Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,246)
- Faculty Publications (471)
- March 2016
- Article
An Analysis of Firms' Self-reported Anticorruption Efforts
By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim
We use Transparency International's ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts for 480 corporations to analyze factors underlying the ratings. Our tests examine whether these forms of disclosure reflect firms' real efforts to combat corruption or are cheap talk.... View Details
- January 2016
- Case
COFCO
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
In 2015, COFCO, China's state-owned agribusiness giant, was working to protect China's food security (a key national security priority) by extending its control of the global food system through overseas acquisitions. At the same time, COFCO sought to grow its market... View Details
Keywords: China; Consumer Products; Commodities; Commodity Trading; Grain Trade; Globalization; Internationalization; Mergers And Acquisitions; Foreign Acquisitions; COFCO; Frank Ning; Gaoning; Nidera; Noble; Competition; Branded Products; Food; Markets; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Policy; Trade; Goods and Commodities; Food and Beverage Industry; China
- 2015
- Working Paper
Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting
By: Erik Stafford
Private equity funds tend to select relatively small firms with low EBITDA multiples. Publicly traded equities with these characteristics have high risk-adjusted returns after controlling for common factors typically associated with value stocks. Hold-to-maturity... View Details
- December 2015
- Background Note
Incentive Systems
By: Brian J. Hall
This note serves as a supplement to any course on incentive design within organizations. The note focuses on the principal difficulties in designing incentive systems, including the tradeoff between objective and subjective performance metrics, how to design incentive... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Self-Interest: The Economist's Straitjacket
By: Robert Simons
This paper examines contemporary economic theories that focus on the design and management of business organizations. In the first part of the paper, a taxonomy is presented that describes the different types of economists interested in this subject—market economists,... View Details
Keywords: Self-interest; Economist; Moral Philosophers; Regulation; Capture; Organization Design; Economy Theory; Organization Theory; Management Theory; Commitment; Controls; Governance; Customers; Conflict of Interests; Business or Company Management; Competition; Organizational Design; Business Education; Agency Theory; Economics; Theory; Boundaries
- October 2015 (Revised August 2019)
- Background Note
Higher Education in China: Internationalization in Turbulent Times
By: William C. Kirby, Joycelyn W. Eby and Yuanzhuo Wang
The rapid growth in quantity and quality of universities in China since 1978 is the most recent evolution in a long history of higher education. From as early as the Tang Dynasty, academies existed to prepare scholars for the civil service examination, but by the... View Details
- October 2015
- Article
How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies
By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann
The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
How Leaders Use Values-based Guidance Systems to Create Dynamic Capabilities
How do strategic leaders create change-adept organizations? Based on qualitative field research, this chapter argues that well-defined institutionalized purpose, values, and principles act as an organizational guidance system that integrates and strengthens the... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Stability, Strategy-Proofness, and Cumulative Offer Mechanisms
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Westkamp
We consider the setting of many-to-one matching with contracts, where firms may
demand multiple contracts but each worker desires at most one contract. We introduce
three novel conditions—observable substitutability, observable size monotonicity,... View Details
- Article
Real Effects of Relational Contracts
By: Steven Blader, Claudine Gartenberg, Rebecca Henderson and Andrea Pratt
How important are factors such as "firm culture" and "employee engagement" in driving firm performance? Increasing evidence from a wide range of fields suggests that productivity differs widely across firms, even after the inclusion of careful controls for factors such... View Details
- Article
Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization
By: Shoshana Zuboff
This article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the networked sphere, 'surveillance capitalism,' and considers its implications for 'information civilization.' The institutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google Inc. are the... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
The Heat Is On: Emerging Ecosystems in the Thermostat Industry
By: David Collis and Ashley Hartman
Beth Wozniak, President of Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls (ECC) at Honeywell International Inc., spun around in her office chair, reflecting about how the classic, mature thermostat industry was rapidly evolving. In February 2014, Google paid $3.2... View Details
Keywords: Honeywell; Thermostats; Internet Of Things; Smart Thermostats; Google; Nest; Apple; HomeKit; SmartThings; Partnerships; Platforms And Ecosystems; Linkages; Communication Protocols; Strategy; Technology; Home Automation; Connected Home; Buildings and Facilities; Energy; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Partners and Partnerships; Manufacturing Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Energy Industry; Electronics Industry; Consumer Products Industry
- 2015
- Chapter
Optimal Process Control of Symbolic Transfer Functions
By: Christopher Griffin and Elisabeth Paulson
Transfer function modeling is a standard technique in classical Linear Time Invariant and Statistical Process Control. The work of Box and Jenkins was seminal in developing methods for identifying parameters associated with classical (r, s, k) transfer functions.... View Details
- December 2014
- Article
Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance
By: Mercedes Delgado, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in regional industry performance. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry within a region may be declining in... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised June 2015)
- Case
Quiet Logistics (A)
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details
Keywords: Strategy Execution; Strategic Uncertainty; Disruptive Change; Managing Growth; Robotics; Disruptive Technology; Managing Start-ups; Management Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Distribution Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- October 2014
- Supplement
Quiet Logistics (B)
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details
Keywords: Strategy Execution; Strategic Uncertainties; Managing Growth; Disruptive Change; Robotics; Disruptive Technologies; Managing Start-ups; Management Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Distribution Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling
By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall
With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Scheduling; Local Autonomy; Automation; Metrics; Organizational Change; Human Resource Management; Process Improvement; Performance Measurement; Transparency; Southern United States; Retailing; Department Stores; System Outsourced Services; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Change Management; Governance Controls; Resource Allocation; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Applications and Software; Family Business; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- 2014
- Working Paper
Hidden Substitutes
By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers
In this paper, we show that preferences exhibiting some forms of complementarity
in fact have an underlying substitutable structure. Specifically, we show that some
preferences that are not substitutable in the setting of many-to-one matching with
contracts become... View Details
- August 2014
- Case
Three Jays Corporation
By: Paul Marshall and Mark Davis
Brodie Arens is an MBA student and summer intern at Three Jays Corporation, a jam and jelly manufacturer in Michigan. Brodie's first assignment as an intern is to update the inventory and production planning system. Initially, he begins by updating the Economic Order... View Details
- June 2014 (Revised March 2017)
- Teaching Note
Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This is the teaching note for Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers (HBS No. 113-001) View Details