Publications

Web

Managing Customers for Growth - Course Catalog

Measuring Customer-Driven Growth Focuses on valuing customers, assessing customer-base dynamics, and measuring growth strategies. Students will analyze customer data and perform a Customer-Base Audit exercise to View Details

February 2008
Case

EFI, Inc. (A)

By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley

EFI has a unique sales compensation challenge. They cannot allocate sales credit for their core product to individual salespeople. So, they've historically paid the sales force as a team. This has worked out fine, since they've been a near-monopoly seller of a single... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives

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 Mar 2025
News

On The Case: The Base Factor

In her research as a marketing modeler, Professor Eva Ascarza focuses on understanding customers—and predicting, in particular, who will be a good one and how best to retain them. Without customers, obviously, there is no business. That could also be the tagline for... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

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

01 Sep 2005
News

Service Leadership Fellows Named

Valerie Bockstette, New Sector Alliance, Boston; Glen Brenner, Mayor’s Office, City of Boston; Juan Fernandez, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle; Jennifer Houston, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York; Monisha Kapila,... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

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

01 Mar 2015
News

Committed To HBS’s Success

Keeping HBS Competitive Mel Tukman (MBA 1966), a longtime supporter of Harvard Business School, recognizes the far-reaching impact of the School’s mission. He is committed to helping HBS continue to attract and cultivate the best... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

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

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

04 Jun 2008
News

Whistle While You Work

bought into that, too, until one day he had a transformational insight. “The conductor’s power depends on his ability to make other people powerful. I started paying attention to how I was enabling my musicians to be the best performers... 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

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

December 2004 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Intel Research: Exploring the Future

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

It is 2004 and David Tennenhouse, the director of Intel Research, is reviewing the organization he has built since 2000. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the "silicon roadmap" that drove most of Intel's R&D efforts.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Performance Evaluation; Venture Capital; Technology Networks; Semiconductor Industry; United States

March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Arck Systems (B)

By: Ian Larkin

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a... View Details

Keywords: Change; Framework; Compensation and Benefits; Management; Organizational Design; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; System; Software

September 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Supplement

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (C)

By: Boris Groysberg, Christopher Marquis and Ayesha Kanji

Supplements the (A) case. The (C) case includes Keller's actual 2006 mid-year and self evaluations. View Details

Keywords: Projects; Management; Leadership; Organizations; Situation or Environment; Competition; Rank and Position; Attitudes; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Evaluation; Consulting Industry

February 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Cimetrics Technology (A-1)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jose Royo

Jim Lee, president of Cimetrics (a young, fast growing, software start-up) is reevaluating his small company's geographically dispersed product development model. To take advantage of talented low-cost labor in Russia, the company has relied on two software engineering... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Applications and Software; Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Labor and Management Relations; Product Development; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Russia; Canada; United States

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

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