Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(16,425)
- Faculty Publications (2,716)
- May 1990 (Revised August 1990)
- Case
Campbell Soup Co.
Describes the engineering effort at Campbell Soup Co. to develop a microwavable package and product for the growing convenience segment. Focuses on the role of engineering services in developing the production process, acquiring and installing equipment, and getting... View Details
- May 1990 (Revised September 1994)
- Background Note
Note on Financial Reporting Strategy and Analysis When Managers Have Proprietary Information
Provides a framework that helps explain these real-world observations about accounting and financial statement analysis. When managers have superior information on firms' strategies, and when investors suspect that managers have incentives not to fully disclose this... View Details
- 1990
- Article
Social Influences on Creativity: Evaluation, Coaction, and Surveillance
By: T. M. Amabile, P. Goldfarb and S. C. Brackfield
Two experiments examined the effects of evaluation expectation and the presence of others on creativity. In both experiments, some subjects expected that their work would be evaluated by experts, and others expected no evaluation. Evaluation expectation was crossed, in... View Details
- December 1989 (Revised June 1991)
- Case
Motorola, Inc.: Bandit Pager Project
Describes the development of a fully automated production line for manufacturing radio pagers. The company regarded the project as highly successful; it becomes clear in the case, however, that there were some shortcomings as well. Some marketing issues were not... View Details
- November 1989 (Revised November 1999)
- Case
Automatic Data Processing: The EFS Decision
By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston
Illustrates how ADP's top management uses formal planning and control systems to establish strategic boundaries for its business units. Top management has developed a detailed list of strategic criteria that ADP managers use to evaluate products and business units, as... View Details
- October 1989 (Revised June 1993)
- Case
Texas Eastman Co.
By: Robert S. Kaplan
The company as part of a commitment to Total Quality Management has installed a computer system that accumulates 30,000 observations on its processes every 2-4 hours. Operating people have found the monthly summaries of financial performance not too useful in this... View Details
- September 1989 (Revised July 1991)
- Case
Caterpillar, Inc.: George Schaefer Takes Charge
For over half a century, Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT) had been a world leader in the manufacture of earthmoving and construction machinery. In 1982, just months after it recorded the highest sales and profits in its history, CAT experienced its greatest crisis. Demand fell... View Details
Keywords: Machinery and Machining; Crisis Management; Labor Unions; Demand and Consumers; Management Teams; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Business Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Manufacturing Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Industrial Products Industry
- July 1989 (Revised April 2001)
- Case
Kanthal (A)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Multinational company needs an improved cost system to determine the profitability of individual customer orders. Its strategy is to have significant sales and profitability growth without adding additional administrative and support people. The new cost system... View Details
- July 1989 (Revised May 2004)
- Case
Colonial Homes
By: David E. Bell
Colonial Homes supplies a complete raw materials package to build entire homes. The price of the package is guaranteed at the signing of the sales contract, while delivery (and payment) are not effected for up to six months. In an effort to reduce its exposure to... View Details
- July 1989
- Article
Immunizing Children Against the Negative Effects of Reward
By: B. A. Hennessey, T. M. Amabile and M. Martinage
Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of intrinsic motivation training on children's subsequent motivational orientation and creativity in an expected reward situation. Past research has demonstrated the overjustification effect: Children who work on an... View Details
- March 1989 (Revised March 1999)
- Case
Metabo GmbH & Co. KG
By: Robert S. Kaplan
A privately owned German power tool company was dissatisfied with its existing cost system. The system could not produce timely accurate reports on cost center operations, and newly purchased automated machines were attracting large overhead costs. A new, highly... View Details
- December 1988
- Article
Strategic Responses to Automobile Emissions Control: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
By: Dennis Yao
This paper examines the dynamics of standard-setting regulation under technological uncertainty and asymmetric information about technological capability. A two-period model which allows fully strategic action is developed and applied to the regulation of automobile... View Details
- August 1988 (Revised November 1988)
- Case
Texas Instruments: Cost of Quality (A)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Texas Instruments implements a Cost of Quality (COQ) system as part of a company-wide "Total Quality Thrust." After several years of operation, group management questions whether or not the COQ system should be updated to make it more useful in identifying areas for... View Details
- August 1988 (Revised January 1992)
- Supplement
Norton Group PLC: To Be or Not to Be in the Motorcycle Business (B)
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Jon Skofic
Outlines the decisions taken by the company's management team in response to the challenges posed in Norton Group PLC (A). For each such decision, further data is provided for students to ponder the effectiveness of the action steps undertaken. View Details
Keywords: Motorcycle Industry
- Article
Beyond the Reach of the Invisible Hand: Impediments to Economic Activity, Market Failures, and Profitability
By: Dennis Yao
In this paper it is argued that failures of the competitive market are necessary conditions for supranormal profitability. Three fundamental causes of these market failures-production economies and sunk costs, transactions costs, and imperfect information-are developed... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Markets; Failure; Profit; Cost; Information; Market Transactions; Competition; Strategy; Production
- November 1987 (Revised April 2017)
- Teaching Note
Polysar Limited
By: Robert Simons
Teaching Note for (9-187-098). View Details
- September–October 1987
- Article
Manage Customers for Profits (Not Just Sales)
By: Benson P. Shapiro, V. K. Rangan, Rowland T. Moriarty and Elliot Ross
- March 1987 (Revised April 1987)
- Background Note
Specialties vs. Commodities: The Battle for Profit Margins
Explains the differences between commodities and specialties and defines four different types of specialty products. The analysis is customer oriented. Special attention is given to the distinctions between functions (product- ) and relationship (vendor-oriented)... View Details
Keywords: Goods and Commodities
- January 1987
- Article
Posterior Implementability in a Two-person Decision Problem
By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
When a decision rule is implemented using a Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism in which the messages are publicly observable, the players' information is augmented by their observation of each others' strategies. In this paper we study the set of Bayesian... View Details
- 1986
- Working Paper
Price Competition with a Distribution of Switch Costs and Reservation Prices
By: Jerry R. Green and Suzanne Scotchmer
When there is a distribution of switch costs and of reservation prices for a good, and marginal cost of producing the good is zero, equilibrium in pure price strategies may (and sometimes must) exhibit price dispersion. Equilibrium may or may not exist, and there may... View Details