Publications

Find at Harvard

July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Propel

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra

In 2014, Jimmy Chen, a former product manager at Facebook, founded the start-up Propel to build software for low-income Americans. After conducting in-depth behavioral research, Chen and his small team in New York City began to develop technology to address the... View Details

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

Phil's work aims to identify the drivers of performance for healthcare organizations and providers, and the mechanisms by which this performance can change over time. In complex healthcare settings, the optimal choice of treatment can be highly ambiguous. As a... View Details

Keywords: Primary Care; Medical Decision-making; Learning By Doing; Healthcare Organizations; Healthcare Operations; Health Economics

2025
Working Paper

Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping The Way We Do Electricity

By: Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine

In this paper, we aim to understand when private households invest in behind-the-meter battery storage next to rooftop solar and how those batteries impact households, the electricity market, and emissions. We answer three main research questions: 1) When do customers... View Details

Keywords: Solar Power; Energy Storage; Technology And Innovation Management; Energy; Energy Policy; Renewable Energy; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Energy Industry

SSRN

2021
Working Paper

An Empirical Study of Time Allotment and Delays in E-commerce Delivery

By: M. Balakrishnan, MoonSoo Choi and Natalie Epstein

Problem definition: We study how having more time allotted to deliver an order affects the speed of the delivery process. Furthermore, we seek to predict orders that are likely to be delayed early in the delivery process so that actions can be taken to avoid delays.... View Details

Keywords: Logistics; E-commerce; Mathematical Methods; AI and Machine Learning; Performance Productivity

SSRN

2022
Working Paper

Rethinking Explainability as a Dialogue: A Practitioner's Perspective

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Dylan Slack, Yuxin Chen, Chenhao Tan and Sameer Singh

As practitioners increasingly deploy machine learning models in critical domains such as healthcare, finance, and policy, it becomes vital to ensure that domain experts function effectively alongside these models. Explainability is one way to bridge the gap between... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Conversations; AI and Machine Learning; Experience and Expertise; Interactive Communication; Business and Stakeholder Relations

06 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Updating a Classic: Writing a Great Business Plan

Sean Silverthorne: "How to Write a Great Business Plan" has been one of the most downloaded articles on Harvard Business Publishing since you wrote it in 1997. Why do you think you hit a nerve? Bill Sahlman: Writing a business plan is a seminal moment in the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

27 Jul 2020
Book

Reflection: The Pause That Brings Peace and Productivity

standards that others expect you to meet and the standards you have set for yourself, Badaracco says. The managers Badaracco interviewed took different approaches to this way of reflecting. Some imagined what their professional role View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Profile

Soltan Bryce

experiences in health care and farming added up to one common cause: sustainability. Moving from agriculture to health care after graduation from college, Soltan realized the same mental model could be applied to the complex system of... View Details

16 May 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Marketplace or Reseller?

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Julian Wright; Retail

May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robert G. Eccles and Casey Taylor

InterfaceRAISE is a sustainability management consulting firm created to leverage the capabilities of its parent company Interface Inc., a carpet manufacturer recognized as a global leader in corporate environmental sustainability. This case illustrates the challenges... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Environmental Accounting; Profit; Marketing Strategy; Human Resources; Business Model; Leveraged Buyouts; Salesforce Management; Consulting Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Educators

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rob Markey

Most companies' leaders declare their commitment to delivering value to customers. Many have adopted language such as "customer-centric" or "customer-obsessed." Companies that consistently earn top marks for customer loyalty in their industry deliver total shareholder... View Details

Keywords: Customer Base Analysis; Customer Lifetime Value; Customer Experience; Customer Loyalty; Service Profit Chain; Management Accounting; Project Evaluation And Resource Allocation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Satisfaction; Valuation; Customer Focus and Relationships

January 2025
Teaching Note

Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service

By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Stacy Straaberg

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 124-007. The Germany-based startup Vytal operated the largest digital-native reusable packaging-as-a-service network globally, having raised nearly €15 million, established a large network of restaurant partners, and prevented the use of... View Details

Spring 2024
Article

One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher Education Sector

By: Tarun Khanna

Several recent encouraging experiments in Indian higher education suggest a plausible aspirational path toward a more salubrious future than that suggested by an otherwise struggling system. Four case studies of privately conceived and funded universities each exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

2022
Working Paper

Overreaction and Diagnostic Expectations in Macroeconomics

By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

We present the case for the centrality of overreaction in expectations for addressing important challenges in finance and macroeconomics. First, non-rational expectations by market participants can be measured and modeled in ways that address some of the key challenges... View Details

Keywords: Overreaction; Rational Expectations; Macroeconomics; Market Participation; Social Psychology

February 2023
Supplement

Coats Dyehouse Management

By: Willy C. Shih

Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Supply Chain; Inventory; Supply Chain Management; Operations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia

Article

Variety of Innovation in Global Value Chains

By: Giulio Buciuni and Gary P. Pisano

This article analyzes how the geography and organization of pre- and production stages in Global Value Chains (GVC) contribute to lead firms' innovation development. A novel approach in GVC studies is introduced based on transaction cost economics (TCE) and the... View Details

Keywords: GVC; Global Value Chains; Manufacturing; Production; Global Range; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

2016
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Doug Rauch and the Daily Table

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Peter Zimmerman and Penelope Rossano

Former Trader Joe's President Doug Rauch developed an innovative idea to address the challenge of food insecurity, food waste, and nutrition. His concept was a new retail grocery model, offering nutritious affordable food to a food insecure population in the inner city... View Details

Keywords: Food Insecurity; Grocery; Social Entrepreneurship; Food; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Boston

Article

Beacon and Warning: Sherman Kent, Scientific Hubris, and the CIA's Office of National Estimates

By: J. Peter Scoblic

Would-be forecasters have increasingly extolled the predictive potential of Big Data and artificial intelligence. This essay reviews the career of Sherman Kent, the Yale historian who directed the CIA’s Office of National Estimates from 1952 to 1967, with an eye toward... View Details

Keywords: National Security; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; History

August 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A)

By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan, Francois Brochet and Christine Johnson

In May 2018, Berkshire Hathaway announced an unprecedented loss of more than $1 billion for the first quarter of 2018. Warren Buffett blamed this loss on the new accounting rules for equity securities which he criticized. In the case ‘Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire... View Details

Keywords: Equity Securities; FASB; Fair Value Accounting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Services Industry

Educators