Publications

October 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Gene Research, the Mapping of Life and the Global Economy

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Juan Enriquez-Cabot

A new firm is being created to speed up the process of mapping humans, animals, and plants by combining gene technology with rapid gene identification to improve the health and well being of the human population and the productivity of crops and animals. How does one... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Technological Innovation; Business Processes; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Productivity; Welfare; Agribusiness; Genetics; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

September 1987 (Revised October 1987)
Background Note

The Job of the General Manager

By: James L. Heskett

Describes elements of the job of the general manager that are addressed in the Management Policy and Practice course at the Harvard Business School. These include: 1) establishing strategic direction, 2) setting goals and managing standards of performance, 3)... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Policy; Recruitment; Working Conditions; Managerial Roles; Resource Allocation; Mission and Purpose; Performance Evaluation; Strategy; Value

13 Mar 2005
Research & Ideas

Reinforcing Values: A Public Dressing Down

performance to improve, only to be bitterly disappointed. For some reason, the right things still don't happen. Why is change so hard? First of all, most people are reluctant to alter their habits. What worked in the past is good enough;... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin & Michael A. Roberto

30 Aug 2016
First Look

August 30, 2016

variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of various forms of conditional and unconditional compensation. We account for salesperson heterogeneity by using a... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

benefit of increased labor is improved quality. The objective of this paper is to examine the effect of labor on profitability through its impact on quality. Since employees at retail stores perform both production-related activities and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

For too long, scholarship in the field of management has looked at economic performance rather than social welfare, argue HBS professor Joshua Margolis and colleagues James P. Walsh, of University of Michigan Business School, and Klaus... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

01 Sep 2010
News

Faculty Books

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance by Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman (Harvard Business Press) Professor Raman and his coauthor explain how to use analytics to better... View Details

Keywords: Retail Trade; Water Transportation; Transportation

31 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Exploring the Art of Business: Social Enterprise Summer Fellow Felipe Ceron (MBA 2022)

are working around the world to develop skills and knowledge while having significant responsibility and high impact. What are you working on this summer? I am working at The Juilliard School as a Strategy and Revenue Intern in the office of the COO. The School is a... View Details

Portrait Project

Gordon C. Liao

i want to create wealth through poetry, passion and performance fulfill decades of unfilled entrepreneurial dreams of inner city tenants build success for descendants of slaves, laborers, refugee immigrants and overlooked underemployed... View Details

Web

William Donaldson | Baker Library

institutional fund manager required higher quality research on firms’ projected stock price performance than was available on Wall Street at the time. Bill and his partners Dan Lufkin and Richard Jenrette promptly launched DLJ to meet... View Details

08 Mar 2019
News

A Passionate Patron and Collector

HBS MBA, and how the arts factored into his academic experience. “When I was 3, 4 years old, I would draw and paint,” Van Lee tells the interviewer. “In elementary school, I was in the glee club. In high school, I was in speech and drama. The View Details

24 Apr 2014
News

A game-changer for migrant students

that Curiel performed during his second year at HBS and now incorporates The RFDF Stock Exchange, an online platform that offers migrant students scholarships for college, online courses in business and finance, and fellowships for... View Details

Langbourne M. Williams, Jr.

After launching a stockholder attack on the management of Freeport Sulphur in 1930, Williams found himself in the CEO position three years later. Under his direction, Freeport experienced a major turnaround in performance and became the... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture & Mining

November 2009
Journal Article

A Theory of Growth and Volatility at the Aggregate and Firm Level

By: Diego A. Comin and Sunil Mulani

This paper presents an endogenous growth model that explains the evolution of the first and second moments of productivity growth at the aggregate and firm level during the post-war period. Growth is driven by the development of both (i) idiosyncratic R&D innovations... View Details

Keywords: Volatility; Microeconomics; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods; Research and Development

Read Now

April 2008 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Ti-Tech (A)

By: Benson P. Shapiro, John T. Gourville and Craig E. Cline

This case concerns the selection and scheduling of orders by a small industrial titanium fabricator that recently has been plagued by poor deliveries and a lack of capacity. At the time of the case, Ti-Tech must decide which of four orders to accept, with capacity... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Metals and Minerals; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Supply Chain Management; Performance Capacity; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry

March 2009
Article

Loyalty-Based Portfolio Choice

By: Lauren Cohen

I evaluate the effect of loyalty on individuals' portfolio choice using a unique dataset of retirement contributions. I exploit the statutory difference that in 401(k) plans stand alone employees can invest directly in their division, while conglomerate employees must... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Retirement; Decisions; Employees; Performance Evaluation; Business Conglomerates; Compensation and Benefits

Read Now

December 2000
Case

Friona Industries, L.P.

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

As the food industry becomes more sophisticated, and as genomics and other factors provide for quality control from the producers to the consumers in the food chain, the beef industry has been one of the last commodity systems to organize the vertical systems to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Food; Management Systems; Supply and Industry; Performance Consistency; Quality; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

Article

Small Worlds and Regional Innovation

Small-world networks have attracted much theoretical attention and are widely thought to enhance creativity. Yet empirical studies of their evolution and evidence of their benefits remain scarce. We develop and exploit a novel database on patent coauthorship to... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Patents; Performance Productivity; Creativity; Social and Collaborative Networks