Publications

November 2003 (Revised August 2005)
Case

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation

By: Robert S. Kaplan

First Commonwealth Financial Corp., a financial institution in central and southwestern Pennsylvania, implemented the Balanced Scorecard for describing and implementing its new customer-focused strategy. Its founder and chairman decided that the Balanced Scorecard also... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Corporate Strategy; Customers; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Customer Relationship Management; Executive Compensation; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Pennsylvania

May 1997
Case

Toyota Motor Corporation: Target Costing System

Explores Toyota's target costing system, considered to be the most advanced such system of any major Japanese manufacturer. Specifically, describes Toyota's process of setting rigorous cost-reduction goals and the steps taken to achieve them. View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Japan

August 2003 (Revised May 2009)
Background Note

Basic Venture Capital Formula, The

By: William A. Sahlman and Matthew Willis

Briefly summarizes the process that venture capitalists use to analyze high-risk, long-term investments. Contains information on methods that can be used to calculate valuation, share price, percent ownership, implied valuation, dilution, and option pools. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Jill J. Avery

Creating Brand Value (MBA elective course)

Overview:

In the consumer/retail space, brands are often companies’ most valuable assets and sources of their sustainable competitive advantage. But, managing brands to achieve their full value potential... View Details

06 Nov 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Top-Down Resource Allocation on the Rise?

drew attention to the resource allocation process (RAP) with his seminal study of four organizations in 1970. He concluded that a bottom-up process of idea generation begun by operational View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 23, 2007

markets? Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=708443 Canyon Johnson Urban Fund Harvard Business School Case 706-442 Basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson and K. Robert Turner, View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Mutiny in the Workplace: When Leaders Are Challenged From Within

My dissertation focuses on the rarely studied phenomenon of mutiny in organizations. Based on three recent cases of mutiny in professional organizations, I examine the process by which employee dissatisfaction transforms into collective mobilization... View Details

2018
Working Paper

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

SSRN

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2014
Case

Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant: Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Culture

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Weiku Wu and Jia Guo

Meizhou Dongpo is a large catering group in China. On June 6, 1996, the first Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant was opened in Beijing. The enterprise entered the stage of rapid development in 2000, and set up Beijing Meizhou Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. In June 2003 the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; National Culture; China; Restaurants; China

2009
Book

Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders: What the Airline Industry Can Teach Us About Leadership

By: Anthony J. Mayo, Nitin Nohria and Mark Rennella

'Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders' examines the role that business leaders play in shaping industries and how the evolving context of industries shapes leaders in turn. This co-evolutionary process of leadership and industry development is told through the story of... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Leadership Development; Managerial Roles; Supply and Industry; Industry Growth; Air Transportation Industry

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Web

Faculty & Research

(and Funding) Barriers Re: Paul Gompers More Faculty News The Case Method Introduced by HBS faculty to business education in 1925, the case method is a powerful interactive learning process that puts students in the shoes of a leader... View Details

07 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Electronic Health Records Were Supposed to Cut Medical Costs. They Haven't.

twice the administrative overhead found in Canada and is significantly higher than most other high-resource countries. Adoption of certified EHR systems was seen as a potential antidote. By digitizing patient records and adding billing workflows around them, the... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

Web

Publications - Faculty & Research

2024 Article How Robust Is Your Climate Governance? By: Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan During the past few years, as evidence of climate change and its effects has mounted, many corporate boards have added climate governance to their agendas. But the maturity of... View Details

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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January 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Case

The Carlyle Group

By: Robert G. Eccles and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case describes the investment philosophy, organizational structure, management processes and culture of the largest private equity firm in the world measured in terms of assets under management ($89 billion). The Carlyle Group is distinctive in several ways,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Assets; Private Equity; Investment; Global Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Information Technology; Asia; Washington (state, US)

February 1996
Case

Eastman Chemical Company: Building a Board from Scratch

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

Eastman Chemical Co. spun off from Kodak in 1993. The CEO of Eastman, Earnest Deavenport did not want the new company's board any members of the Kodak board to include, so he initiated a deliberate and thorough process to build an entirely new board that he hoped would... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Management Teams; Selection and Staffing; Chemical Industry

September 2002 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Environmental Power Corporation: Changing Manure Into Gold?

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Laure Mougeot Stroock

In 2002, Environmental Power Corp. (EPC), a small company developing renewable energy projects, was attempting to commercialize its "digester," a facility that extracted methane from manure, reduced manure's environmental impact, and generated electricity. The company... View Details

Keywords: Commercialization; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Investment; Projects; Wastes and Waste Processing; Corporate Finance; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry

27 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution

growth, much as earlier product extensions had in previous years.7 Just as Firestone's managers could easily interpret Goodyear's introduction of belted bias technology using their traditional strategic framework, the existing View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull; Manufacturing; Transportation

February 2018 (Revised December 2020)
Case

People Analytics at Teach For America (A)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley

As of mid-2016, national nonprofit Teach For America (TFA) had struggled with three consecutive years of declining application totals, and senior management was re-examining the organization's strategy, including recruitment and selection. A few months earlier, former... View Details

Keywords: Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction