Publications

Educators

April 2001
Article

Beyond Talent: John Irving and the Passionate Craft of Creativity

By: T. M. Amabile

Although laypeople and creativity theorists often make the assumption that individual creativity depends primarily on talent, there is considerable evidence that hard work and intrinsic motivation-which can be supported or undermined by the social environment-also play... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Performance; Performance Improvement; Motivation and Incentives; Personal Characteristics; Situation or Environment

April 2006 (Revised June 2008)
Case

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Robert S. Huckman and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Considers whether New Balance, one of the world's five largest manufacturers of athletic footwear, should respond to Adidas' planned acquisition of Reebok--a transaction that would join the second- and third-largest companies in the industry. Highlights the unique... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Production; Supply Chain Management; Performance Improvement; Competition; Consolidation; Apparel and Accessories Industry

Educators

December 2009
Article

Restructuring Within an Academic Health Center to Support Quality and Safety: The Development of the Center for Quality and Safety at the Massachusetts General Hospital

By: Richard Bohmer, Jonathan David Bloom, Elizabeth Mort MD, Akinluwa Demehin and Gregg Meyer MD

Recent focus on the need to improve the quality and safety of health care has created new challenges for academic health centers (AHCs). Whereas previously quality was largely assumed, today it is increasingly quantifiable and requires organized systems for... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Performance Improvement; Quality; Safety; Massachusetts

15 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

The Surprisingly Successful Marriages of Multinationals and Social Brands

markets faster through the existing distribution network of the acquirer, or through the ability to invest quickly in significantly expanded facilities. Compared to an IPO, it allows the careful delineation View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

09 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure

Keywords: by Anil R. Doshi, Glen W.S. Dowell & Michael W. Toffel

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat

neither upsell the customer to a device that may suit their needs better or make complementary sales of cables and ancillary devices that may improve the experience, and that customers are unlikely to buy... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rajiv Lal; Retail

12 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

What Brands Can Do to Monitor Factory Conditions of Suppliers

first set had to do with the audit team’s training—as measured by the number of audit skill courses they’d taken—and whether the audit was announced or a surprise. They found that the biggest improvements... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2013
Case

Luotang Power: Variances Explained

By: Robert Simons and Craig Chapman

The general manager of Luotang Power, a coal-fired power plant located in central China, reviews annual results before a meeting with the board of directors. He thought the company performed well during the year and both plant availability and fuel economy had improved... View Details

Keywords: China; Financial Statements; Management Accounting; Variance Analysis; Environmental Regulations; Incentives; Electric Power Generation; Contracts; Valuation; Energy Generation; Accounting; Performance Evaluation; Energy Industry; China

Educators

Research Summary

Competitive Strategy

Anita M. McGahan and Michael E. Porter and are completing a series of statistical papers on the sources of company and industry profitability. Based on a large new database on the profitability of U.S. business segments between 1981 and 1994, their research examines... View Details

February 2009
Article

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting

By: Lisa D. Ordonez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky and Max H. Bazerman

Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in the management literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

Article

A Head Start on Succession

By: Joseph L. Bower

Our studies of CEO succession over the past several years have shown some improvements in the trends in CEO turnover, often resulting from outside pressures for improved oversight and better corporate governance. The next step in improving CEO succession—and ultimately... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Succession; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations

20 Aug 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms: Firm-level Patterns from Europe and US

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro, Maggie X. Chen, and Harald Fadinger

23 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Minding the Muse: The Impact of Downsizing on Corporate Creativity

Not long ago, the senior management of a leading high-tech company was surprised to learn that research showed their R&D groups' creative performance to be in a prolonged slump following a corporate... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs

Article

Mission-Driven Governance

By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson

The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Knowledge Management; Standards; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Promoting a Management Revolution in Public Education

Keywords: by Stacey M. Childress, Richard Elmore & Allen S. Grossman; Education

2009
Chapter

Do Private Equity-owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Private Ownership; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity