Publications

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

February 1994 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Manville Corp. Fiber Glass Group (C)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Sarah Gant

Manville Corp.'s senior managers are surprised when Japanese government officials advise them not to go forward with their plan to add a cancer warning label to diatomaceous earth (DE) products sold in Japan. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has ruled... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Ethics; Conflict of Interests; Health; Safety; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Policy; Japan

2020
Working Paper

Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA

By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

We study how a regulator can best target inspections. Our case study is a US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program that randomly allocated some inspections. On average, each inspection averted 2.4 serious injuries (9%) over the next five years.... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; Working Conditions; Safety; Quality; Production; Analysis; Resource Allocation; Manufacturing Industry; United States

SSRN

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Article

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing: A Driver for Provider Engagement in Costing Activities and Redesign Initiatives

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Nancy McLaughlin, Michael A. Burke, Nisheeta P. Setlur, Douglas R. Niedzwiecki, Alan L. Kaplan, Christopher Saigal, Aman Mahajan and Neil A. Martin

Object. To date, health care providers have devoted significant efforts to improve performance regarding patient safety and quality of care. To address the lagging involvement of health care providers in the cost component of the value equation, UCLA Health... View Details

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11 Feb 2015
News

When Investors Want to Know How You Treat People

26 Sep 2014
News

How Food Stamps Fuel Entrepreneurship

08 Sep 2016
Video

Monitoring global supply chains

27 Nov 2013
News

Can Garment Factories Become Safer?

March 2006 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Protecting Foreign Investors

By: Louis T. Wells Jr.

Describes the emergence of several kinds of efforts to assure the safety of foreign investment in emerging markets: international arbitration, expanded official political risk insurance, credit from government agencies, and intervention by investors' home governments.... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Safety

August 1999 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Brita Products Company, The

By: John A. Deighton

Clorox's Brita skillfully exploits a tide of water safety concerns, growing a home water (filtration) business from inception to a 15% U.S. household penetration in ten years. The dilemma in the case arises as the period of increasing returns seems to be drawing to a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Acquisition; Retention; Safety; Natural Environment; Emerging Markets; Investment Return; Equity; Demand and Consumers; United States

10 Feb 2022
News

10 Founders That Automotive Junkies Should Know

22 Aug 2018
News

The Promotion That Comes Without the Pay Raise

08 Sep 2016
News

Monitoring global supply chains

February 2023
Article

Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record

By: Zoë Cullen, Will Dobbie and Mitchell Hoffman

State and local policies increasingly restrict employers’ access to criminal records, but without addressing the underlying reasons that employers may conduct criminal background checks. Employers may thus still want to ask about a job applicant’s criminal record... View Details

Keywords: Criminal Record; Hiring; Background Checks; Recruitment; Insurance

Find at Harvard

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December 2003
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (C) (Abridged)

By: Lynn S. Paine

Manville Corp.'s senior managers are surprised when Japanese government officials advise them not to go forward with their plan to add a cancer warning label to diatomaceous earth (DE) products sold in Japan. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has ruled... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Moral Sensibility; Safety; Government Administration; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Announcements; Industrial Products Industry; Japan

07 Feb 2014
News

Let the Games Begin

16 May 2019
News

To Improve Food Inspections, Change the Way They’re Scheduled

March 2019 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Waymo LLC

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

On December 5, 2018, Waymo LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., launched the United States’ first commercial driverless-car ride-hailing service (Waymo One), based in Phoenix, Arizona. As with other ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, Waymo One riders... View Details