Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(3,016)
- Faculty Publications (541)
- October 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 6: Evaluating Strategic Profit Performance
By: Robert Simons
This module reading demonstrates how to calculate and analyze the profit generated by different business strategies. Formulas and examples are provided to calculate profit generated by changes in market share, revenue growth, efficiency improvements, and support costs.... View Details
- Summer 2016
- Article
Open Content, Linus' Law, and Neutral Point of View
By: Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu
The diffusion of the Internet and digital technologies has enabled many organizations to use the open-content production model to produce and disseminate knowledge. While several prior studies have shown that the open-content production model can lead to high-quality... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details
- August 2016 (Revised June 2018)
- Teaching Note
VMD Medical Imaging Center
By: Susanna Gallani and Eva Labro
VMD Medical Imaging Center addresses a number of issues related to the role of costing systems in organizations and the challenges impacting their design and maintenance as the organization grows and develops over time. This teaching note begins by offering detailed... View Details
- July–August 2016
- Article
Beyond the Holacracy Hype: The Overwrought Claims—and Actual Promise—of the Next Generation of Self-Managed Teams
By: Ethan Bernstein, John Bunch, Niko Canner and Michael Lee
Holacracy and other forms of self-organization have been getting a lot of press. Proponents hail them as "flat" environments that foster flexibility, engagement, productivity, and efficiency. Critics say they're naive, unrealistic experiments. We argue, using evidence... View Details
Keywords: Self-Managed Organizations; Self-Managed Teams; Reliability; Adaptability; Holacracy; Organization Design; Organization Structure; Organizational Charts; Organizational Architecture; Organizational Forms; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Managerial Roles; Human Resources; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; North America
- July–August 2016
- Article
How to Pay for Health Care
By: Michael E. Porter and Robert S. Kaplan
The United States stands at a crossroads in how to pay for health care. Fee for service, the dominant model in the United States and many other countries, is now widely recognized as perhaps the biggest obstacle to improving health care delivery. A battle is currently... View Details
- June 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Boys & Girls Clubs of America: Driving Impact
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Lisa C. Cox
With $1.8 billion in 2015 revenues, Boys & Girls Club of America had evolved over its 155-year-old history to occupy the lead position in the Youth Development space in the United States. Its new CEO Jim Clark had initiated yet another change process in 2015 to ensure... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Big Spaceship: The Evolving Agency
By: Boris Groysberg and Matthew G. Preble
This case discusses the evolution of Big Spaceship, an advertising and marketing agency, from a product-focused business to a relationship-oriented one as clients seek deeper and more meaningful long-term partnerships. The 15-year-old company had already evolved... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Vaccination Rates Are Associated with Functional Proximity but Not Base Proximity of Vaccination Clinics
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Gwendolyn I. Reynolds
Background: Routine annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for persons 6 months of age and older, but less than half of U.S. adults get vaccinated. Many employers offer employees free influenza vaccinations at workplace clinics, but even then take-up is... View Details
- May 16, 2016
- Article
Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer
By: Dina Gerdeman and John A. Quelch
Chipotle Mexican Grill’s ongoing struggle to win customers back months after a contaminated food crisis highlights the challenges companies face with keeping food safe.
Chipotle has seen its shares tumble and recently reported its first-ever quarterly loss... View Details
Chipotle has seen its shares tumble and recently reported its first-ever quarterly loss... View Details
Keywords: Food Safety; Organic Food; Supply Chain Management; Globalization Of Food Business; Mérieux NutriSciences: Marketing Food Safety Testing; Food Safety Modernization Act 2011; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Transition; Economic Systems; Food; Health; Supply and Industry; Logistics; Practice; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Safety; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Insurance Industry; Public Administration Industry; Public Relations Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Mexico; North America; United States; Canada
- March 2016 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
South Africa: A Fractured Rainbow?
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason
Twenty years after the end of Apartheid, South Africa's democracy persists, albeit with problems. A tripartite coalition — the African National Congress, the labor unions, and the Communist Party — still controls the political system but with diminishing economic... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Big History, Global Corporations, Virtual Capitalism
By: Richard L. Nolan
Homo sapiens has mastered its environment so thoroughly that, for the first time in history, a small minority of the population is capable of creating enough food and fuels to support not only itself, but also a growing majority of the 6 billion people now living on... View Details
- March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
- Technical Note
ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?
By: George Serafeim
In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details
Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems
- February 2016
- Teaching Note
Advanced Leadership Pathways: General Gale Pollock and Services for the Vision Impaired
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Following a successful military career as an Army Nurse, achieving rank as Major General, becoming the first female Acting Surgeon General of the Army, and the 22nd Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, Pollock developed a vested interest in improving the lives of the... View Details
Keywords: Health
- 2016
- Teaching Note
Advanced Leadership Pathways: General Gale Pollock and Services for the Vision Impaired
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Teaching note for case 314029. Following a successful military career as an Army Nurse, achieving rank as Major General, becoming the first female Acting Surgeon General of the Army, and the 22nd Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, Pollock developed a vested interest in... View Details
- February 2016
- Article
Unearned Status Gain: Evidence from a Global Language Mandate
By: Tsedal Neeley and Tracy Dumas
Theories of status rarely address unearned status gain—an unexpected and unsolicited increase in relative standing, prestige, or worth, attained not through individual effort or achievement, but from a shift in organizationally valued characteristics. We build theory... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern... View Details
- December 2015 (Revised January 2016)
- Case
Woolf Farming and the California Water Crisis
By: Forest Reinhardt, David Bell, Natalie Kindred, Mary Shelman and Laura Winig
This case highlights the tough choices, competing interests, and decision-making mechanisms involved in California's management of its severe drought, entering its fifth year in 2015. Stuart Woolf, CEO of Woolf Farming, a grower and processor of almonds, tomatoes, and... View Details
- 2015
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Torsten Thiele and the Global Ocean Trust
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Brian Hoffstein
Following a successful career in finance, Torsten Thiele devoted himself full-time to the challenging cause of ocean conservation and stewardship. In August 2015, Thiele had already come a long way in spearheading initiatives towards the protection of the ocean: from... View Details
- Article
The Baby Benefits Club
By: Debora L. Spar
This past summer several prominent firms seemed to be competing for the title of America's most family-friendly company. In August, Netflix announced plans to offer new mothers and fathers "unlimited leave". Microsoft countered quickly, promising to increase its own... View Details