Publications

Read Now

June 1998 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

Chemalite, Inc. (B): Cash Flow Analysis

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Davila

Teaching Note for (9-195-130). View Details

Keywords: Execution; Management Control Systems; Cash Flow Analysis; Profit Planning; Strategy

March 2000 (Revised April 2017)
Teaching Note

The Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (A) and (B)

By: Robert Simons and Indra A. Reinbergs

Teaching Note for (9-199-044) and (9-100-044). View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Strategy And Execution; Compensation; Performance Measures

October 2002 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

DIENA

By: Robert Simons and Indra Reinbergs

Teaching Note for (102-001) View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization Design; Implementing Strategy; Pulp and Paper Industry; Publishing Industry; Latvia

June 2010
Article

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Management; Standards; Employees; Wages; Organizations; Profit; Safety; Health; Policy

Find at Harvard

Read Now

Article

Administrative Costs Associated with Physician Billing and Insurance-Related Activities at an Academic Health Care System

By: Phillip Tseng, Robert S. Kaplan, Barak D. Richman, Mahek A. Shah and Kevin A. Schulman

The federal government mandated adoption of certified electronic health record systems (EHR), at least in part, to reduce administrative costs for physicians. This study used time-driven activity-based costing to determine the administrative costs associated with... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Insurance; Problems and Challenges

Find at Harvard

December 1997 (Revised May 2017)
Teaching Note

Kidder, Peabody & Co.: Creating Elusive Profits

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Dávila

Teaching Note for (9-197-038). View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Internal Controls; Risk Management; Risk And Uncertainty; Risk Assessment; Profit

November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 8: Linking Performance to Markets

This module reading shows how to link profit plans and other performance measurement systems to both internal and external markets. Starting with the transfer of goods and services within a firm, the module discusses the different methods of designing transfer pricing... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Transfer Pricing; Activity Based Costing; Return On Investment; Residual Income; EVA; Strategy; Cost Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Markets; Investment Return

16 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research, May 16

sharing system recording employees’ creative work—a control system often used to promote local experimentation—on the quality of creative work, job engagement, and financial... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

Web

Systems Change Forum | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Systems Change: Lessons from the Field On December 4-5, 2023, fifty leading practitioners, academics and funders gathered on the HBS campus to discuss their experiences in addressing some of today’s largest and most complex social... View Details

June 2010 (Revised January 2017)
Teaching Note

Continental Media Group: Business Highlights

Teaching Note for 110087. View Details

Keywords: Execution; Management Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Informal Management; Emergent Strategy; Management; Profit; System; Opportunities; Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Simons is currently studying how executives make their businesses more competitive using innovative structural designs and performance measurement systems. He has a number of ongoing research projects on this topic, and teaches MBA and executive education... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Execution; Organization Design; Management Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Competitiveness

November 1997 (Revised April 2017)
Teaching Note

Compagnie du Froid, S.A.

By: Robert Simons, Antonio Dávila, Kathryn Rosenberg and Jennifer Packard

Teaching Note for (9-197-085). View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Strategy And Execution; Variance Analysis; Performance Measurement; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe

09 Jun 2015
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Social Media

different insights into developing and executing a successful social media strategy. Brand Manager's Guide to Losing Control Social media platforms have taken some of the marketing power away from companies and given it to consumers. Jill... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Advertising

August 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 1: Managing Organizational Tensions

This module reading lays the foundation for executing strategy using performance measurement and control systems. Properly applied, these systems can overcome the organizational blocks that impede the potential of all people who work in modern organizations. This... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Performance Measurement; Profit Planning; Organization Design; Profitable Growth; Management Attention; Organizational Conflict; Human Behavior; Strategy; Ethics; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Design; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

07 Jul 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: Historical Roots of Globalization

of convergence can be hard for people and countries to support, though, and over time can mount into an anti-globalization backlash. Globalization today faces a legitimacy crisis that has been unfolding for the past decade, a product largely of financial View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

30 Jun 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: The Role of Business Leaders in Sustaining Market Capitalism

for entrepreneurial businesses to market products/services to low-income people, providing a new source of profits and benefitting society. Greater emphasis is needed on employees and the human systems within business. The public and... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

17 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Harvard Business School Faculty Comment on Crisis in Japan

lean inventories and just in time deliveries, there is not a lot of slack in the system to act as a buffer. This disaster promises to be quite a test. Consider, for example, Shin-Etsu Handotai, one of the world's leading producers of the... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

March 2011 (Revised April 2021)
Case

The Whiz Kids

By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen

In October 1945, Henry Ford II received a telegram in his office at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan written by Charles "Tex" Thornton, a U.S. Air Force colonel. The telegram presented an opportunity for Ford to deploy a system of statistical control which... View Details

Keywords: Ford Motor Company; Statistical Control; Management Systems; Accounting; Operations; Strategy; Mathematical Methods; Auto Industry; United States

Educators