Quality - Publications - Faculty & Research

08 Jan 2001
What Do You Think?

Have We Extended the Boundaries of the Firm Too Far?

competitors. Are there limits to boundaryless behavior? If carried too far, can it result in loss of control over the quality of goods and services delivered by the supply chain? Can reliance on others for innovation lead to the neglect... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

30 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 30

Michael W. Toffel Publication:Organization Science (forthcoming) Abstract Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: “The Architecture of Innovation”

level. Yet the corporation's senior management and human resource professionals resisted changing the scheme, pointing out the high quality of junior hires that the firm was making. It was not until 2009 that the firm's management agreed... View Details

Keywords: by Josh Lerner; Financial Services

19 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail

example of a hospital patient who consistently refused to follow medical orders, gave all the doctors bad reviews in customer surveys regardless of quality of care, and eventually threatened to strip naked in the hospital lobby and threw... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

12 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

What Brands Can Do to Monitor Factory Conditions of Suppliers

how to gauge the quality of an audit, or how to find factories with better performance records before spending millions of dollars in a country. On the other hand, if companies are committed to staying with their suppliers and helping... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

14 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 14

Abstract This paper provides a simple model of platforms with direct network effects, in which users value not just the quantity (i.e., number) of other users who join, but also their average quality in some dimension. A monopoly platform... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Spirit at Work: The Search for Deeper Meaning in the Workplace

people to communicate better and express their feelings. We've had the total quality movement and the move toward creating teams and the high-commitment workplace. I see what's going on today as simply a reiteration of these previous... View Details

Keywords: by Marguerite Rigoglioso

14 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Reforming New Orleans Schools After Katrina

quality when networks of schools cooperate with each other. When school districts work well, they create these scale advantages; when they do not work well, they are cumbersome bureaucracies. Because of the number of independent charter... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Education

10 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 10, 2007

with managerial relevance. There has been, however, a concern that business schools are increasingly uncoupled from practice and that business school research lacks real world relevance. This relevance-rigor gap affects the quality of our... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

Minimum Wage Hikes Drive (Lousy) Restaurants Out of Business

It is often not as granular as researchers would like; for example, it may provide data by county, rather than by city or at the business level, and it may not include all the variables researchers are interested in, such as quality and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

02 Oct 2008
What Do You Think?

Workout vs. Bailout: Should Government Take Advantage of the Buffett Effect?

sheet value, the outcome of which can mean life or death to an institution. And it's a short step to a loss of trust that people can repay what they borrow and the resulting unwillingness to lend cash, regardless of how much you have or the View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

29 May 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is the “Service Sector Effect” on Productivity?

quality of life or social costs that have to be shared by everyone? Or are the social costs more than offset by the beneficial creation of jobs, the stimulation of consumption that leads to more job creation, and lower unemployment?... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Service

05 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

VCs Survey Post-Bubble Opportunities

technical expertise, said Kapoor. A sense of timing and a good marketing instinct are two qualities at a premium in today's market. "It's not about specialization," said Reiss. "It's about quickly figuring out new trends... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Hanna; Financial Services

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

When Reputation Trumps Regulation

built a reputation for good governance through the Mexico crisis of 1994-95 enjoyed privileged access to finance over the course of the 1990s. This positive reputation can be identified even after controlling for the underlying quality of... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

04 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

RealNetworks, CNET, and Judo Strategy

"what's most important is the strategy and how it's executed. The people who concentrate on creating a true quality experience for users and advertisers will be successful." View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Depression or Euphoria? Navigating the Market’s Mood Swings

The financial field may be permanently changed by the explosive ups and downs of the tech sector, but old standards of quality and planning will still make or break new businesses, HBS professor Howard H. Stevenson said. In his keynote... View Details

Keywords: by Carrie Levine

09 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

For Better Ideas, Bring the Right People to the Brainstorm

with better ideas? When Koning and Hasan examined the ideas based on the personalities of those who generated them, they found that all else being equal, open and closed individuals generated about the same number and quality of ideas.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

07 Aug 2017
Research & Ideas

'Be Yourself (Within Reason)' and Other Job Search Survival Tips

compared to other fields in academia, it’s still a golden era for graduating students. Accounting remains an incredibly popular undergraduate major, so there continues to be demand for quality teachers. “It helps to think of these... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Accounting; Education

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Can Obamacare Be Saved?

quality or prices for consumers. Such mergers reduce competition in the insurance market, ultimately dampening much-needed innovation. What’s more, there’s no requirement or expectation that any savings from synergies generated from the... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch and Emily Boudreau; Insurance; Health

06 Aug 2014
What Do You Think?

What Is Warren Bennis’s Legacy?

optimistic, looking forward, and learning. They exhibited what is described by the word, "neoteny," the retention of youthful qualities by adults. (It helps explain why Bennis included himself in the sample of persons studied as... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

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