Publications

August 1996 (Revised October 1996)
Case

Howard, Shea & Chan Asset Management (A)

By: Benson P. Shapiro

A medium-sized investment management firm is attempting to decide whether to try to grow, and if so, how. It is a complicated decision because the managing partner and her colleagues have significantly different views. This case provides the background on the industry,... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Decision Making; Sales; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

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2018
Working Paper

Bayesian Ensembles of Binary-Event Forecasts: When Is It Appropriate to Extremize or Anti-Extremize?

By: Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr., Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Victor Richmond R. Jose and Robert L. Winkler

Many organizations face critical decisions that rely on forecasts of binary events. In these situations, organizations often gather forecasts from multiple experts or models and average those forecasts to produce a single aggregate forecast. Because the average... View Details

Keywords: Forecast Aggregation; Linear Opinion Pool; Generalized Additive Model; Generalized Linear Model; Stacking.; Forecasting and Prediction

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19 Feb 2020
News

Why real-life places still matter in the age of texting and Twitter

May 1981 (Revised January 1987)
Case

Sensormatic Electronics Corp.

By: David A. Garvin

Describes the decision faced by a rapidly growing firm in the merchandise security systems business on whether it should integrate backward into the injection molding of plastic parts. Financial analysis, comparative economics, and manufacturing strategy in an industry... View Details

Keywords: Change; Decisions; Economics; Financial Strategy; Production; Integration; Technology; Electronics Industry

10 Jan 2018
Blog Post

EXPERTS SHARE 5 TIPS TO BECOME A BETTER MANAGER

It's incredibly important to make sure that every member of the team is informed, on the same page, and understands the reasoning behind your decision making. To communicate... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

27 Sep 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings

Keywords: by Michael Luca & Jonathan Smith; Education; Information; Publishing

February 2024
Supplement

JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership: What JTC Did and Its Impact

By: Ethan Bernstein

Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of Jersey-based financial services firm JTC, firmly believed that "shared ownership" was at the heart of his company’s successful track record. The firm had seen its revenues, profits, and number of clients and staff grow steadily throughout its... View Details

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Leadership Style; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Employee Ownership; Financial Services Industry

June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States

05 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

empowerment. But for hardware companies also in the tech sector, it is possible that there’s going to be a lot less of that,” Zhang suggests. Climbing the career ladder The trend toward collaboration may make work more enjoyable and... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

February 2024
Case

FIGS: Scrubbing the Status Quo

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Nicole Tempest Keller

In October 2023, FIGS had revolutionized the medical scrubs industry with its fashionable and functional designs, but the venture was at a critical juncture. The digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) had gone public in a successful IPO in 2021 and reached $500 million... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles; Europe; Canada

August 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Flanders of Springfield

By: Arthur Schleifer Jr.

Flanders is a catalog merchandiser. Various decisions on catalog distribution policy, ordering and inventory policy, and catalog format design are considered. This was a final examination, and serves as a review for a number of topics in the course. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Policy; Distribution; Product Design; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Consumer Products Industry

2010
Book

A Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy

By: Amar Bhide

Our prosperity requires the enterprise of innumerable individuals and businesses who exercise their imagination and judgment—and bear responsibility for outcomes. And it is through dialogue and relationships that widespread enterprise is fostered, not merely prices in... View Details

Keywords: Recession; Banking; Banks; Finance; Economics; Macroeconomics; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

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Many firms can choose between an employment mode, in which the firm controls service provision by employing professionals, sales representatives or other types of agents, and an agency (or platform) mode, in which these agents take control... View Details

2010
Chapter

What Is Leadership: The CEO's Role in Large, Complex Organizations

By: Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria

What is the role of the CEO in a large, complex enterprise? What makes a CEO effective? At first blush, these questions seem easy to answer. A CEO is the epitome of leadership. He or she exercises ultimate power and is responsible for making the most critical choices... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Power and Influence

Program

Real Estate Management Program

Summary In today's increasingly unpredictable, competitive real estate sector, your ability to make the best decisions requires a thorough grasp of how the industry is evolving and how the relationships... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Real Estate

September 2018
Article

What Does It Take to Change an Editor's Mind? Identifying Minimally Important Difference Thresholds for Peer Reviewer Rating Scores of Scientific Articles

By: Michael Callaham and Leslie John

Study objective—We define a minimally important difference for the Likert-type scores frequently used in scientific peer review (similar to existing minimally important differences for scores in clinical medicine). To our knowledge, the magnitude of score change... View Details

Keywords: Information Publishing; Journals and Magazines; Science; Decision Making

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April 2004 (Revised August 2004)
Teaching Note

BuildingBlocks International

BuildingBlocks International (BBI) plans to accomplish its mission to help children in developing countries succeed in school by bringing management expertise to local organizations. Two years after founding BBI, however, the team hasn't figured out exactly how to make... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Developing Countries and Economies; Sales