Publications

15 Oct 2015
Blog Post

Why We Recruit: Medallia

Organization:Ursela Knezevic, University Programs, MBA Talent Outreach, Medallia Describe your organization in three to five sentences. Medallia is the fastest growing Customer Experience Management Company in the world. We give leading... View Details

Keywords: Technology

April 2008
Module Note

Improvement with Customer-Operators

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Customer Focus and Relationships; Framework; Employees; Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design

JAMES K. (“Jim”) SEBENIUS, is the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he founded the Negotiation unit and teaches advanced... View Details

April 2007
Case

Schibsted

By: Bharat N. Anand and Sophie Hood

In 2006, newspaper firms in developed markets were severely threatened on three fronts: the growth of online news, online classified advertising, and free newspapers. Schibsted, however, had managed to cope with these challenges successfully, and had become something... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Product Launch; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Adaptation; Competitive Advantage; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Scandinavia

March 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Will RacingThePlanet Ltd. Reach the Finish Line?

Mary Gadams, founder and CEO of RacingThePlanet is facing one of the many logistical crises that her young Hong Kong-based venture faces as it stages its popular 4Deserts(tm) adventure marathon series in Atacama Chile, Gobi Desert Mongolia, Sahara Desert Egypt, and... View Details

Keywords: Global Range; Business or Company Management; Logistics; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Hong Kong; Egypt; Mongolia; Chile; Antarctica

2009
Working Paper

Taking a 'Deep Dive': What Only a Top Leader Can Do

By: Howard H. Yu and Joseph L. Bower

Unlike most historical accounts of strategic change inside large firms, empirical research on strategic management rarely uses the day-to-day behaviors of top executives as the unit of analysis. By examining the resource allocation process closely, we introduce the... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Resource Allocation; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure

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2008
Chapter

Artistic Methods and Business Disorganization

The idea that artists' work can usefully inform business practice has gained support in recent years. Managers have long described some business activities as "more art than science," but usually they've meant by this that they don't understand the activity and can't... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Creativity

January 2006 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Bentington Industries

By: David Ager and John A. Davis

Describes the situation facing Paul Bentington, the president, CEO, and member of the owning family of BIND, PLC, a large and successful family-owned engineering consulting firm in London. Bentington's sister and brother, both of whom are owners of the firm, confront... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Leadership; Family Business; Management Succession; Conflict and Resolution; Diversity; London

30 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Earnings Quality and Ownership Structure: The Role of Private Equity Sponsors

Keywords: by Sharon P. Katz; Financial Services

04 Mar 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field

Keywords: by Timothy Gubler, Ian Larkin & Lamar Pierce; Service

January 1990 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Cray Research, Inc.: Preparing for the 1990s

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the major changes Cray Research faced from 1985 (the time of the original case) to 1990. The dramatic decision to divide the company into two separate firms sets the stage for an analysis of the major strategic and organizational challenges facing senior... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Systems; Change Management; Technology Adoption; Business Units; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology

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Speaker's Box, Journal of Advertising Research

“Speaker’s Box” invites academics and practitioners to identify potential areas of research affecting marketing and advertising. Its intention is to bridge the gap between the length... View Details

2008
Working Paper

Laws vs. Contracts: Legal Origins, Shareholder Protections, and Ownership Concentration in Brazil, 1890–1950

By: Aldo Musacchio

The early development of large multidivisional corporations in Latin America required much more than capable managers, new technologies, and large markets. Behind such corporations was a market for capital in which entrepreneurs had to attract investors to buy either... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Governance Controls; Contracts; Laws and Statutes; Ownership Stake; Brazil

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October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Herman Miller(B): Creating Innovation Streams

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

In 1997, Mike Volkema faced the difficulty of attempting to revitalize a once dynamic organization. Volkema wondered how he could incorporate advances made within subsidiaries, such as Miller SQA's business model innovation, into the company as a whole while also... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Product Design; Product Development; Product; Supply Chain Management; Business Model; Service Delivery; Customer Value and Value Chain; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

Research Summary

The Ownership of Deep Metaphors

By: Gerald Zaltman

Deep metaphors are basic orienting structures of human thought. They guide in subtle and overt ways how customers and managers process information about any product, service, or activity and event. It is essential for a firm to understand deep metaphors as they are... View Details

Winter 2021
Article

Can Staggered Boards Improve Value? Causal Evidence from Massachusetts

By: Robert Daines, Shelley Xin Li and Charles C.Y. Wang

We study the effect of staggered boards (SBs) using a quasi-experiment: a 1990 law that imposed an SB on all Massachusetts-incorporated firms. The law led to an increase in Tobin's Q, investment in CAPEX and R&D, patents, higher-quality patented innovations, and... View Details

Keywords: Staggered Board; Entrenchment; Life-cycle; Tobin's Q; Innovation; Profitability; Investor Composition; Governing and Advisory Boards; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Institutional Investing; Value

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Article

Investing in Distressed Situations: A Market Survey

By: S. C. Gilson

The risks of investing in distressed companies—a practice popularly known as "vulture" investing—are highly firm specific and idiosyncratic. Investors who are adept at managing these risks, who understand the legal rules that must be followed in corporate bankruptcy,... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Markets

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2025
Working Paper

CEO-Firm Matches and Productivity in 42 Countries

By: Amanda Dahlstrand, Dávid László, Helena Schweiger, Oriana Bandiera, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun

Firms are key to economic development, and CEOs are key to firm productivity. Are firms in countries at varying stages of development led by the right CEOs, and if not, why? We develop a parsimonious measure of CEO time use that allows us to differentiate CEOs into... View Details

Keywords: Training; Management Skills; Economic Growth; Leadership Development