Publications

21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

leaders who create arcane and tedious processes can kill employee morale and cripple company performance just as quickly as an adversary who pours sand into the gas tank of a company vehicle, Thomke writes in the MIT Sloan Management... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

William A. Sahlman

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

Robert Simons

Robert Simons is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School. For over 35 years, Simons has taught accounting, management control, and strategy execution courses in both the Harvard MBA and Executive Education Programs. For 2024/25, he is teaching a... View Details

11 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Doing Well by Doing Good? One Industry’s Struggle to Balance Values and Profits

purpose of related side jobs, such as teaching journalism, in keeping with the “moral claims” of the profession. Others have taken this process a couple steps further. These reporters and editors have redefined what it means to stay true... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

2009
Chapter

Becoming the Lamp Bearer: The Emerging Roles of the Chief Risk Officer

By: Anette Mikes

Enterprise risk management, under the leadership of chief risk officers (CROs), has the promise to bring enterprise-wide risks, which threaten the achievement of the firm's strategic objectives, into the open and under control. Its organizational significance is... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Managerial Roles; Risk Management; Business Processes; Risk and Uncertainty

Web

Photo Galleries - Alumni

of purchase for photos is based on processing and shipping costs. Harvard Business School does not benefit from the sale of any photographs. Login is required to access the photo galleries. SPRING REUNIONS 2025 One-Year Reunion Class of... View Details

04 Jan 2017
What Do You Think?

How Much Bureaucracy is a Good Thing in Government and Business?

(overtasking its members in a way) that forces prioritization.” In the context of other comments, it suggested the question: Are bureaucracies worth improving? What do you think? Original column The process leading up to a transfer of... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett

Article

Pitfall or Scaffolding? Starting-point Pull in Configuration Decision Making

By: Eliran Halali, Yoella Bereby-Meyer and David Leiser

In configuration problems, such as the construction of a weekly study schedule, decision makers must assemble a combination of parts under a set of constraints. Interactions may be present between the parts, and more than a single objective function may exist, such as... View Details

Find at Harvard

July 2000 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Madison Avenue: Digital Media Services (A)

Introduces a "new-economy" company, Madison Avenue, facing challenges of mega-success. In the two years since its founding, the company's revenues have grown from zero to nearly $30 million, head count has swollen from the start-up handful to more than 200, and the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

24 Oct 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Startup or Established Company? Which Is Best for You?

executive teams can be world class or “legacy” leaders who can’t move with the times. There are many tradeoffs when factoring leadership into the decision process of startup versus mature. Startup founded by serial entrepreneurs. This can... View Details

Keywords: by Julia B. Austin

Web

Ways to Give Today - Alumni

check, credit card, or brokerage/security transfer. Alumni and friends who are interested in making a gift should contact HGF’s administrator Sandra Fernandes ( sandra@sfernandes.com ) for more information. Processing times for gifts made... View Details

Stefan H. Thomke

Stefan Thomke (sthomke@hbs.edu), an authority on the management of innovation, is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He has worked with firms on product, process, and... View Details

January 2011
Case

The Risk-Reward Framework at Morgan Stanley Research

By: Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

The case describes the Risk-Reward framework that Morgan Stanley analysts use as a systematic approach to communicate a broader range of fundamental insights about a company rather than the traditional single point estimates. The goal of the framework is to focus the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Forecasting and Prediction; Equity; Framework; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Risk Management; Business Processes; Research; Valuation

04 Feb 2014
Working Paper Summaries

From Crowds to Collaborators: Initiating Effort and Catalyzing Interactions Among Online Creative Workers

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Patrick Gaule, Karim R. Lakhani, Christoph Riedl & Anita Williams Woolley

Research Summary

Overview

By: Iavor I. Bojinov

Over the last decade, technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix have pioneered data-driven research and development processes centered on massive experimentation. However, as companies increase the breadth and scale of their experiments to millions of... View Details

September 1996 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (B): New England Sales and Distribution

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The general manager of a local gasoline/distillate sales and distribution business unit must communicate a new strategy to the unit's 300 employees. An initial strategic planning exercise identified a high-priority list of opportunities that blended the parent... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adoption; Strategic Planning; Customization and Personalization; Management Practices and Processes; Growth and Development Strategy; Measurement and Metrics; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Evaluation; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; United States

January 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Case

The Carlyle Group

By: Robert G. Eccles and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case describes the investment philosophy, organizational structure, management processes and culture of the largest private equity firm in the world measured in terms of assets under management ($89 billion). The Carlyle Group is distinctive in several ways,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Assets; Private Equity; Investment; Global Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Information Technology; Asia; Washington (state, US)

Web

Research Computing Services

analyses, natural language processing & more. Artificial Intelligence (AI) RCS team members have experience applying AI techniques to academic research. Our Team (login required) RCS staff include experienced statisticians and data... View Details

September 19, 2017
Article

After Equifax Breach, Companies Advised to Review Open-Source Software Code

By: Ben DiPietro and Lou Shipley

It doesn’t make much sense: At a time when high-powered automated trading systems can execute stock sales in real time, some companies that rely on open-source software to help to run their businesses track their open-source use on spread sheets on paper.
Lou... View Details

Keywords: Software; Open-source; Security Vulnerabilities; Data Privacy; Hack; Applications and Software; Safety; Cybersecurity