Publications

09 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Industry Self-Regulation: What’s Working (and What’s Not)?

"Self-regulation" increasingly rings like a mantra in business. Just think of topics in the news over the past couple of months, such as the Italian fashion industry's move toward self-regulation to discourage the hiring of dangerously thin models. Or the Group of 7... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

August 2023
Background Note

Pricing and Customer Psychology

By: Elie Ofek

This note provides an overview of how psychological principles may be used as part of a seller’s pricing strategy. The note defines the concept of psychological pricing and explains the motivations for firms to engage in it. Prominent practices and tactics, with... View Details

Keywords: Price; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior

February 1991 (Revised April 1994)
Background Note

Value of Information

By: David E. Bell

Gives some simple examples to illustrate the concept of the value of information in decision making. Both perfect and imperfect information are considered. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge; Value; Decision Making

2007
Book

A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics: What Managers, Executives, and Students Need to Know

By: David A. Moss

Now more than ever before, executives and managers need to understand their larger economic context. In The Concise Guide to Macroeconomics, David Moss leverages his many years of teaching experience at Harvard Business School to lay out important macroeconomic... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Money; Investment; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

Professor Raffaelli's research focuses on the concept of reinvention. This work examines how organizations and leaders manage processes of innovation adoption, institutional change, and cognitive framing. View Details

03 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Creating Leaders: An Ontological Model

Keywords: by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen & Kari L. Granger

June 2005
Tutorial

Prematriculation Financial Accounting Tutorial/Module

By: David F. Hawkins, Paul M. Healy and Ratna G. Sarkar

The Financial Accounting course is an introduction to the fundamental concepts of financial accounting in a management context. The course describes the business activities for Global Grocer, a small retail franchise specializing in gourmet foods and specialty kitchen... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Performance; Financial Statements

October 2010
Background Note

Family Corporate Governance: A Brief Literature Review

By: Lena G. Goldberg and David Kiron

This note discusses competing theories of governance in family owned firms and focuses on agency theory, stewardship theory, and the sociological concept of embeddedness. View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Managerial Roles; Family Ownership; Theory

January 2009 (Revised November 2009)
Background Note

Adult Life Stages

By: John A. Davis

This note describes basic concepts of adult life stage theory and summarizes Daniel Levinson's research findings on the adult development of men and women. View Details

Keywords: Transition; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture; Gender

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April 2002
Background Note

Note on Minority Interest

This case provides a brief introduction to the concept of minority interest and the issues that it gives rise to in valuation of firms. View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Investment; Business and Shareholder Relations

September 2016 (Revised August 2018)
Supplement

United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying?: Case Supplement #1

By: Ryan W. Buell, Willy C. Shih and Michael W. Toffel

This spreadsheet supplement accompanies 617-010 United Airlines: More Out-and-Back Flying? and is intended to provide students with an opportunity to apply analysis concepts with real operational data. View Details

Keywords: Service; Service Excellence; Service Management; Operating Systems; Operational Complexity; Operational Disruptions; Operational Efficiency; Operational Focus; Air Transportation; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Air Transportation Industry; United States

June 1984 (Revised April 1992)
Background Note

The Marketing Mix

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Reviews important concepts related to the marketing mix, and summarizes key relationships within the mix and between the mix and other parts of the company's marketing approach. View Details

Keywords: Marketing

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

Think back to recent events when people making unethical decisions grabbed the headlines. How did auditors approve the books of Enron and Lehman Brothers? How did feeder funds sell Bernard Madoff's invesments? We would never act as they did, we think. We operate under... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Nov 2011
News

A business class on what it takes to be a player

November 2005 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Understanding Economic Value Added

By: Mihir A. Desai, Fabrizio Ferri and Steve Treadwell

Explores the concept of economic value added (EVA) and its practical applications as a management control system for performance measurement and incentive compensation. Explains how EVA is measured and explores some of the adjustments to financial statements that are... View Details

Keywords: Value

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

Competitive advantage. Corporate strategy. The competitive advantage of nations. All over the world these terms quickly bring to mind the groundbreaking work of HBS professor Michael Porter, whose two decades of research on these and related topics have resulted in... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

August 1974 (Revised June 1975)
Background Note

Decision Analysis

Summary of the main concepts of (simple) decision trees--structuring a problem, assigning endpoint values, using probabilities, averaging out and folding back. Also treats risk profile. View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Decision Making

March 2015 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Behavioural Insights Team (A)

By: Michael Luca and Patrick Rooney

The Behavioural Insights Team case introduces students to the concept of choice architecture and the value of experimental methods (sometimes called A/B testing) within organizational contexts. The exercise provides an opportunity for students to apply these principles... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Experiments; Choice Architecture; Public Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Economics; Public Administration Industry; United Kingdom