Publications

June 2016
Article

Technology Choice and Capacity Portfolios under Emissions Regulation

By: David Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer and Luk N. Van Wassenhove

We study the impact of emissions tax and emissions cap-and-trade regulation on a firm's technology choice and capacity decisions. We show that emissions price uncertainty under cap-and-trade results in greater expected profit than a constant emissions price under an... View Details

Keywords: Technology Management; Management; Technology; Service Operations; Environmental Sustainability

June 2013 (Revised January 2016)
Case

Château Margaux: Launching the Third Wine

By: Elie Ofek and Eric E. Vogt

Château Margaux, one of only five prestigious estates in the Bordeaux Medoc wine region to have been classified as a "first-growth", is facing a host of strategic decisions in early 2013. Up until this point the estate had been selling two red wines, a first wine whose... View Details

Keywords: New Product Launch; Marketing Plan; Brand Management; Go To Market Strategy; Channels Of Distribution; Wine Industry; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; France

June 2020
Case

RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

April 2012
Article

How Many Direct Reports?

By: Gary L. Neilson and Julie Wulf

If senior executives are feeling ever more pressed for time, why would they add more to their plates? It might sound counterintuitive, but research by Booz & Company's Gary L. Neilson and me shows that over the past 20 years the CEO's average span of control, measured... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Governance Controls; Managerial Roles; Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Cooperation; Management Teams

July 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Case

The Springfield Nor'easters: Maximizing Revenues in the Minor Leagues

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Christopher H. Lovelock and Laura Winig

The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Quantitative Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Pricing Strategy; Price; Marketing Strategy; Mathematical Methods; Product Launch; Sports; Sports Industry; Massachusetts

Research Summary

FDA Review Time of New Drug Applications

Study of FDA Review Time of New Drug Applications (NDAs) between 1990-2004. Three main questions are addressed: How the optimal innovation strategy for firms is contingent upon firm status positions in the knowledge domain; how knowledge status both enables and... View Details

TeachingInterests

Understanding and Influencing Operations as an Investor

This course is designed to impart to students who plan to become investors an understanding of firms' operations, and to students, including entrepreneurs, planning to operate companies an understanding of how to interface with investors. The course also... View Details

Robert Simons

Robert Simons is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School. For over 35 years, Simons has taught accounting, management control, and strategy execution courses in both the Harvard MBA and Executive Education Programs. For 2023/24, he is... View Details

March 1997
Article

Transactions Costs and Capital Structure Choice: Evidence from Financially Distressed Firms

By: S. C. Gilson

This study provides evidence that transactions costs discourage debt reductions by financially distressed firms when they restructure their debt out of court. As a result, these firms remain highly leveraged and one-in-three subsequently experience financial distress.... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Capital Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Information; Finance; Business Ventures

September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African... View Details

Program

Advanced Management Program

optimizing our virtual program experience ever since. In a world that is now centered around virtual connection, our programs reflect the input and experience of tens of thousands of participants. When you participate in a virtual HBS... View Details

March 2020
Article

Synergistic Value in Vertically Integrated Power-to-Gas Energy Systems

By: Gunther Glenk and Stefan Reichelstein

In vertically integrated energy systems, integration frequently entails operational gains that must be traded off against the requisite cost of capacity investments. In the context of the model analyzed in this study, the operational gains are subject to inherent... View Details

Article

Robust and Stable Black Box Explanations

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Nino Arsov and Osbert Bastani

As machine learning black boxes are increasingly being deployed in real-world applications, there has been a growing interest in developing post hoc explanations that summarize the behaviors of these black boxes. However, existing algorithms for generating such... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Black Box Models; Framework

September 2010
Article

Strategies to Fight Ad-sponsored Rivals

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Feng Zhu

We analyze the optimal strategy of a high-quality incumbent that faces a low-quality ad-sponsored competitor. In addition to competing through adjustments of tactical variables such as price or the number of ads a product carries, we allow the incumbent to consider... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Models; Tactics; Pricing; Business Model; Advertising; Competition; Quality; Price; Product Marketing

2008
Working Paper

Behavioral Aspects of Price Setting, and Their Policy Implications

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper starts by discussing consumers' cognitive and emotional reaction to posted prices. Cognitively, some consumers do not appear to make effective use of price information to maximize their consumption-based utility. Emotionally, prices can induce regret and... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Price; Policy; Laws and Statutes; Consumer Behavior; Emotions

January 2003 (Revised September 2007)
Background Note

A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Examines factors that motivate a firm's race to acquire customers in newly emerging markets and explores conditions under which racing strategies are likely to yield attractive returns. Provides a definition of racing behavior, introduces the notion of an optimal level... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Price Bubble; Network Effects; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Behavior; Competition

Research Summary

Customer Management in Business-to-Business Markets

By: Das Narayandas

Das Narayandas is engaged in ongoing research on vendor firms' management of long-term customer relationships. The initial phase of his research involved identifying vendors that stood to benefit from long-term relationships with select sets of customers and... View Details

October 2009
Journal Article

Testing the Commitment Hypothesis in Contractual Settings: Evidence from Soccer

By: Oriol Carbonell and Diego A. Comin

This paper designs and implements an empirical test to discern whether the parties to a contract are able to commit not to renegotiate their agreement. We study optimal contracts with and without commitment and derive an exclusion restriction that is useful to identify... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Research; Sports Industry; Spain