Publications

May 2004 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Enron Odyssey (A), The: The Special Purpose of "SPEs"

The board has asked Ron Tolbert, an employee in the Risk Assessment and Control Group, to analyze three SPE transactions executed by Enron executives: the Destec, Rhythms, and Fishtail/Bacchus transactions, which were prominently featured in the Examiner's Report in... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Financial Instruments; Analysis; Accounting; Financial Strategy; Energy Industry

2017
Working Paper

Business and Green Knowledge Production in Sweden 1960s–1980s

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Kristina Söderholm

This working paper contributes to the burgeoning historical literature that has transformed our understanding about the relationship between big business and the environmental regulation. Previously, it was believed that corporate managers resisted the extra costs... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Research and Development; History; Sweden

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January 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Jiamei Dental: Private Health Care in China

By: William C. Kirby and G.A. Donovan

With the recent announcement from the Chinese government that the country's healthcare system was going to undergo reform, Jiamei Dental Chairman Liu Jia wondered what that meant for his 15 year-old dental clinic business. Founded in 1993, Jiamei Dental Medical... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Expansion; Health Industry; China

May 2006
Case

Esterline Technologies: Lean Manufacturing

By: Richard L. Nolan, Karen A. Brown and Subodha Kumar

Raises the issue of the appropriate role of IT in lean manufacturing. Most large manufacturing companies have implemented ERP IT systems to support lean manufacturing practices. The Kerry plant of Esterline Technologies attempted an ERP implementation and then... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Technological Innovation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Systems; Production; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Manufacturing Industry

November 1984 (Revised March 1999)
Case

Mayers Tap, Inc. (C)

Mayers Tap, Inc. has decided to redesign its cost system. In this case it uses three different cost center designs to determine how the new system should be designed. Students are asked to drop unprofitable products under the three scenarios and explain the effects on... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Management Systems

July 2001
Case

Bobbie D'Alessandro and the Redesign of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School

By: Linda A. Hill, Kristin Doughty and Ellen Pruyne

Bobbi D'Alessandro, the superintendent of the school system in Cambridge, MA, has just hired a new principal to lead a major redesign effort in the city's only high school. The need for reform had been evident since the late 1980s when school statistics highlighted... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Performance Improvement; Change Management; Secondary Education; Selection and Staffing; Leading Change; Education Industry; Cambridge

19 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

An Invitation to Market Design

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Keywords: by Scott Duke Kominers, Alexander Teytelboym, and Vincent P. Crawford

October 24, 2018
Article

End the Corporate Health Care Tax

By: Mark R. Kramer and John Pontillo

Imagine if a single piece of legislation could effectively eliminate all U.S. corporate taxes, subsidize hundreds of millions of dollars in new corporate investment, increase the take-home pay of most U.S. employees, ease state and local budgets, and reduce the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Taxation; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Taxation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

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2017
Working Paper

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

N.S.B. Gras, the father of Business History in the United States, argued that the era of mercantile capitalism was defined by the figure of the “sedentary merchant,” who managed his business from home, using correspondence and intermediaries, in contrast to the earlier... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; History; Business History

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July 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Case

Washington Hospital Center (B): The Power of Insight

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Michelle Heskett

Dr. Craig Feied considers how to take a major technical innovation beyond his own department into a large hospital system. Reviews how proprietary information systems became indispensable in the department of emergency medicine and what it took to introduce the change... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Medical Specialties; Organizational Culture; Crisis Management; Technological Innovation; Higher Education; Adoption; Health Industry; District of Columbia

12 Jun 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Triumph of the Humble Chief Risk Officer

Keywords: by Anette Mikes

March 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Teaching Note

The TELUS Share Conversion Proposal

By: Lucy White and Benjamin C. Esty

On February 21, 2013, TELUS announced a proposal to convert the firm's non-voting shares into voting shares on a one-to-one basis, thereby eliminating the firm's dual class structure. Shareholders were scheduled to vote on the proposal at the firm's annual general... View Details

September 1991 (Revised February 1993)
Case

Burroughs Wellcome and AZT (A)

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Burroughs Wellcome Co., developer of AZT, the first drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), finds itself under siege in September 1989 by AIDS activists and various segments of the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Communication Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Monopoly; Intellectual Property; Research and Development; Price; Pharmaceutical Industry; London

Winter 2019
Article

Value-based Health Care: Lessons for the Anesthesiologist

By: J.A. Martin, B.L. Potter, T.F. Flanagan and T.W. Feeley

At one point or another in our life, we all become consumers of the health care industry. Indeed, health care affects everyone and encompasses a diverse set of services from childbirth, to illness prevention, to the management of chronic disease and end-of-life care.... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Health Care; Anesthesiologists; Health Care and Treatment; Value; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry; United States

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April 2013
Article

Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner

By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

More and more organizations are turning to crowds for help in solving their most vexing innovation and research questions, but managers remain understandably cautious. It seems risky and even unnatural to push problems out to vast groups of strangers distributed around... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Research and Development

2009
Article

Running Out of Numbers: Scarcity of IP Addresses and What To Do About It

By: Benjamin Edelman

The Internet's current numbering system is nearing exhaustion: Existing protocols allow only a finite set of computer numbers ("IP addresses"), and central authorities will soon deplete their supply. I evaluate a series of possible responses to this shortage: Sharing... View Details

Keywords: Internet; Performance Capacity; Technology Networks; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Policy; Price; Information Technology Industry

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May 2004 (Revised May 2006)
Case

AsiaInfo: The IPO Decision

The cofounder and CEO of AsiaInfo, a Chinese system integrator that built 70% of China's Internet backbone, must decide whether to list equity in the United States to fund future growth. Describes the company and the decision. A rewritten version of a previous case. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Equity; Information Technology Industry; China; United States