Publications

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Compilation

Time Distribution and Interaction Patterns for PEARL Project Team: Work Patterns at Ditto (D)

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Provides data to enable students to analyze how software engineers spend their time. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Time Management; Work-Life Balance; Information Technology Industry

03 Dec 2014
What Do You Think?

Can the Brilliant Jerk Be Managed Effectively?

and some of the most successful projects in the world have been accomplished by 'jerks.'" Todd's comments prompt the questions: Have we failed to take appropriate notice of research and accumulated experiences that would help View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2007
Casebook

Managing School Districts for High Performance: Cases in Public Education Leadership

By: Stacey Childress, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman and Susan Moore Johnson

Managing School Districts for High Performance brings together more than twenty case studies and other readings that offer a powerful and transformative approach to advancing and sustaining the work of school improvement. At the center of this work is the... View Details

Keywords: Management; Strategy; Leadership; Public Sector; Organizational Design; Education; Performance Improvement

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20 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Survival’s Secret Sauce

The secret sauce of long-term business success can't be captured in numbers. As the operations manager of a leading and fast-growing Brazilian business recently explained to a reporter, "There's a secret sauce in this business [but] it's... View Details

11 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The High Risks of Short-Term Management

Companies that manage for short-term gain rather than long-term growth have been blamed for everything from popularizing celebrity CEOs to causing a significant chunk of the current financial crisis. Now new research findings suggest that... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

06 Oct 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID's Rising Waters

Since March, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge has posted more than 80 stories and research papers on the topic of COVID-19, most targeted at managers and the new challenges they face. That's a lot of information to digest. To... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and David Kiron

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faces a serious loss of knowledge--both because of the "faster, better, cheaper" mandate for Mars missions and from the retirement of key personnel. An extensive knowledge management system for NASA/JPL includes formal knowledge-capture... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership Development; Internet and the Web; Risk and Uncertainty; Organizational Culture; Retirement; Human Resources; Human Capital

1980
Article

R&D Performance as a Function of Internal Communication, Project Management, and the Nature of the Work

By: Thomas J. Allen, Denis M.S. Lee and Michael Tushman

Keywords: Research and Development; Performance; Communication; Projects; Management

Teaching Interest

Managing the Future of Work (MBA Education—Elective Curriculum)

By: Christopher T. Stanton

The nature and scope of work is changing rapidly, creating massive business challenges in the shadow of broader political and social shifts. HBS launched a major initiative in 2017 on Managing the Future of Work to define these workplace issues and... View Details

March 2007
Article

Authority, Risk, and Performance Incentives: Evidence from Division Manager Positions inside Firms

By: Julie Wulf

I show that performance incentives vary by decision-making authority of division managers. For division managers with broader authority, i.e., those designated as corporate officers, both the sensitivity of pay to global performance measures and the relative importance... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Globalization; Measurement and Metrics; Status and Position; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Divisions

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14 Oct 2021
In Practice

Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

School and a leader of the Managing the Future of Work Project and the Project on Workforce. Lakshmi Ramarajan: Don’t leave struggling workers behind Employers should remember... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

for natural gas, and to create derivative supply contracts that could help customers manage the risks of demand volatility and price swings more effectively than before. In this way, Skilling and his colleagues solved a major contracting... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

May 2021
Article

Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders: A Matter of Health and Well-Being

By: Lisa Rotenstein, Robert S. Huckman and Christine K. Cassel

The COVID-19 crisis has forced physicians to make daily decisions that require knowledge and skills they did not acquire as part of their biomedical training. Physicians are being called upon to be both managers—able to set processes and structures—and leaders—capable... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management; Leadership; Health Pandemics; Health Industry

March 2016
Case

Preparing a Concession Bid at TAV Airports Holding

By: C. Fritz Foley and Çiğdem Çelik

In 2013, TAV Airports Holding prepared a bid for the concession to build and operate the third Istanbul airport. This process involved input from various parts of the firm with operating and financial expertise. Burcu Geriş, the CFO of TAV Airports Holding, and her... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Infrastructure Development; Equity Cash Flows; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Financial Management; Financing and Loans; Turkey

April 2016
Supplement

Preparing a Concession Bid at TAV Airports Holding

By: C. Fritz Foley and Çiğdem Çelik

In 2013, TAV Airports Holding prepared a bid for the concession to build and operate the third Istanbul airport. This process involved input from various parts of the firm with operating and financial expertise. Burcu Geriş, the CFO of TAV Airports Holding, and her... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Infrastructure Development; Equity Cash Flows; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Financial Management; Financing and Loans; Air Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Turkey

24 Jul 2018
Op-Ed

4 Ways Managers Can Exercise Their 'Agency' to Change the World

they feel a lack of “agency,” a sense that only the highest rank of management can effect positive social change from within a business. Ironically, an increasing number of C-suite executives, including former Starbucks CEO Howard... View Details

Keywords: by George Serafeim

July–August 2011
Article

Robust Optimization Made Easy with ROME

By: Joel Goh and Melvyn Sim

We introduce ROME, an algebraic modeling toolbox for a class of robust optimization problems. ROME serves as an intermediate layer between the modeler and optimization solver engines, allowing modelers to express robust optimization problems in a mathematically... View Details

Keywords: Robust Optimization; Algebraic Modeling Toolbox; MATLAB; Stochastic Programming; Decision Rules; Inventory Control; PERT; Project Management; Portfolio Optimization; Information Technology; Mathematical Methods; Operations

September 2010
Case

New Heritage Doll Company

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Heide Abelli

A manufacturer and retailer of specialty doll products must decide which of two projects to fund. The decision requires the student to compute cash flows for the 2 projects, discount values to the present and compare and contrast different project performance measures. View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Resource Management; Resource Allocation; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

March 2015
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A) (Abridged)

By: Boris Groysberg and James Weber

Tracks the first six months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Relations; Organization Behavior; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Managing Projects; Informal Organization; Consulting; Professional Services; Leadership; Work-Life Balance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizations; Rank and Position; Product Development; Service Industry; Consulting Industry