis
Chung, Doug J., Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung G. Park. "The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training." Management Science 67, no. 11 (November 2021): 7046–7074.
- March 2013
- Case
NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details
Keywords: Short Selling; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Financial Analysts; Valuation; Business Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Statements; Securitization; Securities Analysis; Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Fraud; Financial Crisis; Financial Intermediaries; Financial Firms; Corporate Accountability; Subprime Lending; Mortgage Lending; Accounting; Accrual Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States; California
Srinivasan, Suraj, and Amy Kaser. "NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle." Harvard Business School Case 113-120, March 2013.