Publications

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March 2003 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Worker Rights and Global Trade: The U.S.-Cambodia Bilateral Textile Trade Agreement

Examines the political and economic dimensions of the campaign to improve workers' rights around the world through the inclusion of labor standards in international trade agreements. The U.S.-Cambodia Textile Trade Agreement was the first agreement of its kind to link... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Agreements and Arrangements; Rights; Working Conditions; Globalization; Consumer Products Industry; Cambodia; United States

Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches... View Details

Keywords: retailing; e-commerce industry; internet; automotive

September–October 2020
Article

Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value

By: George Serafeim

Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create... View Details

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12 Sep 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Can Remote Surgeries Digitally Transform Operating Rooms?

Keywords: Health

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

owed $130,000 in sales commissions for the work he had done prior to being fired from the firm a few months earlier. The executive, on the other hand, claimed the employee was owed nothing—in fact, he insisted the employee had been... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

November 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

The Globalization of Manchester City Football Group

By: Maria P. Roche, Tiona Zuzul, Exequiel Hernandez and Amy Klopfenstein

This case describes the efforts of City Football Group (CFG) to purchase Esporte Clube Bahia (Bahia), a Brazilian professional soccer club. CFG’s strategy was to acquire under-performing clubs worldwide, invest money in high-profile players, and improve the teams’... View Details

February 2022
Teaching Plan

Community Solutions

By: Brian Trelstad and Tom Quinn

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 322-021. Community Solutions was an anti-homelessness nonprofit founded in 2011 after protagonist Rosanne Haggerty grew frustrated with the limited impact of traditional housing and outreach strategies. It set an ambitious goal, reached... View Details

Keywords: Homelessness; Social Issues; Housing; Human Needs; Poverty; Welfare; Business and Community Relations; Analytics and Data Science; Business Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Article

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing in Emergency Medicine

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Brian J. Yun, Anand M. Prabhakar, Jonathan Warsh, John Brennan, Kyle E. Dempsey and Ali S. Raja

Value in emergency medicine is determined by both patient-important outcomes and the costs associated with achieving them. However, measuring true costs is challenging. Without an understanding of costs, emergency department (ED) leaders will be unable to determine... View Details

Keywords: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Emergency Room; Health Care and Treatment; Value; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management

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18 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How Brand China Can Succeed

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.As the British nineteenth century commentator John Ruskin... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

October 2018
Article

The Operational Value of Social Media Information

By: Ruomeng Cui, Santiago Gallino, Antonio Moreno and Dennis J. Zhang

While the value of using social media information has been established in multiple business contexts, the field of operations and supply chain management have not yet explored the possibilities it offers in improving firms' operational decisions. This study attempts to... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Information; Sales; Forecasting and Prediction; Social Media

May–June 2021
Article

Eliminate Strategic Overload

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with greater... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Initiatives; Value-based Strategy; Organizational Effectiveness; Strategy; Value Creation

October 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Revvity: A Symbol of Change

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

After selling the PerkinElmer name and several ancillary business units, Prahlad Singh (CEO) and his team at the newly christened Revvity faced a challenge on how best to capitalize on the opportunities ahead for the business and emerge as winners within the Life... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Corporate Strategy

2007
Working Paper

Taxes and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from JGTRRA's Treatment of International Dividends

By: Mihir A. Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

This paper investigates how taxes influence portfolio choices by exploring the response to the distinctive treatment of foreign dividends in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA). JGTRRA lowered the dividend tax rate to 15% for American equities... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Financial Markets; International Finance; Investment Portfolio; Government Legislation; Taxation; United States

October 1991 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Gordon Cain and the Sterling Group (A)

By: Michael C. Jensen

A Houston-based LBO firm makes two petrochemical acquisitions that benefit from improved industry conditions and improved organizational performance. The LBOs generate huge increases in value, creating problems for managers, who have large, undiversified equity... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Value Creation; Business Exit or Shutdown; Leveraged Buyouts; Chemical Industry; Houston

03 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Can a Social Entrepreneur End Homelessness in the US?

Keywords: Re: Brian L. Trelstad

October 1991 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Workplace Safety at Alcoa (A)

By: Kim B. Clark and Joshua D. Margolis

Examines the challenge facing the managers of a large aluminum manufacturing plant in its drive to improve workplace safety. The CEO of the company has made safety a top priority. The plant has made good progress in reducing the injury rate, but now confronts the need... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Safety; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Operations; Resignation and Termination; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Manufacturing Industry; United States

April 1997
Case

Peoria Engine Plant (A): (Abridged)

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Amy P. Hutton

Describes the cost control system used at an automobile engine plant for labor and overhead costs. The finance staff prepares daily, weekly, and monthly variance reports against budgets. Department supervisors, finance staff, and the plant manager discuss the use and... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Cost Management; Financial Reporting; Performance Improvement; Budgets and Budgeting; Auto Industry

2022
Article

The Effects of Public and Private Equity Markets on Firm Behavior

By: Shai Bernstein

In this article, I review the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of public and private equity markets on firm behavior, emphasizing the consequences that emerge from disclosure requirements, ownership concentration, and degree of firm standardization.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance And Governance; Financing Policy; Commercialization; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Public Equity; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Cost of Capital