Publications

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

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

March 2014
Article

Choosing the Right Customer

By: Robert Simons

Companies that win in competitive markets identify a primary customer and dedicate maximum resources to meeting that customer's needs. This article will show you how to identify the best primary customer for your business by analyzing perspective, capabilities, and... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Execution; Customer Focus; Organization Design; Accountability; Management Control Systems; Customer Relationship Management; Organizational Design

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

September 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 4: Organizing for Performance

By: Robert Simons

This module reading explores the implications of different business models on organization design. After discussing the distinction between units focused on work processes and those devoted to markets, the analysis provides insight as to when to organize businesses by... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Customer Focused Organization; Specialization; Span Of Control; Span Of Accountability; Span Of Attention; Strategy; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

2018
Article

What Can Managers Privately Disclose to Investors?

By: Eugene F. Soltes

Regulators have long been aware that differential access to information can undermine the efficiency and fairness of financial markets. In an effort to place investors on equal footing, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000 created Regulation Fair Disclosure... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Information; Communication; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Read Now

11 Dec 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

Keywords: by David I. Levine & Michael W. Toffel

March 2011 (Revised April 2021)
Case

The Whiz Kids

By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen

In October 1945, Henry Ford II received a telegram in his office at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan written by Charles "Tex" Thornton, a U.S. Air Force colonel. The telegram presented an opportunity for Ford to deploy a system of statistical control which... View Details

Keywords: Ford Motor Company; Statistical Control; Management Systems; Accounting; Operations; Strategy; Mathematical Methods; Auto Industry; United States

Educators

1999
Other Unpublished Work

Ownership and Control in Entrepreneurial Firms: An Examination of Convertible Securities in Venture Capital Investment

By: Paul A. Gompers

Keywords: Business Startups; Ownership; Management; Debt Securities; Venture Capital

05 Sep 2012
What Do You Think?

Will Business Management Save US Health Care?

health care is about life, quality of life, and death. Start trying to manage, control and put a dollar figure on that and you will instantly run into walls at all levels of society." On the other hand, David Giammittorio described... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

July/August 2004
Article

Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework

By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel

Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Environmental Management; Adoption; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Organizational Structure; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Framework; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Read Now

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

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Organizing for Performance: Four Vignettes

By: Robert Simons

This case provides four examples of organizations with very different business strategies: Walmart, Starbucks, Harvard Business School, and Google. To support their varying strategies, each of these organizations requires a specific configuration to provide the most... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization; Span Of Control; Job Design; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

Educators

16 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Christina Lubinski; Beauty & Cosmetics

Article

The Big Five Personality Traits, Material Values, and Financial Well-being of Self-described Money Managers

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Ravi Iyer and Ryan Howell

Previous research has linked personality traits, material values, and money management to savings, debt, and compulsive buying. To extend previous research, four online surveys examined the Big Five personality traits and material values of those who manage their money... View Details

Keywords: Values; Personality; Well-being; Personal Characteristics; Values and Beliefs; Personal Finance; Money