Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,455)
- Faculty Publications (582)
- May 2010
- Article
Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Ralf Martin and Raffaella Sadun
We use an innovative methodology to measure management practices in over 300 manufacturing firms in the U.K. We then match this management data to production and energy usage information for establishments owned by these firms. We find that establishments in better... View Details
- April 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
California's Budget Crises, Tax Reform, and Domestic and International Tax Competition
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Jacob Kuipers
How do (and how should) governments design fiscal policies to compete in a globalized economy while meeting internal policy priorities including redistribution? In 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly declared fiscal emergencies as California's state budget... View Details
- April 2010
- Article
Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital
This paper presents evidence of performance persistence in entrepreneurship. We show that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than first-time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. In particular, they exhibit... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Conceptual Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard
By: Robert S. Kaplan
David Norton and I introduced the Balanced Scorecard in a 1992 Harvard Business Review article (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The article was based on a multi-company research project to study performance measurement in companies whose intangible assets played a central role... View Details
- Article
Signaling Firm Performance Through Financial Statement Presentation: An Analysis Using Special Items
By: Edward J. Riedl and Suraj Srinivasan
This paper investigates whether managers' presentation of special items within the financial statements reflects economic performance or opportunism. Specifically, we assess special items presented as a separate line item on the income statement (income statement... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised March 2010)
- Supplement
Leading Change at Simmons (E)
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Susan Thyne
This case updates the “Leading Change at Simmons” series by examining Simmons' increasing debt under the ownership of Thomas H. Lee, a private equity firm. Charlie Eitel, the former CEO, wonders what the company's, and his, legacy will be after declaring bankruptcy... View Details
- February 2010
- Article
Conflict of Interest and the Intrusion of Bias
By: Don A. Moore, Lloyd Tanlu and Max Bazerman
This paper presents evidence of performance persistence in entrepreneurship. We show that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than first-time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. In particular, they exhibit... View Details
- Article
Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Human Capital; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multinational Firms and Management; India; Brazil; United States
- 2010
- Chapter
Revisiting the Meaning of Leadership
By: Joel Podolny, Rakesh Khurana and Marya Hill-Popper
During the past 50 years, organizational scholarship on leadership has shifted from a focus on the significance of leadership for meaning-making to the significance of leadership for economic performance. This shift has been problematic for two reasons. First, it has... View Details
- Article
What Really Motivates Workers
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steve J. Kramer
This essay appears in "The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2010," which is compiled by this journal in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The ten problems and the innovative solutions are discussed in each essay. This particular essay describes research... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
When Does Leadership Matter? A Contingent Opportunities View of CEO Leadership
By: Noam Wasserman, Nitin Nohria and Bharat Anand
There is by now a long-standing debate on the impact that CEOs have on company performance. Studies of leadership describe how CEOs can significantly impact company performance, while the "constraints" perspective argues that leaders are sufficiently constrained by... View Details
- December 2009
- Article
Hiding the Evidence of Valid Theories: How Coupled Search Processes Obscure Performance Differences Among Organizations
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin
Theorists argue that an organization's high-level choices, such as its organizational design or the attributes of its top management team, should influence its performance, yet empirical researchers have struggled to detect such influence. The impact of high-level... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
Jody Leleck at Broad Acres (A)
By: Paul W. Marshall and Andrew Goldin
Jody Leleck has been appointed the principal of Broad Acres Middle School in Montgomery County, Maryland. The school is underperforming all other schools in the district, and she has been asked to improve the performance. View Details
- November 2009 (Revised June 2012)
- Supplement
Jody Leleck at Broad Acres (B)
By: Paul W. Marshall and Andrew Goldin
Explores the results of Jody Leleck's efforts to turn around underperforming Broad Acres Middle School. View Details
- September 2009
- Case
The Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, Inc.
By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Stephen P. Bradley and Natalie Kindred
Through its uniquely proactive approach to medical malpractice risk management, the Risk Management Foundation (RMF) has decreased claims—and premiums—for the Harvard hospitals it insures. The RMF is the captive medico-legal insurer of the Harvard medical institutions... View Details
- September 2009
- Article
A Detailed Analysis of the Reduction Mammaplasty Learning Curve: A Statistical Process Model for Approaching Surgical Performance Improvement
By: Matthew Carty MD, Rodney Chan, Robert S. Huckman, Daniel C. Snow and Dennis Orgill
Background: The increased focus on quality and efficiency improvement within academic surgery has met with variable success among plastic surgeons. Traditional surgical performance metrics, such as morbidity and mortality, are insufficient to improve the... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised September 2010)
- Case
Genzyme Center (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia
Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green... View Details
Keywords: Green Building; LEED Rating System; Economic And Environmental Performance; Program Evaluation And Assessment; Tradeoffs Between Process- And Performance Standards; Buildings and Facilities; Business Headquarters; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry
- 2009
- Chapter
Do Private Equity-owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details
- July 2009
- Article
How Can Decision Making Be Improved?
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman
The optimal moment to address the question of how to improve human decision making has arrived. Thanks to fifty years of research by judgment and decision making scholars, psychologists have developed a detailed picture of the ways in which human judgment is bounded.... View Details
- 2009
- Book
Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Montgomery County Public Schools
By: Stacey M. Childress, Dennis Doyle and David A. Thomas
Leading for Equity tells the compelling story of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools and its transformation—in less than a decade—into a system committed to breaking the links between race and class and academic achievement. In chapters organized around six... View Details