Publications

Career Coach

Doug Lester

and wellness, tech, and mission-driven organizations. In addition to coaching at HBS, Doug works with individual and corporate clients through his private coaching practice Career Narratives. He writes regularly about the strategies and... View Details

Keywords: Auto/Transportation/Logistics; Consumer Products; Education; Emerging Markets; Entertainment / Media; Entrepreneurship; Government; Health Care; Hospitality; Insurance; Publishing / Communications / Advertising; Real Estate; Retail; Social Enterprise; Technology

October 2008
Article

Evaluating the CEO

By: Stephen P. Kaufman

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. After Kaufman became a CEO, he was struck by how perfunctory the board was in its... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives

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23 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

It’s Back to Business-Basics for Nonprofits

To transform lofty aspirations into quantifiable impact, nonprofits need to become more familiar with traditional business tools such as business plans, precise mission statements, and goal setting to improve their performance. That was the message from Jeff Bradach,... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

02 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 2

Publications Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance Authors: Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim Publication: Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming) Abstract In this paper, we investigate whether... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 1988 (Revised December 1998)
Case

Donner Co.

By: Roy D. Shapiro

The management of a small manufacturer of circuit boards faces a number of production and operations management problems. The first day on this case is used to analyze the production capacity of various stages in the process and to examine bottlenecks and key... View Details

Keywords: Information Management; Management; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Performance Capacity; Problems and Challenges; Semiconductor Industry

November 2011 (Revised April 2016)
Case

Coco Chanel: Creating Fashion for the Modern Woman (A)

By: Mukti Khaire and Kerry Herman

Chanel, the iconic haute couture house, founded by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1913, came to embody its founder's philosophy, taste, and style and set a distinctive and influential tone for women's fashion. Coming to prominence during the height of cultural modernity in... View Details

Keywords: Fashion And Creative Industries; Apparel Manufacturing; Business History; Business Growth and Maturation; Management Succession; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Brands and Branding; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; North and Central America; Europe

Fall 2011
Article

A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance

By: Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano

In this brief history of U.S. consumer finance since World War II, the sector is defined based on the functions delivered by firms in the form of payments, savings and investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice. Evidence of major trends in consumption,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Finance; Consumer Credit; U.s. History; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Credit; Trends; History; United States

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31 Aug 2021
News

Why the Global Chip Shortage Is Making It So Hard to Buy a Ps5

2009
Chapter

The Principles of Embedded Liberalism: Social Legitimacy and Global Capitalism

By: Rawi Abdelal and John G. Ruggie

In this essay we revisit the principles of “embedded liberalism” and argue for their relevance to the contemporary global economy. The most essential principle is the need for markets to enjoy social legitimacy, because their political sustainability ultimately depends... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Ethics; International Finance; Globalization; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Labor

Read Now

March 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Gilead Mexico

By: Michael Chu and V. Kasturi Rangan

With a breakthrough cure for Hepatitis C listing in the U.S. at $1,000/pill, Gilead must now solve the issue of making it available to patients across the world, much as it did for its blockbuster HIV/AIDS antiretrovirals. For Erik Musalem, the new general manager of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Price; Strategy; Management; Pharmaceutical Industry; Mexico

September 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Assembling Smartphones: Takt Time ≠ Cycle Time?

By: Willy Shih and Ethan Bernstein

The case was prepared to be used as part of a process review in the first year Technology and Operations Management course at HBS. It offers students an opportunity to discuss the context of a manufacturing process choice, and then examine actual production numbers... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Research and Development; Design; Six Sigma; Measurement and Metrics; Production

Web

Curriculum - MBA

Operations Management (TOM) View Course Descriptions Video Technology & Operations Management: Climate Change Challenge CLOSE Year One, Spring PRACTICE TEAMWORK AND DEEPEN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DIVERSITY AS... View Details

19 Aug 2021
Op-Ed

Don't Ignore Your Employees' Misery—TAKE Control

officers—some of the military’s most senior leaders—sometimes assume that great officers leave the military for the private sector because they want to make more money. In reality, some of those officers move on because their needs have changed, and perhaps they don’t... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and MaShon Wilson

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

JUN 2024 | In Practice What's on your vacation reading list? Harvard Business School faculty members plan to explore not only sober themes, such as philosophy and climate policy, but classic mysteries and hip-hop history. Struggling With... View Details

30 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Are You Supporting Your B Players?

By day, managers run themselves ragged worrying about their A players: their stars, their rainmakers, their top 15 percent. By night, the same managers fret over their C players—their bottom 15 percent of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

QuikTrip

QuikTrip, a large convenience store chain with over 500 stores, was known for its outstanding labor practices and fast, reliable, and friendly customer service. In November 2010, the CEO Chet Cadieux, had to decide how many new locations to open when QuikTrip entered a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Service Delivery; Performance Effectiveness; Expansion; Retail Industry; United States

Article

Real Effects of Relational Contracts

By: Steven Blader, Claudine Gartenberg, Rebecca Henderson and Andrea Pratt

How important are factors such as "firm culture" and "employee engagement" in driving firm performance? Increasing evidence from a wide range of fields suggests that productivity differs widely across firms, even after the inclusion of careful controls for factors such... View Details