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Publications
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- Faculty Publications (940)
- November 2015 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
Allianz Turkey: Focus on the Customer (A)
By: W. Earl Sasser and Gamze Yucaoglu
At the age of 39, Solmaz Altın took over the helm at Allianz Turkey. Solmaz quickly realized that, although the insurance market was thinly penetrated in Turkey, the company was operating in a very competitive environment with pressure on prices and, hence, cost... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised February 2016)
- Supplement
Allianz Turkey: Focus on the Customer (B)
By: W. Earl Sasser and Gamze Yucaoglu
At the age of 39, Solmaz Altın took over the helm at Allianz Turkey. Solmaz quickly realized that, although the insurance market was thinly penetrated in Turkey, the company was operating in a very competitive environment with pressure on prices and, hence, cost... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised February 2020)
- Teaching Note
IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design
By: Ryan W. Buell
The case describes IDEO, one of the world's leading design firms, and its human-centered innovation culture and processes. It is an example of what managers can do to make their own organizations more innovative. In reaction to a rapidly changing competitive landscape,... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised April 2017)
- Case
Streaming Over Broadband: Why Doesn't My Netflix Work?
By: Shane Greenstein and Michael Norris
In late 2013 and early 2014, Netflix service over the major U.S. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) suffered major slowdowns. What were the causes of these problems? What could Netflix do to solve them? View Details
- November 2015 (Revised January 2016)
- Teaching Note
McDonald's Corporation: Managing a Sustainable Supply Chain—From Amazon Soya to Cage Free Eggs
This case provides an opportunity for students to consider how large, multinational corporations should respond when targeted by activists regarding environmental and social concerns in their supply chains. Greenpeace targeted McDonald's because its chicken supplier... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Influence of Experience and the Surgical Learning Curve on Long-term Patient Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery
By: Bryan M. Burt, Andrew W. ElBardissi, Robert S. Huckman, Lawrence H. Cohn, Marisa W. Cevasco, James D. Rawn, Sary F. Aranki and John G. Byrne
OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that increased post-graduate surgical experience correlates with improved operative efficiency and long-term survival in standard cardiac surgery procedures.
METHODS: Utilizing a prospectively collected retrospective database,... View Details
METHODS: Utilizing a prospectively collected retrospective database,... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Integrity of Private Third-party Compliance Monitoring
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Government agencies are increasingly turning to private, third-party monitors to inspect and assess regulated entities’ compliance with law. The integrity of these regulatory regimes rests on the validity of the information third-party monitors provide to regulators.... View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Compliance; Compliance Policies; Conflict Of Interest; Independent Third Party; Inspection; Audit Quality; Auditor; Audit; Environment; Production; Supply Chain; Quality; Government Administration; Working Conditions; Safety; Labor; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governance Compliance; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; United States
- November 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Uber: Changing the Way the World Moves
By: Youngme Moon
In 2015, Uber is building what may be the largest point-to-point transportation network of its kind; it is literally changing the way the world moves. But unlike traditional transportation logistics companies like FedEx, Uber has an incredibly lightweight... View Details
- October 26, 2015
- Article
Measuring and Communicating Health Care Value with Charts
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Robin P. Blackstone, Derek A. Haas and Nikhil G. Thaker
The goal of a health care system should be to deliver the most value to patients: the outcomes achieved for treating a medical condition relative to the costs incurred over a complete care cycle. We have found that a radar (spider web) chart is an effective means to... View Details
- October 22, 2015
- Article
The Mayo Clinic Model for Running a Value-Improvement Program
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Derek A. Haas, Richard A. Helmers, March Rucci and Meredith Brady
Applying time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) in health care cannot be delegated to the finance function. The most successful implementations have had strong executive support, exceptional clinical leaders, and dedicated, multi-disciplinary project teams. The... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services
By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details
Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Delegation; Behavioral Operations; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry
- October 2015 (Revised February 2020)
- Teaching Note
Trouble at Tessei
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell
In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details
Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan
- October 2015
- Article
How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies
By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann
The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals
By: Hummy Song, Robert S. Huckman and Jason R. Barro
We consider the impact of cohort turnover—the planned simultaneous exit of a large number of experienced employees and a similarly sized entry of new workers—on operational performance in the context of teaching hospitals. Specifically, we examine the impact of the... View Details
- September 2015 (Revised March 2016)
- Case
Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts
The case provides a vehicle for teaching about both corporate intrapreneurship and the use of lean startup methods. It tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business... View Details
- September 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?
By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble
Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015 to 200 stores by the end of 2016, and while the two believed that MOD could manage... View Details
- September 2015
- Case
GovDelivery
By: Mitchell Weiss
Is government the biggest, worst customer in the world? And is that a reason for venture investors to back companies that sell to government or to stay away? It had been seven years since Scott Burns joined his friend Zach Stabenow to get a company called GovDocs off... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised December 2016)
- Case
Apple Pay
By: Sunil Gupta, Shelle Santana and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On September 9, 2014, in front of a packed audience in Cupertino, CA, Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple, announced the much anticipated launch of Apple Pay. "Our vision is to replace this [wallet] and we are going to start with payments." Cook then invited... View Details
Keywords: Technology; Digital Services And Strategy; Launch; Mobile; Mobile Payments; Apple; Payments; Smartphone; Apple Pay; Eddy Cue; Jennifer Bailey; iOS; Iphone; Marketing; Product; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Product Launch; Finance; Credit Cards; Technology Industry; Banking Industry; United States; United Kingdom
- August 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (A): Developing a New Model
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox
Bridj, a Boston startup that provides Big Data-powered, "pop-up" bus routes that respond to transportation demand, has been in operation for a little over a year and has recently launched service in Washington, D.C., its second market. Despite media acclaim and... View Details
Keywords: Startup; Startup Management; Big Data; Smart Transit; Stakeholder Engagement; Stakeholder Management; Urban Vehicle; Mobility; Mass Transit; Uber; Government Relations; Technological Innovation; Analytics and Data Science; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Transportation; Business Startups; Management; Business and Government Relations; Transportation Industry; Boston; District of Columbia
- August 2015
- Article
Hospital Board and Management Practices Are Strongly Related to Hospital Performance on Clinical Quality Metrics
By: Thomas C Tsai, Ashish K. Jha, Atul A. Gawande, Robert S. Huckman, Nicholas Bloom and Raffaella Sadun
National policies to improve health care quality have largely focused on clinical provider outcomes and, more recently, payment reform. Yet the association between hospital leadership and quality, although crucial to driving quality improvement, has not been explored... View Details