Publications

November 2009 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Personal Rapid Transport at Vectus, Ltd.

By: Benjamin Edelman

Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) vehicles—often called "driverless taxis"—sought to combine the best characteristics of cars, taxis, and trains, while adding features unavailable in any existing transportation system. Like cars and taxis, PRT vehicles carried small... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry

8 AM – 5 PM EST, 02 Mar 2016

Career Reboot Camp in Chicago

Career Reboot Camp is coming to Chicago! Led by Professor Tim Butler and facilitated by HBS career coaches, participants will work through exercises to reflect on their key career interests, what's important to them in work and life, and create a plan to move forward... View Details

June 2013 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Procter & Gamble

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kathleen Durante

On July 12, 2012, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management announced publicly that it had purchased about $2 billion of Procter and Gamble (P&G) stock. Shares in the company closed up 3.75% the day the disclosure was made public. Ackman told the New York... View Details

Keywords: Ackman; P＆G; Pershing Square Capital Managment; Disruption; Management Succession; Crisis Management; Acquisition; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

06 Sep 2024
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Announces 2024 Goldsmith Fellows

Harvard Business School (HBS) has announced the 2024 recipients of the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships. Established in 1988 by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel (MBA 1959), a former director View Details

September 2017 (Revised March 2023)
Background Note

Production Processes

By: Willy Shih and Michael W. Toffel

This note describes four broad categories of process architectures and then examines the nature of task assignment that typically would be found in a factory organized along the lines of each process type. It then delves more deeply into work flow policies, materials... View Details

Keywords: Production Management; Production Planning; Production Scheduling; Process Analysis; Process Maps; Processing Times; Process Improvement; Production; Management; Product; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

2022
Article

A Human-Centric Take on Model Monitoring

By: Murtuza Shergadwala, Himabindu Lakkaraju and Krishnaram Kenthapadi

Predictive models are increasingly used to make various consequential decisions in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, finance, and policy. It becomes critical to ensure that these models make accurate predictions, are robust to shifts in the data, do not rely on... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Research and Development; Demand and Consumers

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December 1993 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Sarah Gant

Manville Corp.'s senior managers must decide how to respond to a new scientific study suggesting that fiberglass, the source of 75% of the company's profits, may be another asbestos and must act under conditions of great uncertainty. In particular, when should a... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Health Disorders; Risk Management; Marketing Communications; Product; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Safety; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

2016
Article

Peer-to-Peer Markets

By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato and Jonathan Levin

Peer-to-peer markets such as eBay, Uber, and Airbnb allow small suppliers to compete with traditional providers of goods or services. We view the primary function of these markets as making it easy for buyers to find sellers and engage in convenient, trustworthy... View Details

Keywords: Peer-to-peer; Online Platforms; Matching; Innovation; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Market Design; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Network Effects; Market Entry and Exit

Find at Harvard

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October 1991 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER Systems Division (Condensed)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Frank V. Cespedes

Becton Dickinson, a phenomenally successful company with an 80% market share in the blood collection needles and syringes market faces a change in the customer buying environment (cost containment pressures at hospitals). This forces a reevaluation of the company's... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Customer Satisfaction; Demand and Consumers; Market Participation; Distribution Channels; Success; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Health Industry