Publications

18 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Breaking Through a Growth Stall

evaluate business development opportunities. Driven by cash needs, they may call this "experimentation," but in effect they tell salespeople to "go forth and multiply!" By selling to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

December 2004
Teaching Note

Yield Curves and Bond Ratings Tutorial (TN)

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Teaching Note to (9-204-712). View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Education; Debt Securities; Service Operations; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Evaluation; Education Industry

November 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Activity-Based Management at W.S. Industries (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Sanjay Pothen

W.S. Industries undertakes the design and implementation of an activity based costing (ABC) system, and the ABC information empowers workers to make process improvement decisions. Workers' incentive pay is tied to cost savings from process improvements. View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Evaluation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Knowledge Management; Energy Industry; India

20 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 20

D. Margolis Publication:Harvard Business Review 89, no. 9 An abstract is unavailable at this time. Read the article: http://hbr.org/2011/09/a-global-leaders-guide-to-managing-business-conduct/ar/1 Working PapersDynamically Integrating... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 1987 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Ethyl Corp. in 1979

Describes the competitive situation facing the market leader in antiknock additives, the Ethyl Corp. Demand is declining rapidly and Ethyl has to decide whether to close capacity, and if so, how. Raises issues of corporate as well as SBU strategy because antiknock... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Corporate Strategy; Performance Capacity; Auto Industry; Chemical Industry

31 Oct 2019
News

Finding an Audience

Rene Solis (MBA 1958) is director of Musica en Mexico, a performing arts information service in Mexico City. In this interview he talks about how the group grew out of a personal mission to today serving a wide community of interest. “I... View Details

Keywords: Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

April 1984 (Revised November 1988)
Background Note

Statistical Quality Control for Process Improvement

Describes systematic methods for process debugging and improvement, based on statistical quality control. Examples are from manufacturing settings, but techniques are also useful for services and sales, and to quantity improvement as well as quality improvement. View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Business Processes

2012
Working Paper

Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie Wulf

Performance-based pay is an important instrument to align the interests of managers with the interests of shareholders. However, recent evidence suggests that high-powered incentives also provide managers with incentives to manipulate the firm's reported earnings. The... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Interests; Business and Shareholder Relations; Motivation and Incentives; Earnings Management; Performance Evaluation; Stock Options

Read Now

Web

Hiring Process | Employment

assessment in order to evaluate a specific skill set that is necessary to perform a component of the job. If a skills assessment is required you will be made aware during the phone screen or first interview.... View Details

July 1987
Case

Altoona Corp.: Computer Products Division

By: Roger E. Bohn and Robert H. Hayes

A relatively small manufacturer of computer memory disks has achieved a major market position through the use of its statistical quality control (SQC) program. It is now expanding the production of a new line of disks and is encountering problems getting the process... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Volatility; Performance Consistency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Quality; Mathematical Methods; Hardware; Manufacturing Industry

Find at Harvard

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

concern for a wide range of constituencies—has been pushed aside and has been replaced by a technical definition of what is acceptable. So there's also no question that we need to strengthen the internal systems that guide conduct within a firm: View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

06 Dec 2004
What Do You Think?

Why Do Managers Fail to Act on Their Predictions?

consider future implications for their companies...and then decide what action to take." Muller suggests, alternatively, that "traded companies be required—by regulating authorities—to include in their...financial report an...evaluation [of] View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Jun 2001
News

Up Side Story: HBS Show a Sold-Out Success

in love while entertaining the sold-out audience with humor, song, and dance. Each year since 1974, a group of hardworking students has pooled its writing, acting, and production skills to stage a Broadway-style performance that takes... View Details

Keywords: HBS Show; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

16 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 16

Publications December 2014 Management Science When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation By: Bohnet, Iris, Alexandra van Geen, and Max Bazerman Abstract—We examine a new... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (A)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

Burlington Northern's decision whether to invest in ARES, an automated train control system, is a ($350 million) strategic investment in information technology. Although set in a service industry (railroad) the issues around this decision arise in many organizations... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Rail Transportation; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Performance Effectiveness; Cost vs Benefits; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Customers; Quality; Rail Industry

23 May 2011
Op-Ed

Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society

analysts, who evaluated whether key performance indicators and narrative information regarding environmental and social performance were integrated with the presentation of... View Details

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles & George Serafeim

April 2020 (Revised April 2023)
Supplement

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increase ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Ethics; Private Equity; Financial Strategy; Growth Management; Performance Evaluation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Value Creation; Competitive Advantage; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; United States