Publications

Read Now

01 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Keeping Track: Performance Measurement, Control & Strategy

Beginning with the influential work of Professor Emeritus Robert N. Anthony in the 1960s and 1970s, Harvard Business School has given a prominent place to research and course development focusing on the intersection of strategy and management View Details

Keywords: Re: Robert Simons

1992
Thesis

Multivariate Quality Control of Flexible Manufacturing Processes

By: Stefan Thomke

Keywords: Quality; Production

19 Mar 2014
News

A Brand Manager’s Guide to Losing Control

Keywords: Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services; Professional Services

June 2011 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Home Essentials: Building a Global Service Business with Local Operations

By: Lynda M. Applegate, William R. Kerr and David Lane

Chris Exline founded Home Essentials, a furniture rental business targeted toward expatriates, in Singapore but rapidly moved the base of operations to Hong Kong. The company was highly successful in Singapore and Hong Kong and then pursued rapid global expansion.... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Renting or Rental; Corporate Governance; Global Strategy; Failure; Singapore; Hong Kong

2016
Working Paper

Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity

By: Itai Gurvich, Martin Lariviere and Antonio Moreno

Motivated by recent innovations in service delivery such as ride-sharing services and work-from-home call centers, we study capacity management when workers self-schedule. Our service provider chooses capacity to maximize its profit (revenue from served customers minus... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Servers; On-demand Economy; Independent Capacity; Distributed Systems; Uber; Service Operations; Performance Capacity

SSRN

March 2019
Technical Note

Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both—Lessons from Retail & Service Chains (Abridged)

By: Tatiana Sandino

This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Standards; Employees; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Power and Influence; Retail Industry; Service Industry

15 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Post-CrowdStrike, Six Questions to Test Your Company's Operational Resilience

that business disruptions are not just potential threats, but common occurrences that demand immediate attention from CEOs, C-suite teams, and boards. It's time for leaders to take stock of their companies’ operational resilience—their... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch

November 2022
Teaching Note

Proximie: Using XR Technology to Create Borderless Operating Rooms

By: Ariel D. Stern, Alpana Thapar and Menna Hassan

Founded by Nadine Hachach-Haram in 2016, Proximie was a digital medicine platform that used mixed reality and a host of digital audio and visual tools to enable clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms (ORs),... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Making; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

22 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing

Manufacturers generally classify products in terms of broad product lines, developing a single marketing strategy and production plan for each line. That makes sense for marketing, but it's a mistake for production. Different SKUs [stock-keeping units] within a product... View Details

Keywords: by Frederick H. Abernathy, John T. Dunlop, Janice H. Hammond & David Weil; Consumer Products

25 Mar 2016
News

The Race Is On to Control Artificial Intelligence, and Tech’s Future

1993
Chapter

Operation and Regulation in Financial Intermediation: A Functional Perspective

By: Robert C. Merton

Keywords: Financial Markets; Operations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government and Politics; Financial Services Industry

Read Now

November 1991
Article

A Process Control Methodology Applied to Manufacturing GaAs MMICs

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Peter Moran, Scott Andrew Elliott, Neil Wylie and Jesus del Alamo

Keywords: Production; Manufacturing Industry

Find at Harvard

Read Now

April 1993 (Revised May 1993)
Case

Safeway Manufacturing Division: The Manufacturing Control System (MCS) (A)

Describes a decision that SMD management made to implement an MRP II system in its 38 plants. Raises the issues that needed to be addressed to enable the implementation, and is positioned so the students can develop a detailed implementation plan. View Details

Keywords: Technology; Production; Planning; Manufacturing Industry

2007
Article

Convictions, Conventions and the Operational Risk Maze—The Cases of Three Financial Services Institutions

By: Anette Mikes

Making sense of operational risk practices in the financial services sector is a challenge. There is a temptation to explain the wide variety of approaches as a characteristic of the early stage of development in which the genre resides.
Based on the evidence of... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Risk Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Conflict and Resolution; Organizations; Financial Services Industry

Many companies operate units that are dispersed across different types of markets, serving significantly diverging customer bases. Such dispersion is likely to compromise headquarters' ability to control local managers' behavior and satisfy the needs of different... View Details

Web

Technology & Operations Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Technology & Operations Management Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students 2024 Ryan W. Buell : Received the 2024 HBS Student Association Faculty Teaching Award for exceptional contributions to... View Details

08 May 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry

Keywords: by Dennis Campbell, Srikant M. Datar & Tatiana Sandino; Retail; Food & Beverage

November 2009
Article

Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry

By: Dennis Campbell, Srikant M. Datar and Tatiana Sandino

Many companies operate units that are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarter's ability to control its local managers' behavior and satisfy... View Details

Keywords: Market Dispersion; Decentralization; Incentives; Business Headquarters; Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Distribution; Organizational Design; Franchise Ownership; Retail Industry

Find at Harvard

March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Technical Note

Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both — Lessons from Retail & Service Chains

By: Tatiana Sandino

This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Standards; Employees; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Power and Influence; Retail Industry; Service Industry