Publications

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September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling

By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall

With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details

December 2017
Case

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Sarah Mehta

It is July 2017, and Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is making progress toward two of his primary strategic objectives for the nonprofit research Institute: 1) to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Technologies; Youth Unemployment; Innovation In Nonprofits; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Cash Flow; Labor; Employment; Commercialization; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Nigeria

13 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Do Private Equity Buyouts Get a Bad Rap?

show the buyout’s effect. In the end, they were left with 9,800 firms bought out between 1980 and 2013 and were able to follow 6,000 firms with a high-enough confidence to determine outcomes. Stark differences When they finally sorted... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services; Banking

01 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

First Minutes are Critical in New-Employee Orientation

Please fit in accordingly. But research suggests that employee orientation ought to be less about the company and more about the employee. In their paper "Breaking Them In or Revealing Their Best? Reframing Socialization around Newcomers' Self-expression," published in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Web Services; Service; Telecommunications

Research Summary

Social Innovation

My intellectual agenda addresses this question: How to innovate to solve the world’s toughest challenges? Out of the earth’s population, about 2 billion can afford good products whereas the remaining 5 billion are poor and therefore are nonconsumers.... View Details

30 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a Second Date

learning algorithm, natural-language-processing software to analyze the speed dating conversations. For the third study, armed with their algorithm, they examined data from a 2013 Stanford speed dating study called Detecting friendly,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

18 Dec 2013
HBS Case

Lessons from the Lance Armstrong Cheating Scandal

tarnishing the entire sport of professional cycling. When Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey in January 2013 that he had "doped"—taken performance-enhancing drugs—to win his record seven consecutive Tour de France victories... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports

September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Algramo

By: Michael Chu, Monica Silva and Mariana Cal

Founded in 2013 by José Manuel Moller in Chile, Algramo first became known for addressing the “poverty tax” (the surcharge paid by lower income families for staples sold in smaller sizes) through specially-designed dispensers in low-income neighborhood grocery stores... View Details

Keywords: Packaging-as-a-wallet; Plastic Waste; Business At The Base Of The Pyramid; Reusable Packaging; Alliances With FMCGs To Meet ESG Goals; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Value Creation; Goals and Objectives; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Latin America; South America; Chile

11 Jul 2016
HBS Case

Neurodiversity: The Benefits of Recruiting Employees with Cognitive Disabilities

Specialisterne almost implies a seal of approval, offering reassurance for companies worried about accusations of exploiting a vulnerable population, Austin says. Anka Wittenberg, SAP’s head of diversity and inclusion, was so impressed by Ferose’s effort that in View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Technology

13 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Company Reviews on Glassdoor: Petty Complaints or Signs of Potential Misconduct?

such as violation history or financial leverage. In fact, those indicators rose and fell with remarkable consistency as violations occurred. “When we looked at Wells Fargo relative to the average in the banking industry, we could see it rise and then spike from 2009 to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

29 Aug 2018
What Do You Think?

What Should Harley-Davidson’s Management Do?

tax cut in 2017 he did it by visiting Harley-Davidson’s facilities in his home state of Wisconsin. The Company had not performed well in recent years. By 2017, its profits were $521 million on revenues of about $5.6 billion; both figures were below View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Auto

16 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Taking on the Taboos That Keep Women Out of India's Workforce

work less.” Empowerment through financial access Conducted in partnership with state and bank authorities, the study, which took place from 2013 to 2017, looked at 5,851 married couples in 197 villages in the northern India state of... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

July 2021
Article

Medical Debt in the U.S., 2009–2020

By: Raymond Kluender, Neale Mahoney, Francis Wong and Wesley Yin

Importance: Medical debt is an increasing concern in the US, yet there is limited understanding of the amount and distribution of medical debt, and its association with health care policies.

Objective: To measure the amount of medical debt nationally and by... View Details

Keywords: Debt; Borrowing and Debt; Health Care and Treatment; United States

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March 2015
Case

BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm

By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White

BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.

In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Accelerator; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Strategy