Publications

May 2006 (Revised February 2012)
Case

General Electric's 20th Century CEOs (Abridged)

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony J. Mayo and Mark Benson

General Electric thrived in every decade of the 20th century. Since its founding in 1892, GE has placed a high value on picking and training the best people. Staff members worked with other scientists in the company's research lab to design and manufacture new and... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style

2007
Working Paper

Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement

By: Jerry R. Green and Daniel A. Hojman

We present a method for evaluating the welfare of a decision maker, based on observed choice data. Unlike the standard economic theory of revealed preference, our method can be used whether or not the observed choices are rational. Paralleling the standard theory we... View Details

Keywords: Welfare Economics; Behavioral Economics; Psychology; Decision Making; Economics; Voting

June 1998 (Revised April 2000)
Case

GM Powertrain

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Mikelle Eastley

Discusses a young MBA plant manager who is improving the operations of a small General Motors components plant in Fredericksburg, Virginia. At 29 years old, Joe Hinrichs is the youngest plant manager at GM, and in his new assignment, he is faced with the daunting... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Labor Unions; Problems and Challenges; Technological Innovation; Change Management; Machinery and Machining; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; United States

2008
Working Paper

Resolving Information Asymmetries in Markets: The Role of Certified Management Programs

By: Michael W. Toffel

Firms and regulators are increasingly relying on voluntary mechanisms to signal and infer quality of difficult-to-observe management practices. Prior evaluations of voluntary management programs have focused on those that lack verification mechanisms and have found... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Information; Standards; Performance Improvement; Programs; Environmental Sustainability; Manufacturing Industry; United States

SSRN

01 Apr 2015
News

Sustainability Reporting: The Lawyer’s Response

Race, Work, and Leadership

Race, Work, and Leadership is a rare and important compilation of essays that examines how race matters in people’s experience of work and leadership. What does it mean to be black in corporate America today? How are racial dynamics in organizations... View Details

September 2016
Article

Enhancing the Practical Relevance of Research

By: Michael W. Toffel

This article seeks to encourage scholars to conduct research that is more relevant to the decisions faced by managers and policymakers and addresses why research relevance matters, what relevance means in terms of a journal article, and how scholars can increase the... View Details

Keywords: Research Questions; Relevance; Rigor; Practice-based Research; Research; Communication; Media; Education Industry

SSRN

July 2022 (Revised February 2025)
Case

A Soul and a Service: North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance

By: Tom Nicholas and John Masko

The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association (the Mutual) was founded in 1898 as a for-profit entity selling life insurance catering to the Black community. The Mutual was entering a field crowded with established White-owned competitors that largely refused to... View Details

Keywords: Black Entrepreneurs; Insurance; History; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development Strategy; Insurance Industry; United States

26 Apr 2022
Book

What Does Your Business Stand For? Why Building Trust Starts with Purpose

Ranjay Gulati Chapter 7: The Purpose-Autonomy-Trust Nexus On one level, the connection between trust and autonomy seems fairly obvious, but analyzing it I found some interesting connections not only between trust and autonomy, but between... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

07 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

economic spectrum are creating faux management jobs, pointing to wage cases filed by workers at tech and financial services giants. The team found a five-fold increase in manager titles like “directors of first impressions” (aka... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

Web

The General Shoe Company, 1921 | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

is as relevant today as it was in 1921. Jan W. Rivkin , C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration, in “Celebrating General Shoe Company, the Inaugural HBS Case,” 2019. 6 The Bureau of Business Research, now the Division of Research and Faculty... View Details

06 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

What We Learned from Reading Jeff Bezos’ Patents

Jeff told her he’d found a local professor who was letting him experiment with airplane wings and friction and drag.” Flash forward to today. Amazon is not only one of the world’s most powerful and innovative companies, but one of the... View Details

Keywords: by Tricia Gregg and Boris Groysberg; Retail

10 Aug 2023
News

Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism Appoints Alumna as President

The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) recently announced that Tara Levine (MBA 2001) will serve as its first president. Founded in 2019 by Robert Kraft (MBA 1965), chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group, FCAS addresses the rise in antisemitism in the United States... View Details

Research Summary

Corporate Governance and International Competitiveness

By: W. Carl Kester

W. Carl Kester's research involves comparisons of national or broad regional systems of corporate governance (e.g., German, Japanese, Anglo-American), and the influence these systems exert on corporate investment and international competitiveness. Kester has found... View Details

Research Summary

Reinventing Yourself: Identity and Transformation in Professional Careers

Professor Herminia Ibarra is working on a book about people who change careers. The book explains why, when, and how people find themselves at a crossroads in their career and how they develp the skills they need to make their way successfully to a new professional... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Too Much, Too Soon? Early Funding, Technological Unconventionality, and Innovation Capabilities

By: Harsh Ketkar and Maria Roche

The availability of financial resources significantly shapes firm innovation outcomes, especially for early-stage, innovation-focused technology firms. However, prior research has provided conflicting findings about this relationship: On the one hand, resource... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Technology Strategy; Novelty; Unconventionality; Resource Constraints; Early Stage Firms; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance

SSRN

October 2024
Case

Sacoor Brothers: From Co-Family CEOs to No Family CEOs?

By: Lauren Cohen, David Ager and Alpana Thapar

Sacoor Brothers, a luxury clothing retail company, was founded in 1989 in Lisbon, Portugal, by four brothers—Malik, Salim, Rahimo, and Moez. After establishing a strong presence in Portugal, the brothers were drawn to the rapidly growing retail markets in the Middle... View Details

December 2023
Case

Food & Life Companies

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Akiko Saito

Founded in 1984 in Japan, Food & Life Companies Ltd. (F&LC) operated Sushiro, the largest conveyor belt sushi restaurant chain in Japan, and other types of restaurants that offered sushi and fish cuisine. F&LC was committed to offering high-quality sushi at an... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; Asia; United States

September 2023 (Revised September 2024)
Case

IBJ, Inc. (A): Seeking Matrimony in Japan

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Saito

In March 2020, Shigeru Ishizaka, founder and CEO of IBJ, Inc., Japan's largest marriage matching service provider, faced a critical decision regarding the company’s planned ¥3.5 billion (US$32.8 million) acquisition of competitor ZWEI Co., Ltd. IBJ, founded in 2006,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Corporate Strategy; Value