Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,469)
- Faculty Publications (525)
- May 1996
- Background Note
The GM's Operational Challenge: Managing Through People
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Ashish Nanda
Highlights and explores how a general manager adds value to the firm at the operational level by managing through people. Discusses how assumptions about human motivation influence the employment contract that the general manager implicitly enters into with the workers... View Details
- April 1996 (Revised November 1996)
- Case
BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre, Carin-Isabel Knoop and H. James Nelson
Describes the events surrounding the construction of the BAE baggage-handling system at the Denver International Airport. It looks specifically at project management, including decisions regarding budget, scheduling, and the overall management structure. Also examines... View Details
- April 1995 (Revised December 2006)
- Case
Identify the Nonprofit
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ramona Hilgenkamp
This case presents financial statements and selected ratios for seven unidentified nonprofit organizations and asks that each set of financial information be matched with one of the following nonprofit entities: a public television station, a suburban hospital, a... View Details
- April 1995 (Revised June 2002)
- Case
Xerox: Outsourcing Global Information Technology Resources
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kevin Davis
In order to increase revenues, develop new technologies, and manage information technology more efficiently, Xerox decided to sign a 10-year, $3.2 billion contract with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). This case describes the events that preceded Xerox's decision to... View Details
- Article
Non-verifiability, Costly Renegotiation, and Efficiency
By: Jerry R. Green and J. J. Laffont
We study the implications of the non verifiability of information for the allocation of resources and the bearing of risk in a two party relationship. We consider a two step approach. In step one the two parties define a non contingent contract which will be executed... View Details
Keywords: Negotiation
- March 1994 (Revised October 1994)
- Case
Reading Energy
Reading Energy builds facilities that produce energy from nontraditional fuels. A privately held, entrepreneurial organization, it has spent six years developing a plan to build a waste-to-energy plant in the town of Robbins, Illinois. The plant would burn municipal... View Details
- March 1994
- Article
Expropriation and Inventions: Appropriable Rents in the Absence of Property Rights
By: J. Anton and Dennis Yao
We analyze the problem faced by a financially weak independent inventor when selling a valuable, but easily imitated, invention for which no property rights exist. The inventor can protect his or her intellectual property by negotiating a contingent contract (with a... View Details
- January 1994 (Revised April 2011)
- Background Note
Note on Private Equity Partnership Agreements
By: Josh Lerner
Venture capital by necessity is a long-run investment. Consequently, since the mid-1960s virtually all venture financing has been raised through private partnerships with a ten-year or longer life span. To govern these investments, complex contracts have sprung up... View Details
- January 1994 (Revised July 1998)
- Case
Repligen Corporation: January 1992
By: Josh Lerner and David Kane
Sandford Smith, CEO of Repligen, faces the breakdown of negotiations about a proposed joint venture with a large pharmaceutical firm. He must decide whether to proceed using his firm's internal resources or whether to seek to revise the proposed collaboration. If the... View Details
- Article
Commitments with Third Parties
By: Jerry R. Green
Observable irrevocable contracts between a principal and an agent have been suggested as a way in which the principal can enhance his payoff when playing a game against, or bargaining with, an opponent. It is shown that such beneficial agency relationships depend on... View Details
- March 1991
- Article
Incentives in Two-Sided Matching with Random Stable Mechanisms
By: A. E. Roth and J. H. Vande Vate
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives
- January 1989 (Revised June 1993)
- Case
General Electric: Compliance Systems
By: Robert L. Simons
After General Electric (GE) is indicted in 1985 for defrauding the Department of Defense, Chairman John F. Welch takes dramatic steps to prevent a recurrence. This case documents the new systems and procedures that are put in place to ensure that all GE employees are... View Details
- August 1987 (Revised June 1989)
- Background Note
Note on Financial Contracting: ""Deals""
Describes the issues involved in designing and evaluating financial contracts between users and suppliers of capital and between companies and employees. A simple conceptual framework is introduced and some critical issues addressed: 1) How is cash allocated? 2) How is... View Details
- January 1986 (Revised December 1986)
- Case
Smartfood
Contains a description of a major financing decision confronting the management and advisors of Smartfood, Inc., a company which hopes to market a cheese flavored popcorn product. The primary pedagogic objective is to teach students about matching the financing plan... View Details
- 1986
- Article
A Note on Job Matching with Budget Constraints
By: S. J. Mongell and A. E. Roth
Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting
- January 1986
- Article
Social Influences on Creativity: The Effects of Contracted-For Reward
By: T. M. Amabile, B. A. Hennessey and B. S. Grossman
Three studies, with 195 5–11 yr olds and 60 female undergraduates, tested the hypothesis that explicitly contracting to do an activity in order to receive a reward would have negative effects on creativity, but receiving no reward or only a noncontracted-for reward... View Details
- May 1985 (Revised October 2001)
- Case
Comdisco, Inc.
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Rita J. Seymour
Comdisco, the largest independent dealer and lessor of computers and peripheral equipment, needs financing in order to match its market's growth of 20-30% per year. The company has access to two types of risk capital, but there are substantial costs and risks... View Details
- June 1983
- Article
A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts
By: Jerry R. Green and Nancy Stokey
Tournaments, reward structures based on rank order, are compared with individual contracts in a model with one risk-neutral principal and many risk-averse agents. Each agent's output is a stochastic function of his effort level plus an additive shock term that is... View Details