Operational Transparency - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Transparency Sped Innovation in a $13 Billion Wireless Sector

Many businesses are loath to share proprietary information with others, fearing it will undercut their long-term financial prospects. They view openness as a threat to innovation. But a new years-long study of the wireless router industry shows that businesses that are... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology

March 2016
Supplement

Trouble at Tessei

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan W. 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

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Article

Cooks Make Tastier Food When They Can See Their Customers

By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay

While existing theory suggests that increased contact between customers and employees diminishes efficiency, recent research demonstrates that when employees can see their customers, the beneficiaries of their efforts, the quality and efficiency of the service they... View Details

Keywords: Operational Transparency; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Service Management; Service Industry

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15 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Post-CrowdStrike, Six Questions to Test Your Company's Operational Resilience

that business disruptions are not just potential threats, but common occurrences that demand immediate attention from CEOs, C-suite teams, and boards. It's time for leaders to take stock of their companies’ operational resilience—their... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Anita Lynch

March 2021
Article

Last Place Aversion in Queues

By: Ryan W. Buell

This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Queues; Reference Effects; Last Place Aversion; Transparency; Customers; Behavior; Satisfaction; Service Operations

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March 2014
Article

Information Environment and the Investment Decisions of Multinational Corporations

By: Nemit O. Shroff, Rodrigo S. Verdi and Gwen Yu

This paper examines how the external information environment in which foreign subsidiaries operate affects the investment decisions of multinational corporations (MNCs). We hypothesize and find that the investment decisions of foreign subsidiaries in country-industries... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Multinational Firms; Cross-border Frictions; Agency Frictions; Transparency; Financial Reporting Quality; Information Quality; Information; Multinational Firms and Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment

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2015
Working Paper

Service Quality, Inventory and Competition: An Empirical Analysis of Mobile Money Agents in Africa

By: Karthik Balasubramanian and David F. Drake

The use of electronic money transfer through cellular networks ("mobile money") is rapidly increasing in the developing world. The resulting electronic currency ecosystem could improve the lives of the estimated 2 billion people who live on less than $2 a day by... View Details

Keywords: Operations Strategy; Base Of The Pyramid; Mobile Money; Inventory Management; Competition; Currency; Service Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Michael W. Toffel

My research examines how companies manage environmental issues, occupational safety, and working conditions in global supply chains. More recently, I have also begun researching the drivers and implications of CEO activism, where organizational leaders speak out on... View Details

June 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Back to the Roots

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leslie K. John

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

Back to the Roots (BTTR) is a start-up with a social mission to “undo food”—to reconnect people to where their food comes from. In late 2017, Back to the Roots cofounders... View Details

Keywords: Organic Food; Startup; Crowdfunding; Sustainability; Transparency; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Development; Product Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Making; Food; Food and Beverage Industry

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August 2019
Teaching Note

Back to the Roots

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leslie K. John

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Back to the Roots HBS case No. 518-073. Back to the Roots (BTTR) is a start-up with a... View Details

Keywords: Organic Food; Startup; Crowdfunding; Sustainability; Transparency; Entrepreneurship; Product Development; Product Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Making; Food; Food and Beverage Industry

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27 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

workforce is, says a recent paper by Harvard Business School researchers. Even when a company’s numbers aren’t ideal, their transparency sends the message that they’re trying to change, the HBS authors write. “There’s definitely a... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

03 Jul 2013
What Do You Think?

What Are the Limits of Transparency?

cautioned us not to expect too much from a policy of transparency, saying "If the company culture operates better within the founder's vision of transparency, all well and good, be transparent. But to trust View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Teaching Interest

Audit Committees in a New Era of Governance

By: Paul M. Healy

The last ten years has heightened demands on audit committees. Not only are they responsible for overseeing internal and external audits to ensure that investors receive accurate and transparent information, but they must ensure compliance with new accounting and... View Details

Teaching Interest

Audit Committees in a New Era of Governance

By: Suraj Srinivasan

The last ten years has heightened demands on audit committees. Not only are they responsible for overseeing internal and external audits to ensure that investors receive accurate and transparent information, but they must ensure compliance with new accounting and... View Details

2021
Working Paper

The Changing Role of Business in Society

By: Michael E. Porter

Business interaction with the U.S. government, historically based on securing industry or company special interests at the expense of the public good, has enabled and furthered government dysfunction. Gridlock within the American political system has precluded the... View Details

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25 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity

employees, too. During the first summer, the embeds quickly discovered the crux of the transparency problem, which Bernstein recalls in his paper The Transparency Paradox: A Role for Privacy in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling

By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall

With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details

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17 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Brazil Teaches About Investor Protection

The current debate in the United States about how to regulate Wall Street focuses on laws, regulations, and monitoring. But lawmakers may want to look to history for guidance, to Brazil 100 years ago, when transparent governance and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Banking; Financial Services

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details