Publications

September 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Sawiris Foundation: Elevating Education in Egypt

By: Brian Trelstad and Alpana Thapar

Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized Egyptians. In 2015, Noura Selim’s (MBA 2013)... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Development; Social Enterprise; Education; Social Issues; Partners and Partnerships; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; Egypt

March 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Aligning Mission and Margin at Southern Bancorp

By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Brian Trelstad and Eren Kuzucu

In October 2020, after spending almost a decade to turnaround Southern Bancorp, an Arkansan bank founded with the mission to provide financial services to rural, underserved communities, CEO Darrin Williams is wondering how Southern Bancorp should continue to grow.... View Details

Keywords: Racial Wealth Gap; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Going Public; Investment Return; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; Arkansas

June 2018
Article

The Power of Workplace Rewards: Using Self-Determination Theory to Understand Why Reward Satisfaction Matters for Workers Around the World

By: Anais Thibault Landry and A.V. Whillans

How can workplace rewards promote employee well-being and engagement? To answer these questions, we utilized self-determination theory to examine whether reward satisfaction predicted employee well-being, job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and affective... View Details

Keywords: Workplace; Rewards; Motivation; Employees; Satisfaction; Motivation and Incentives; Welfare

March 2016
Article

The Role of Investor Gut Feel in Managing Complexity and Extreme Risk

By: Laura Huang

Securing financial resources from investors is a key challenge for many early stage entrepreneurial ventures. Given the inherent uncertainty surrounding a decision to invest in these ventures, prior research has found that experienced investors rely heavily on their... View Details

Keywords: Angel Investors; Gut Feel; Intuition; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Risk and Uncertainty; Complexity; Decision Making

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December 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Beingmate

By: David E. Bell, Juan Ma and Natalie Kindred

Founded in 2002, Hangzhou, China–based Beingmate was a major producer of infant formula and related products in the high-demand Chinese market. After an infamous 2008 food safety episode in China, in which toxic infant formula sickened thousands of babies and led to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry; China

2011
Case

The Secrets to Managing Business Analytics Projects

By: Thomas H. Davenport, Stijn Viaene and Annabel Van den Bunder

Managers have used business analytics to inform their decision making for years. And while few companies would qualify as being what management innovation and strategy expert Thomas H. Davenport has dubbed "analytic competitors," more and more businesses are moving in... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Business or Company Management; Information Management

2010
Working Paper

Do Call Centers Promote Education? Evidence from India

By: Emily Fair Oster and Mary Bryce Millett

Over the last two decades in India there have been large increases in outsourced jobs and large increases in schooling rates, particularly in English. Existing evidence suggests the trends are broadly related. In this paper we explore how localized these impacts are;... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Education; Training; Geographic Location; Technology Industry; India

2009
Working Paper

Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work

By: Tsedal Beyene, Pamela J. Hinds and Catherine Durnell Cramton

In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Globalized Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Emotions; Social and Collaborative Networks

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2008
Working Paper

Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox

By: Tobias Fredberg, Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote and Flemming Norrgren

We tend to assume that great leaders must make difficult choices between two or more conflicting outcomes. In an interview study with 26 CEOs of top American and European companies (incl. IKEA, Campbell Soups, Nokia, H&M), we find that instead of choosing between... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance; Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Decision Choices and Conditions

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March – April 2008
Article

Interorganizational Trust, Governance Choice, and Exchange Performance

By: Ranjay Gulati and Jackson Nickerson

This paper looks at when and how preexisting interorganizational trust influences the choice of governance and in turn the performance of exchange relationships. We theorize that preexisting interorganizational trust complements the choice of governance mode (make,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Conflict and Resolution; Trust

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November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Corning, Inc.: Technology Strategy in 2003

By: Rebecca Henderson

Corning, Inc. has a 150-year history of building a strategy around innovation. Founded as a glass manufacturer in 1851, the company quickly established itself as a maker of specialty glass products and over the next 100 years diversified into light bulbs, television,... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Situation or Environment; Research and Development; Consumer Products Industry; United States

July 2002 (Revised December 2002)
Case

Mercer Management Consulting (A)

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Michael Echenberg

Insurance giant Marsh & McLennan acquires management consulting firms Temple, Barker & Sloane (TBS) in 1987 and Strategic Planning Associates (SPA) in 1990 and sets out to merge the two. The merger proceeds slowly and painfully. Following the February 1990 merger,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Horizontal Integration; Consulting Industry