Publications

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Article

Corporate Misconduct and Manager Visits

By: Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

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November 2020
Article

When the Boss Comes to Town: The Effects of Headquarters' Visits on Facility-Level Misconduct

By: Jonas Heese and Gerardo Pérez Cavazos

We study the effects of headquarters’ visits on facility-level misconduct. We use the staggered introduction of airline routes to identify exogenous travel-time reductions between headquarters and facilities and test whether such reductions affect facility-level... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Visits By Management; Flight Routes; Control Systems; Compliance Programs; Performance Pressure; Business or Company Management; Management Systems; Governance Controls; Governance Compliance; Performance Expectations

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April 1998 (Revised April 2004)
Case

NEC: A New R&D Site in Princeton

In 1992, Daizburo Shinoda, a senior R&D manager at NEC, has to deal with a succession issue regarding the leadership of NEC's R&D site in Princeton, N.J. In deciding whom to appoint as the next leader of NEC's most important R&D site abroad, Shinoda has to consider a... View Details

Keywords: Management Succession; Corporate Strategy; Research and Development; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Information Technology Industry; New Jersey

19 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Are Web Sites So Confusing?

Do you sometimes get the feeling that Internet portals, search pages, social networks, e-commerce, and other Web sites are not necessarily designed in order to maximize user convenience and benefits? We do, too. Why—you might ask? For a... View Details

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Bruno Jullien

March 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

MAC Development Corporation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Colleen McCaffrey

Deals with MAC Development's efforts to develop a 41-acre site near Chicago. Reviews two years of efforts and highlights the remaining issues of: 1) gaining town approval for development and tax reductions, 2) meeting the bank's debt covenants, including finding a... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Taxation; Financial Instruments; Borrowing and Debt; Asset Pricing; Construction Industry; Chicago

November 1995 (Revised April 1998)
Case

National Insurance Corporation

The case visits the catastrophe insurance business at an interesting time in the history of the insurance markets. A major reinsurer, National Insurance, is taking a look at the new insurance derivatives being traded on the Chicago Board of Trade with a view to using... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Insurance; Capital Markets; Insurance Industry; United States

April 2001 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Moore Medical Corporation

Moore Medical is a medium-sized distributor of medical supplies to practitioners, such as podiatrists and emergency medical technicians. At the time of the case, it has relied on traditional customer channels such as catalogs, phones, and faxes to communicate product... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Information Technology; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Distribution Industry

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

by such great managers as August Thyssen, Alfred Krupp, and Werner Siemens. Professor Jeffrey Fear's book Organizing Control: August Thyssen and the Construction of German Corporate Management overturns some of our preconceptions of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

14 Dec 1999
Research & Ideas

From Spare Change to Real Change: The Social Sector as a Beta Site for Business Innovation

encouraged, but neither activity engages the unique skills and capabilities of business. Consider the typical corporate volunteer program. It almost invariably draws on the lowest common skills in a company by mobilizing people to do... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

28 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Shareholders Key to Corporate Reform

correct the underlying weaknesses. When it comes to corporate governance, for too long we have relied on the first approach. It's time to take a deeper look, see where the stressors in the system lie, and commit to structural reforms. In... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia A. Montgomery & Rhonda Kaufman

March 2013
Article

Punctuated Generosity: How Mega-events and Natural Disasters Affect Corporate Philanthropy in U.S. Communities

By: Andras Tilcsik and Christopher Marquis

Geographic communities have been shown to affect organizations through their enduring features, but less attention has been given to communities as sites of human-made and natural events that occasionally disrupt the lives of organizations. We develop a... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Communities; Punctuated Equilibrium; Corporate Social Responsibility; Institutional Theory; Natural Disasters; Situation or Environment; Balance and Stability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Community Relations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

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February 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Exercise

Accounting for Pensions at General Motors Corporation (A)

By: David F. Hawkins and Jacob Cohen

A potential investor in General Motors is gathering information about investment in General Motor's stock. The investigation leads the investor to review the General Motor's Web site and several CNBC interviews of General Motors' executives. View Details

Keywords: Investment; Accounting; Compensation and Benefits; Financial Services Industry; Auto Industry; Accounting Industry

January 1998
Case

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Customer Relationship Management; Quality; Training; Performance Efficiency; Cost Management; Sales; System

21 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

The Geography of Corporate Giving

Why companies support nonprofits and other socially responsible activities is an intriguing question for both academics and practitioners. After all, there is no clear-cut evidence that corporate "do-gooding" results in greater... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

26 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

tests to run their business." Note to readers: If you think your company might benefit from participating in a corporate field study, please visit The Research Exchange, where members of the Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

24 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Link Between Language and Corporate Responsibility

categorize the world, emphasizing some values or activities over others. In other words, languages shape the way people think. After hearing about one such theory from visiting doctoral student Hao Liang from Tilburg University, Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

16 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

At the Center of Corporate Scandal Where Do We Go From Here?

Harvard Business School Dean Kim B. Clark made these remarks to the National Press Club on February 26.What I'd like to do is talk about a topic that I think touches the very heart of our society: the issue of corporate misconduct and the... View Details

Keywords: by Kim B. Clark

08 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

How Newspaper Closures Open the Door to Corporate Crime

study the effect local press coverage has on firm behavior, Heese relied on Violation Tracker, which traces corporate violations and penalties from 44 federal regulatory agencies. The team looked at 26,450 violations at more than 10,000... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

June 2023
Teaching Note

Komatsu and Smart Construction

By: David J. Collis

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-042. The case describes the introduction by Komatsu, the Japanese earth moving equipment manufacturer, of a new business model—Smart Construction. This replaces the one-time sale of a capital good with a software platform that... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technology Adoption; Construction Industry