Publications

January 2008 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Two Brattle Center: A Mental-Health Clinic in Search of a Viable Operating Model

By: Robert G. Eccles

Two Brattle Center (TBC) is a struggling for-profit private mental health clinic based in Harvard Square. Its founder, Dr. Joan Wheelis, is a nationally recognized practicing psychiatrist who has developed outpatient treatment programs based on Dialectical Behavior... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Medical Specialties; Nonprofit Organizations; Emotions; Health Industry; United States

22 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Key Drivers of Successful Implementation of an Employee Suggestion-Driven Improvement Program

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker & Sara J. Singer.; Health

February 2020
Supplement

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (B)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum Industry; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

February 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

2018
Working Paper

Quantile Forecasts of Product Life Cycles Using Exponential Smoothing.

By: Xiaojia Guo, Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr. and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

We introduce an exponential smoothing model that a manager can use to forecast the demand of a new product or service. The model has five features that make it suitable for accurately forecasting product life cycles at scale. First, the trend in our model follows the... View Details

Keywords: New Product Development; Demand Forecasting; Product Adoption; Innovation Diffusion; Product Development; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Adoption

SSRN

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February 2016
Case

Banking and Politics in Antebellum New York

By: David Moss and Colin Donovan

After a long period of solid Democratic control, Whigs secured a majority of seats in the New York State Assembly in 1837, the same year that a major financial panic had crippled the banking system and shaken public confidence in the state's governance. The next year,... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Central Banking; Ethics; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; History; New York (state, US)

02 Apr 2020
What Do You Think?

What Are Lessons for Leaders from This Black Swan Crisis?

geographically, including some home grown production capacity will ensure a much more resilient operation.” Among other things, Chris Taylor suggested that leaders in this crisis will have learned that it paid to be calm in bearing,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

The Vinyl Renaissance: Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf

of our clients are upping their order sizes. They’ll say, “I only want 2,000 records.” They’ll put the order in and then say, “We sold through that too fast. We need 6,000.” So, all of our capacity planning has been thrown off by how much... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Music

01 Aug 2022
What Do You Think?

Does Religious Belief Affect Organizational Performance?

reminded us that, “With data science and AI coming into mainstream, gone are the days of inventory at (auto) dealership lots.” Finally, John Thorbeck asked, “must our inventory model be either/or? data science makes this adaptation possible, cutting excess production... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

2010
Article

Hospital Performance, the Local Economy, and the Local Workforce: Findings from a U.S. National Longitudinal Study

Background: Pay-for-performance is an increasingly popular approach to improving health care quality, and the US government will soon implement pay-for-performance in hospitals nationwide. Yet hospital capacity to perform (and improve performance) likely depends on... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Performance; Health Industry; United States

Read Now

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

want to develop business organizations that satisfy shareholders and yet have the capacity to adapt and survive as viable institutions in the long run. Theory E In 1994 Al Dunlap became CEO of troubled Scott Paper. Like Champion... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

comprise distinct and important roles, have meaning, and foster a sense of contribution to the organization. This does not mean all jobs must be knowledge work, or that employees must work at the peak of their intellectual or creative View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

April 2022
Teaching Note

Banorte Móvil: Data-Driven Mobile Growth

By: Ayelet Israeli and Carla Larangeira

In mid-2019, Carlos Hank was deliberating over the results for Banorte Móvil—the mobile application for Banorte, Mexico’s most profitable and second-largest financial institution. Hank, who had been appointed as Banorte´s Chairman of the Board in January 2015, had... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Customer Lifetime Value; Financial Institutions; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Customers; Technology Adoption; Communication Strategy; Banking Industry; Mexico; Latin America

20 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Five Discovery Skills that Distinguish Great Innovators

two-thirds of our innovation skills still come through learning—from first understanding the skill, then practicing it, and ultimately gaining confidence in our capacity to create. This is one reason that individuals who grow up in... View Details

Keywords: by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gergersen & Clayton M. Christensen

10 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Top Scholars Say About Leadership

central part of their mission, asserting that they educate and develop leaders for society. And yet, if we look at the leading research universities and at the business schools within them, the topic of leadership is actually given fairly short shrift. The gap—between... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

January 2020
Case

Banorte Móvil: Data-Driven Mobile Growth

By: Ayelet Israeli, Carla Larangeira and Mariana Cal

In mid-2019, Carlos Hank was deliberating over the results for Banorte Móvil—the mobile application for Banorte, Mexico’s most profitable and second-largest financial institution. Hank, who had been appointed as Banorte´s Chairman of the Board in January 2015, had... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Customer Lifetime Value; Financial Institutions; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Customers; Technology Adoption; Communication Strategy; Banking Industry; Mexico; Latin America

24 Feb 2022
Op-Ed

Want to Prevent the Next Hospital Bed Crisis? Enlist the SEC

During the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, many US hospitals could not provide enough beds to meet demand. Solving the problem of inadequate capacity is of utmost importance in the “new normal,” which requires recognizing the... View Details

Keywords: by Regina Herzlinger and Richard Boxer; Health

03 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Succeed With Your New Boss

things fast when you know that the business has serious structural problems. So it is wise to get bad news on the table early and to lower unrealistic expectations. Be careful to assess your new organization's capacity for change before... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins

May 1988 (Revised June 2023)
Case

National Cranberry Cooperative, 1996

By: Roy D. Shapiro

Describes the continuous flow process used to process cranberries into juice and/or sauce. Requires student to analyze process flows to determine where the bottlenecks are and to decide how, and whether, to expand capacity. Original version written by J.G. Miller and... View Details

Keywords: Logistics; Performance Capacity; Performance Improvement; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Cost vs Benefits; Production