Publications

April 2011 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Securities Lending After the Financial Crisis

By: Robert C. Pozen and Gayle Hameister

In April 2009, Wendy Jefferson had just returned to her office following a whirlwind day of meetings with her newest client, Star Advisor. Jefferson, a financial services consultant, was eager to dig into the information provided to her and her team about the Star... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Debt Securities; Financing and Loans; Investment Funds; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information

Educators

August 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Kemps LLC: Introducing Time-Driven ABC

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Kemps is making a strategy shift: from being focused on fulfilling customer requests to becoming the best cost dairy producer in the industry. Its existing manufacturing cost system, however, fails to capture the costs associated with handling special flavors, small... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Cost Accounting; Managerial Roles; Cost Management; Earnings Management; Business Strategy; Time Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Decisions; Food and Beverage Industry

Educators

Much of what we believe about the best ways to compensate and motivate the sales force is based on theory and lab experiments. But in the past decade, researchers have been moving out of the lab and into the field, analyzing companies' sales and pay data, and... View Details

28 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Sophisticated Investors May Be Harming Fintech Lending Platforms

traditional banking system had no information about applicants nor any idea how their capital would be deployed. In addition, decisions were made by bankers using largely subjective criteria, or, as Vallée... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Banking; Financial Services

20 Dec 2006
Working Paper Summaries

The Demise of Cost and Profit Centers

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan

2023
Working Paper

Sending Signals: Strategic Displays of Warmth and Competence

By: Bushra S. Guenoun and Julian J. Zlatev

Using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory approaches, this research examines how people signal important information about themselves to others. We first train machine learning models to assess the use of warmth and competence impression management... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Personal Characteristics; Perception; Interpersonal Communication

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2010
Book

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in insight: They have huge volumes of information at their disposal. But they're unsure of how to sort through it and use it to make smart decisions. The result? They're struggling with profit-sapping supply chain... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

January – February 2011
Article

Creating Shared Value

By: Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer

The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely thought to be prospering at the expense of their communities. Trust in business has fallen to new... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Trust; Human Needs; Welfare; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

Ashish Nanda is Senior Lecturer and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator at Harvard Business School. From 2018 to 2021, he was course head for the MBA Required Curriculum course in Strategy. Beginning in 2022, he is teaching an MBA Elective... View Details

January 2025
Article

Reducing Prejudice with Counter-stereotypical AI

By: Erik Hermann, Julian De Freitas and Stefano Puntoni

Based on a review of relevant literature, we propose that the proliferation of AI with human-like and social features presents an unprecedented opportunity to address the underlying cognitive and affective drivers of prejudice. An approach informed by the psychology of... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; AI and Machine Learning; Interpersonal Communication; Social and Collaborative Networks

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November 1994 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Security Plus, Inc.

By: David F. Hawkins and Norman Bartczak

A company acquires an alarm system company and converts its customers from operating to sale-type leases. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Leasing; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

11 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Creating an R&D Strategy

Keywords: by Gary P. Pisano

12 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

Using the Law to Strategic Advantage

counselor at law, not a hired gun. Third, the organization must encourage the free flow of legal and business information to and from managers and lawyers so the lawyers understand the context in which a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Legal Services

Article

The IT Transformation Health Care Needs

By: Nikhil R. Sahni, Robert S. Huckman, Anuraag Chigurupati and David M. Cutler

In recent years, health care organizations have made sizable investments in information technology. They’ve used their IT systems to replace paper records with electronic ones and to improve billing processes, thereby boosting revenue. But so far, IT has been of little... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Business Model

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November–December 2020
Article

The Risks You Can't Foresee: What to Do When There's No Playbook

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Herman B. Leonard and Anette Mikes

No matter how good their risk management systems are, companies can’t plan for everything. Some risks are outside people’s realm of experience or so remote no one could have imagined them. Some result from a perfect storm of coinciding breakdowns, and some materialize... View Details

Keywords: Novel Risks; Risk Management; Crisis Management

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February 2010
Case

Applied Research Technologies, Inc.: Global Innovation's Challenges

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Heather Beckham

Applied Research Technologies, Inc. (ART) is a diversified technology company which has used its entrepreneurial culture and encouragement of innovation as an ongoing competitive advantage. The case concentrates on the challenges faced by Peter Vyas, the Filtration... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Managerial Roles; Management Practices and Processes; Reputation; Organizational Culture; Innovation and Management; Competitive Advantage; Entrepreneurship; Management Systems; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Technology Industry

Educators

2022
Chapter

Sustainability Science and Corporate Cleanup in Community Fields: The Translation, Resistance and Integration Process Model

By: P. Devereaux Jennings, Maggie Cascadden and Andrew J. Hoffman

Both practically and theoretically, the sustainability science and corporate operation perspectives often diverge. Overcoming this divergence requires some degree of engagement with organizational field members; not just negotiation, but on-the-ground process work to... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Business Processes; Science-Based Business; Research

Al Roth is the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, and in the Harvard Business School. His research, teaching, and consulting interests are in game theory, experimental economics, and... View Details

Keywords: information; information; information; information; information; information

June 2006 (Revised September 2006)
Case

Tech Data Corporation

Tech Data is a global supplier of logistics management services and one of the world's largest distributors of information technology equipment. Operational execution is key for the company, which has gross margins in the 5% range. At the end of 2005, the company had... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Information Infrastructure; Operations; Growth and Development Strategy