Publications

December 13, 2022
Article

What Elon Musk Can Learn from Steve Jobs’s Return to Apple

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Changing the strategic direction of an existing company is among the hardest management challenges out there. Most attempts fail. In trying to remake Twitter, Elon Musk has a daunting task ahead of him. There’s precedent, however, for dramatically reimagining a major... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Strategy; Change Management; Transformation

Winter 2021
Article

Making Economics More Useful: How Technological Eclecticism Could Help

By: Amar Bhidé

Keynes thought it would be ‘splendid’ if economists became more like dentists. Disciplinary economics has instead become more like physics in focusing on concise, universal propositions verified through decisive tests. This focus, I argue, limits the practical... View Details

Keywords: Economic Methodology; Simulations; Banking; Regulation; Judgment; Economics; Banks and Banking

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Article

Job Loss, Credit and Crime in Colombia

By: Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Christian Posso and Jorge Tamayo

We investigate the effects of job displacement, as a result of mass layoffs, on criminal arrests using a matched employer-employee-crime dataset from Medellín, Colombia. Job displacement leads to immediate and persistent earnings losses and higher probability of arrest... View Details

Keywords: Job Displacements; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Crime and Corruption; Credit; Colombia; Medellín

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2020
Working Paper

Job Loss, Credit and Crime in Colombia

By: Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Christian Posso and Jorge Tamayo

We investigate the effects of job displacement, as a result of mass layoffs, on criminal arrests using a matched employer-employee-crime dataset from Medellín, Colombia. Job displacement leads to immediate and persistent earnings losses and higher probability of arrest... View Details

Keywords: Job Displacements; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Crime and Corruption; Credit; Colombia; Medellín

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Article

Beyond Good Intentions: Prompting People to Make Plans Improves Follow-through on Important Tasks

By: Todd Rogers, Katherine L Milkman, Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton

Many intend to stay fit but fail to exercise or eat healthfully; students intend to earn good grades but study too little; citizens intend to vote but fail to turnout. How can policymakers help people follow through on intentions like these? Plan-making, a tool that... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Success; Planning

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March 2015
Case

West Coast Chill

By: William A. Sahlman, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

The fall of 2010 marked the 20th year that Mitchell Joseph, a fourth generation beverage executive, serial entrepreneur, and the founder of the Joseph Company (the "Company"), had been working on developing the technology for a self-chilling can. Mitchell was at an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

July 1989 (Revised June 1993)
Case

American Airlines, Inc.: Revenue Management

Begins with a description of the elements of post-deregulation competition in the commercial airline industry. This should facilitate a discussion of the use of quantitative methods to support a broad range of tactical and strategic airline decisions. The principal... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Revenue; Air Transportation Industry

November 2005
Case

Marilyn Carlson Nelson and the Carlson Companies Renaissance

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2005, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, CEO and chairman of the Carlson Companies, must decide whether to outsource jobs at the risk of destroying the culture centered on the values of integrity, trustworthiness, and caring that she had painstakingly created since becoming... View Details

Keywords: History; Leadership Development; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Business or Company Management; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Family Ownership; Leadership Style; Management Teams

June 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Nehemiah Strategy, The: Bringing it to Boston

By: Diana Barrett, Arthur I Segel and Sheila McCarthy

In 2003, Lee Stuart, who had successfully used the Nehemiah Strategy to create thousands of units of affordable housing in the South Bronx, was working with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to implement the strategy in Boston. She and her colleagues faced a... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Boston

February 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Butler Capital Partners and Autodistribution: Putting Private Equity to Work in France

Describes a proposed buyout transaction of Autodistribution, an entrepreneurial firm that is the leading car-parts distributor in France. The deal became feasible because of a failed takeover battle for Autodistribution's parent company. Private equity investor Butler... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Valuation; Executive Compensation; Entrepreneurship; Distribution Industry; Auto Industry; France

May 1986 (Revised February 1989)
Case

Gillette Co.: Dry Idea Advertising (B), The Bake-Off

Presents the second of two cases describing the struggle to find "the right advertising" for the Dry Idea antiperspirant brand introduced in 1978 by the Gillette Co. and its advertising agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne (BBDO). The case begins with Gillette's... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Product Marketing; Consumer Products Industry; United States

17 Sep 2014
News

Ethan Bernstein on Balancing Privacy and Openness in the Workplace

04 Sep 2019
News

How to (Inadvertently) Sabotage Your Organization

16 Feb 2018
News

Spotted at LearnLaunch 2018: Speakers Address Career Pathways, Alternative Credentials, and Skills Vs. Degrees

13 Nov 2024
HBS Seminar

Filippo Mezzanotti, Northwestern University

Research Summary

US-Cuban Economic Relations 1898-1959

Rich Sicotte is conducting joint research with Alan Dye (Barnard College, Columbia University) on the evolution of US-Cuban economic relations before the Revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Currently they are focusing on the consequences of the Hawley-Smoot... View Details

January 2025
Case

COMAC - Chinese Aviation Soars to New Heights

By: William C. Kirby and Daniel Fu

COMAC's C919 manifested the first challenge to the Boeing-Airbus duopoly since it came to dominate aircraft manufacturing in the 1990s. Beijing sought to export the C919 abroad in its quest to become a "transportation superpower." Was it a wise decision for COMAC to... View Details

Keywords: Aviation; Boeing; Airbus; Aircraft; China; State-owned Enterprise (SOE); Chinese Manufacturing; Airline Industry; Airports

2020
Article

Making Economics More Useful: How Technological Eclecticism Could Help

By: Amar Bhidé

Keynes thought it would be ‘splendid’ if economists became more like dentists. Disciplinary economics has instead become more like physics in focusing on concise, universal propositions verified through decisive tests. This focus, I argue, limits the practical utility... View Details

Keywords: Economic Methodology; Simulations; Banking; Regulation; Judgment; Economics; Policy