Publications

September 1994 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Chemalite, Inc. (B): Cash Flow Analysis

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Davila

Students are asked to use actual and pro forma financial statements to prepare a statement of cash flows under both the direct and indirect method. View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow Analysis; Strategy Execution; Management Control Systems; Analysis; Cash Flow; Financial Statements

Educators

December 2016
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 10: Using the Job Design Optimization Tool to Build Effective Organizations

By: Robert Simons

This module reading provides directions for using the online Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT) which is available free of charge from Harvard Business School Publishing at https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/resources/marketing/multimedia/JDOT/index.html. This tool can... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Span Of Control; Span Of Accountability; Performance Measurement; Job Design; Organization Design; Strategy; Entrepreneurship

Web

Accounting & Management - Doctoral

Aiyesha Dey Jonas Heese Joseph Pacelli Ethan C. Rouen Suraj Srinivasan Yuan Zou Financial statement analysis Suraj Srinivasan Management accounting & control systems Dennis Campbell Robert Simons Managerial... View Details

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

September 2009
Case

The Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, Inc.

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Stephen P. Bradley and Natalie Kindred

Through its uniquely proactive approach to medical malpractice risk management, the Risk Management Foundation (RMF) has decreased claims—and premiums—for the Harvard hospitals it insures. The RMF is the captive medico-legal insurer of the Harvard medical institutions... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Risk Management; Performance Improvement; Safety; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; Boston

Educators

2 PM – 3 PM EST, 02 Dec 2015
Webinars: Trending@HBS

Managing Family Strife: Market Baskets Lessons about Buyouts

You'd have to have been sleeping under a rock to miss the family war and media frenzy over Market Basket, the Boston-based, family-owned supermarket chain. The confrontation between two cousins (both named Arthur Demoulas) over control of the company was finally... View Details

2008
Working Paper

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

As the main producers of managerial elites, business schools represent strategic research sites for understanding the formation of economic practices and representations. This article draws on historical material to analyze the changing place of economics in American... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Business Education; Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Chicago

02 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best

ensure that the casinos' best customers return to play another day. “It's not absolute freedom—it's freedom within a framework" —Francisco de Asís Martinez-Jerez And it turns out that casino hosts are ideal subjects to gain insight into an ongoing question debated for... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Entertainment & Recreation

March 2004
Article

How Do You Stop the Books From Being Cooked? A Management Control Perspective on Financial Accounting Standard Setting and the Section 404 Requirement of the Sarbanes/Oxley Act

By: S. Datar and M. G. Alles

Keywords: Governance Controls; Accounting; Standards

Web

Accounting & Management - Faculty & Research

Accounting & Management Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students July 2025 Case Microsoft’s Performance Across Three CEOs By: George Serafeim This case traces Microsoft’s evolution from its... View Details

2012
Teaching Note

Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd. (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang

With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details

Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Management Controls; China; China

June 2010 (Revised April 2017)
Teaching Note

Pfizer: Letter from the Chairman (A) and (B)

By: Robert Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

Teaching Note for 110003 and 110004. View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Strategy And Execution; Performance Measurement; Pharmaceutical Industry

August 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 2: Building a Successful Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading describes the basics of building a successful strategy. Topics in this module include a discussion of the distinction between corporate and business strategy; how to conduct a SWOT analysis of market dynamics and internal capabilities; the use of... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Business Strategy; Five Forces; Distinctive Capabilities; Emergent Strategy; Mission Statements; Strategy; SWOT Analysis; Competitive Advantage

05 Mar 2008
What Do You Think?

Where Will Management Innovation Take Us?

transparency and communities it has spawned, new attitudes toward work and the way it is performed, and global competition and cooperation, much of it fostered by the Internet. But will these forces outweigh the natural tendency of those in View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

October 1997 (Revised March 2000)
Case

Oxford Health Plans: Specialty Management (A)

By: James L. Heskett, Jody H. Gittell and James Slayton

Describes an innovative approach to organizing health care proposed by Oxford CEO Steve Wiggins. Wiggins contends that the primary care physician "gatekeeper" model typically used by health maintenance organizations to control access to and coordinate specialist care... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Groups and Teams; Innovation and Management; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Cooperation; Management Teams; Health Industry; United States

September 2011
Article

On Testing Business Models

By: D. Huelsbeck, K. Merchant and Tatiana Sandino

This study explored management decisions regarding formal empirical testing of business models. It documented a test of one company's business model under seemingly favorable conditions for such a test – a successful single product firm following a consistent strategy... View Details

Keywords: Performance Measurement; Non-financial Performance Measures; Business Models; Management Control; Decisions; Business Model; Performance Evaluation

SSRN

01 Mar 2023
News

The Exchange: Micro Management

randomized control studies started to emerge that all showed the same surprisingly lukewarm message about the impact of microfinance on livelihoods. Natalia Rigol: People expected to see shifts in household income, business growth, and... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance

October 1990
Article

Bankruptcy, Boards, Banks, and Blockholders: Evidence on Changes in Corporate Ownership and Control When Firms Default

By: S. C. Gilson

In 111 publicly traded firms that either file for bankruptcy or privately restructure their debt between 1979 and 1985, bank lenders frequently become major stockholders or appoint new directors. On average, only 46% of incumbent directors remain when bankruptcy or... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance; Banks and Banking; Change; Business Ventures; Ownership

Read Now

2020
Book

The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World

By: Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman

Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments—also known as randomized controlled trials—designed to test the impact of changes to an... View Details

Keywords: Experiments; Randomized Controlled Trials; Organizations; Decision Making; Analytics and Data Science; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques