Business Improvement - Publications - Faculty & Research

03 Nov 2011
What Do You Think?

The Ultimate Question in Management

on their choice of "How likely is it you would recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question. Fred Reichheld put it this way in describing the question behind the question: "our candidate for the ultimate question in View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Aug 2008
What Do You Think?

Has the Time Come for “Stretch” in Management?

extraordinary goals higher than those thought achievable for the coming year. It was to set outlandish, almost unthinkable goals that business groups might achieve in the longer-run. For example, instead of striving for an inventory... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 May 2005
What Do You Think?

Where is Consumer Generated Marketing Taking Us?

becomes a source of incremental improvements whereas anything revolutionary could only come during the 'breaks' in the dialogue." And Caleb DeGrenier commented that "companies still need to surprise the market with innovative... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Negotiation is Like Jazz

exchange—think of this as learning how to read music and play true, clear notes. You can improve your improvisation skills by learning how to recognize, convey, and seek out three types of information: Relational information, which... View Details

Keywords: by Kathleen L. McGinn

25 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 25

Download working paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20667 Multi-Sided Platforms By: Hagiu, Andrei, and Julian Wright Abstract—We study the economic tradeoffs that drive organizations to position themselves closer to or further away from a multi-sided platform (MSP)... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

03 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Lehman Brothers Plus Five: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?

system is in better shape. Professors Victoria Ivashina, David Scharfstein, and Arthur Segel, all members of the Harvard Business School Finance Unit, examine the current state of affairs. victoria Ivashina Is the US financial system in... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Banking; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

19 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?

Kenneth A. Froot spends more time thinking about natural disasters than the average business school professor. In addition to the rise and fall of the Dow and the long-term implications of the financial crisis in Greece, he has natural... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Financial Services

09 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 9

Ownership of Equity Improve Earnings Quality? Authors:Dan Givoly, Carla Hayn, and Sharon P. Katz Publication:The Accounting Review (forthcoming) Abstract We compare the quality of accounting numbers produced by two types of public... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

The Curse of Double-Digit Growth

and their clients," government expansion did little to improve the country's infrastructure or political capacity. Overall, the double-digit fraternity exhibited a worse performance on every indicator of the quality of the View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

28 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 28, 2008

improvements will be exhibited by those shamed firms that face lower-cost opportunities to improve—-and thus are particularly able to respond. We take advantage of a natural experiment, when a major social rating agency expanded the scope... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

16 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Has Apple Reinvented the Watch?

product's projected launch date next year). Will the Apple Watch reinvent wearables the way the iPhone did smartphones? What do those inside the watch industry think of it? For answers, we turned to Harvard Business School Assistant... View Details

Keywords: Re: Ryan L. Raffaelli; Electronics; Retail; Health

04 Jun 2014
What Do You Think?

Does Internet Technology Threaten Brand Loyalty?

technologies have brought us into a new age of international relations, but they have profound implications for the way we do business as well. For example, a question has arisen about how information both about us and available to us... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Advertising; Consumer Products; Technology

12 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

The Unexpected Link Between Cadavers and Careers

explains Michel Anteby, an associate professor in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School who cowrote the paper with Filiz Garip of Harvard University, Paul V. Martorana of Wagner College, and Scott Lozanoff of the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education; Health

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

corporate America ever win back people's confidence? Harvard Management Update recently discussed this issue with Thomas R. Piper, Lawrence E. Fouraker Professor of Business Administration at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

23 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 23

reinterpretation of ideas related to agency conflicts and a holistic view of corporate financial strategy that examines payout and capital structure decisions jointly. Download working paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2535675 Cases &... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

13 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Humblebragging’ is a Bad Strategy, Especially in a Job Interview

generous to them” Humblebragging runs rampant on Twitter, but it turns out to be a lousy self-promotion tactic, especially in business situations such as job interviews, according to recent research by Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

25 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How Chapter 11 Saved the US Economy

It's no surprise that Harvard Business School professor Stuart C. Gilson gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the recently announced $11 billion US Airways/American Airlines merger. The deal, which came after American's parent company, AMR... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

23 May 2011
Op-Ed

Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society

Editor's note: Please see related story, Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It's Effective. To what extent companies contribute to a sustainable society is a question increasingly important, not only to the companies themselves, but also to investors, the countries... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & George Serafeim

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Market for Babies

"It is difficult to conceive of a child as commerce," writes Harvard Business School professor Debora L. Spar in her new book, The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. In fact, baby... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Psychology, Pathology, and the CEO

financial and strategic decision making. But along the way, I also noted another important aspect of this leadership task, a related line of effort that seemed to go largely unnoticed and unstudied by observers but that was just as vital to View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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