Publications

June 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Continental Media Group: Business Highlights

By: Robert L. Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

Continental Media Group has a series of business reviews struggling to achieve profitability. This case focuses on the use of management control systems to identify emerging opportunities and the formulation of new strategies. The interactive system used by top... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Governance Controls; Management Systems; Risk Management; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry

Educators

Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter's purpose. Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing... View Details

January 2025
Supplement

Hippo: Weathering the Storm of the Home Insurance Crisis (B)

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Rick McCathron, CEO of Hippo, was optimistic about the InsurTech's path to profitability after navigating the financial uncertainties of 2022. By bundling their home insurance services with third-parties and established insurance incumbents, Hippo was adopting a... View Details

March 2006
Module Note

Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 3: Expanding Diversity

By: Alan D. MacCormack

Describes the third module of the 30-session Harvard Business School elective course Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome them. The course emphasizes... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Business Processes; Projects; Risk and Uncertainty; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Opportunities; Perspective; Expansion; Goals and Objectives

1 Aug 2010
Conference Presentation

Firm Performance, Top Management and Minority Hiring: African‐American Coaches in the NFL, 1970‐2007

By: Andrew Hill and David Thomas

Studies of minority hiring have found that low-status firms are more likely to hire minority candidates. However, most work has examined hiring for entry and mid-level positions, not senior management, which differs in the level of 1) uncertainty regarding the optimal... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Management Teams; Recruitment; Relationships; Risk and Uncertainty; Ethnicity; Sports Industry; Africa; United States

24 Aug 2015
News

The Case for Teaching Ignorance

2025
Article

Statistical Inference for Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Discovered by Generic Machine Learning in Randomized Experiments

By: Kosuke Imai and Michael Lingzhi Li

Researchers are increasingly turning to machine learning (ML) algorithms to investigate causal heterogeneity in randomized experiments. Despite their promise, ML algorithms may fail to accurately ascertain heterogeneous treatment effects under practical settings with... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

Read Now

Research Summary

Lean Startup Management Practices

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Many information technology startups have embraced "lean startup" management practices. Lean startups confront high levels of uncertainty about both customer problems and product solutions: the strength of demand for new... View Details

December 2010
Article

Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts

This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Contracts; Decisions; Distribution; Labor; Game Theory

17 Oct 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Eleanor W. Dillon and Christopher T. Stanton

31 Jan 2013
News

Women Don’t Negotiate Because They’re Not Idiots

July–August 2023
Article

Case Study: How Should a Start-Up Cut Its Burn Rate?

By: Nitin Nohria, Katie Josephson, Sophia Wronsky and Elizabeth Rha

Tyler Smith, the founder and CEO of the enterprise software firm Puck.io, is facing a hard decision. Just three months earlier the company laid off 20% of its employees to reduce its burn rate amid growing economic uncertainty and a suddenly unattractive funding... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business or Company Management; Business Startups

Register to Read

December 2009
Article

Estimation and Empirical Properties of a Firm-Year Measure of Accounting Conservatism

By: Mozaffar N. Khan and Ross L. Watts

We estimate a firm-year measure of accounting conservatism, examine its empirical properties as a metric, and illustrate applications by testing new hypotheses that shed further light on the nature and effects of conservatism. The results are consistent with the... View Details

12 Apr 2016
News

Equality Takes Work

November 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Technical Note

Rechargeable Batteries, 2017: Gigafactory Wars in the Offing?

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2017, the global market for rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries was 126 gigawatt-hours (GWh) valued at $37 billion, growing by $10 billion in two years. Once confined largely to consumer electronics and appliances, the rapid increase in demand was spurred by... View Details

Educators

May 1994
Background Note

Managing Market Complexity: A Three-Ring Circus

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Proposes models of organization that address the various product-market environments posed by the product life cycle. Frames these changes along the two dimensions of uncertainty and diversity. Offers three sets of organizational characteristics to reflect the three... View Details

Keywords: Business Processes; Growth and Development Strategy; Complexity; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Product Marketing; Markets; Product

March 2008
Background Note

Marketing Input and Innovation Strategy

By: Elie Ofek

This note develops a framework for considering the challenges of incorporating marketing input when setting innovation strategy. The framework lays out the possible innovation opportunities a firm can entertain and describes how the customer knowledge gained from... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Innovation Strategy; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing; Research; Competition

Educators

February 2011
Supplement

Carbon Trading Simulation: Brown Cement Inc.

By: Peter A. Coles

This simulation presents students the opportunity to experience firsthand the economics of carbon markets and permit trading. Each student has private role information about a company he or she manages. The student must make decisions about pollution-reducing... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Economics; Investment; Business or Company Management; Market Design; Pollutants

February 2011
Supplement

Carbon Trading Simulation: Black Cement Inc.

By: Peter A. Coles

This simulation presents students the opportunity to experience firsthand the economics of carbon markets and permit trading. Each student has private role information about a company he or she manages. The student must make decisions about pollution-reducing... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Pollutants; Investment; Price; Profit; Agreements and Arrangements; Decisions; Service Industry; Energy Industry