Operational Efficiency - Publications - Faculty & Research

14 Jun 2023
Op-Ed

Every Company Should Have These Leaders—or Develop Them if They Don't

We’ve long known that organizations require so-called flexible leaders to respond to rapid market fluctuations; the last couple of years have only emphasized that necessity. The environment we operate in—shaped by the pandemic, social... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson

06 Nov 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Extending Producer Responsibility: An Evaluation Framework for Product Take-Back Policies

Keywords: by Michael W. Toffel, Antoinette Stein & Katharine L. Lee; Chemical

24 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 24, 2018

retailer, we find that showrooms (1) increase demand overall and in the online channel as well; (2) generate operational spillovers to the other channels by attracting customers who, on average, have a higher cost-to-serve; (3) improve... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

operations was another crucial, yet less obvious, factor. “While we often think that employees within established organizations would be more confident in their ability to efficiently manage operations, we... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

thereby contributes to the theory of positive optimal taxation. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54934 Surfacing the Submerged State: Operational Transparency Increases Trust in and Engagement with... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

09 Feb 2016
First Look

February 9, 2016

reallocate capital from firms facing low tax rates to those facing high tax rates. Evidence from the worldwide operations of U.S. multinational firms indicates that affiliates in low-tax jurisdictions use trade credit to lend, whereas... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Illumination Studies and Relay Assembly Test Room – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

tests from 1924 to 1927, set out to determine the effects of lighting on worker efficiency in three separate manufacturing departments. Accounts of the study revealed no significant correlation between productivity and light levels. The... View Details

05 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can

many took advantage of economies of scale and other more efficient production processes. Yet, firms increasingly held on to the savings they gained from these reduced costs, rather than passing them on to customers in the form of lower... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

is not for the fainthearted. Most of us know how to drive—we have the basics—but we recognize we are ill-prepared to race against world-class competitors. While data and digital technologies were once enablers of efficiency and... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

increased dramatically (seven- to nine-fold) in the last two decades. To counteract this trend, I propose novel approaches to lower its cost or use attention more efficiently by adopting multitasker-tailored ads, Lean Advertising, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Could Clean Hydrogen Become Affordable at Scale by 2030?

Hydrogen is poised to move from the sidelines of global clean energy as the industry learns to produce it more efficiently and at lower cost, according to newly published research led by Gunther Glenk, a climate fellow with Harvard Business School's Institute for the... View Details

Keywords: by Desmond Dodd; Energy; Green Technology

26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

Volberda et al. (2021) put it: “with these advances in digital technology, the very nature of strategy is changing”. Others might argue that there is “nothing new under the sun” about digital strategy. It is just “dressing up” the competitive context in which firms... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

Winter 2013
Article

The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive Aggregators and Super-Aggregators

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

The patent market consists mainly of privately negotiated, bilateral transactions, either sales or cross-licenses, between large companies. There is no eBay, Amazon, New York Stock Exchange, or Kelley's Blue Book equivalent for patents, and when buyers and sellers do... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Platforms; Intermediaries; Aggregator; Patents; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Distribution Channels

Citation

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17 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Brazil Teaches About Investor Protection

why some state-owned enterprises are more efficient than others in Brazil as well as how much the country's development bank, BNDES, has contributed to making the country a world superpower in agribusiness and manufacturing. I think that... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Banking; Financial Services

Web

Faculty & Research - Business & Environment

that when firms compete via supply functions, transferring high-cost capacity to the largest, most efficient firm—thereby diversifying its production technologies while increasing concentration—can lower prices by prompting the leader to... View Details

27 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Asian and American Leadership Styles: How Are They Unique?

and doing so efficiently so that a financial profit or surplus is created. Administration is about rules and procedures and whether or not they are being followed. These distinctions are very important to clear communications among us... View Details

Keywords: by D. Quinn Mills

29 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely

Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School, and fellow researchers compared the outcomes of flexible work arrangements at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The team found that employees with liberal “work from... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

chairmen and one other director. Beneath the two parent companies a large number of operating companies were active in individual countries. They had many names, often reflecting predecessor firms or companies that had been acquired.... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

2023
Article

Balancing Risk and Reward: An Automated Phased Release Strategy

By: Yufan Li, Jialiang Mao and Iavor Bojinov

Phased releases are a common strategy in the technology industry for gradually releasing new products or updates through a sequence of A/B tests in which the number of treated units gradually grows until full deployment or deprecation. Performing phased releases in a... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Mathematical Methods; Product Development

Citation

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May 1995 (Revised April 1998)
Case

AT&T Paradyne

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A company making data communication devices has adopted a Total Quality philosophy for working with suppliers, employees, and customers. The finance group finds its existing cost system has become obsolete because of a shift from manual to automatic production... View Details