Publications

September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African... View Details

Article

Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing

By: Michael I. Norton and Samuel R. Sommers

Although some have heralded recent political and cultural developments as signaling the arrival of a post-racial era in America, several legal and social controversies regarding "reverse racism" highlight Whites' increasing concern about anti-White bias. We show that... View Details

Keywords: Racism; Zero-sum Game; Bias; Affirmative Action; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Social Issues; United States

August 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Accounting for Political Risk at AES

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Suraj Srinivasan

As a global energy generating company, AES frequently faces challenges from political changes and instability. This is exacerbated by the fact that in many instances AES' primary customer is the government, which is also in charge of law-making. For example, AES'... View Details

Keywords: Political Risk; Asset Impairment; Risk Factors; Fair Value; Fair Value Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Energy Industry; Bulgaria; Dominican Republic; United States; Venezuela

August 2007 (Revised January 2009)
Exercise

Real Options Exercises

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

Introduces students to simple forms and solution techniques for real options found in corporate settings. Revised versions of problems appearing in an older problem set (293-095). The basic differences are that the new set is shorter, but also a bit more demanding. View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Valuation

December 2012
Article

On the Efficiency-Fairness Trade-Off

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vivek F. Farias and Nikolaos Trichakis

This paper deals with a basic issue: How does one approach the problem of designing the "right" objective for a given resource allocation problem? The notion of what is right can be fairly nebulous; we consider two issues that we see as key: efficiency and fairness. We... View Details

Keywords: Decision Support; Cost vs Benefits; Fairness; Resource Allocation; Performance Efficiency; Air Transportation Industry

Find at Harvard

June 2004
Case

AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (A)

By: Rogelio Oliva, Elizabeth Keating and James Quinn

The newly appointed director of the project dedicated to reducing product development time for AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (TSBU) is trying to decide how best to sustain the momentum of its Achieving Process Excellence (APEX) teams. During the past three... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Groups and Teams; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Product Development; Telecommunications Industry

03 Dec 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Against the Grain

moving parts and so little information." "Smart, ethical managers, who have a long-term view, can be encouraged to form special-interest groups to address corruption in their societies.” Corruption is a View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Food & Beverage

09 May 2024
News

MBA Moms Celebrate Mother’s Day

April 2014
Case

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc.: Taking on Seasonal Starvation in Latin America

By: Christopher Marquis and Zoe Yang

A company with a strong commitment toward corporate social responsibility since its founding days, Green Mountain faced an ethical decision point in 2007 as new information from the field uncovered a chronic dire problem facing coffee communities—seasonal starvation.... View Details

Keywords: Fair Trade; Coffee; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Latin America; Central America; Mexico; Guatemala; Nicaragua

25 Sep 2023
Blog Post

HBS Latino Student Association Spotlight: Ana Barrera (MBA 2024)

individuals holding an MBA identify as Latinas, and we have among the lowest representation in senior business positions and corporate boards. In part, the strong desire to View Details

06 Oct 2020
Blog Post

2+2 Where Are They Now Spotlight: Curtis Wu (MBA 2018)

Charles Cooney, taught me that the hardest problems often occur at interfaces between multiple sectors. The 2+2 program offered me a way to learn the language and tools I would need to tackle tough View Details

November 1986 (Revised December 1998)
Case

Disctech, Inc.

Describes a company that had problems of fraudulent financial reporting. Provides an opportunity to discuss the roles of top management, financial management, internal and external auditors, and the audit committee of the board of directors in such circumstances. The... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Financial Reporting

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

The Three Components of Family Governance

There are three components to family governance: Periodic (typically annual) assemblies of the family; all families in business can benefit from this activity. Family council meetings for those families that benefit from a representative group of their members doing... View Details

August 2014
Case

Netflix in 2011

By: Willy Shih and Stephen Kaufman

Reed Hastings founded Netflix to provide a home movie service that would do a better job satisfying customers than the traditional retail rental model. But as it encountered challenges it underwent several major strategy shifts, ultimately developing a business model... View Details

30 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Only Capitalists Can Save Capitalism

Role of Business. "Our book argues that if we don't begin to address, in a systemic way, the issues and problems and the negative outcomes and... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

16 Oct 2018
Blog Post

2 Tips to Beat Imposter Syndrome

believe in. To begin challenging those negative thoughts, I first sought to become more aware of them. I found that the easiest way to do this was to stop and notice when I was feeling negative emotions –... View Details

13 Nov 2020
Blog Post

Take a Seat in the Case Method Classroom

lively debates, and how this teaching style leads to emotional intelligence and lifelong application. The case method presents big challenges confronting organizations –... View Details

May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Novartis (C): Reimagining Medicine

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Claudio Feser, Karolin Frankenberger and David Redaschi

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — is, among other ventures,... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Problems and Challenges; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland