Publications

February 2017
Case

Eve Hall: The African American Investment Fund in Milwaukee

By: Steven Rogers and Alterrell Mills

The case highlights the role of minority chambers of commerce and the background of Eve Hall, a well-regarded multi-sector leader asked to revive Wisconsin's African-American chamber. This case study examines the lending options that a minority chamber of commerce... View Details

March 2015
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A) (Abridged)

By: Boris Groysberg and James Weber

Tracks the first six months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Relations; Organization Behavior; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Managing Projects; Informal Organization; Consulting; Professional Services; Leadership; Work-Life Balance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizations; Rank and Position; Product Development; Service Industry; Consulting Industry

March 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Exercise

The Future of BioPasteur

By: Giovanni Gavetti and Francesca Gino

The purpose of this exercise is to let students experience a few biases that can be deleterious to strategic decision-making. In particular, students are induced to fall into a confirmatory trap, and to experience other biases such as anchoring and sampling bias.... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Outcome or Result; Groups and Teams; Prejudice and Bias; Strategy

November 2005 (Revised April 2009)
Case

RFID at the METRO Group

Introduces radio frequency identification (RFID) as the next generation of automatic identification technologies that is expected to improve the performance of retail supply chains through reduced shrink, increased product availability, and improved labor productivity.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Supply Chain Management; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Technology Adoption

July 1998 (Revised January 2009)
Case

Display Technologies, Inc. (Abridged)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Jonathan West

Display Technologies, Inc. (DTI) is a new joint venture between Toshiba and IBM Japan that is manufacturing the most advanced form of flat panel displays. With success in achieving significant production volumes, DTI has been asked to double its output as quickly as... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership Style; Production; Outcome or Result; Performance Capacity; Strategy; Hardware; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

28 May 2020
News

How to Monitor Your Employees — While Respecting Their Privacy

Student-Profile

Professor Tiona Zuzul

Tiona Zuzul, assistant professor of business administration in the Strategy Unit, talks about her research on how leaders think and make decisions in uncertain settings, how the Doctoral Program at HBS... View Details

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Career Concerns and Staged Investment: Evidence from the Venture Capital Industry

By: Malcolm Baker

I develop a model in which career concerns lead to inefficient reinvestment decisions. Managers have incentives to inflate interim returns by continuing bad projects and delaying write-offs. In the venture capital industry, the syndication of follow-on investments can... View Details

Keywords: Performance Efficiency; Valuation; Venture Capital; Investment; Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Quality

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September 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Eden McCallum: A Network-Based Consulting Firm (A)

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Robert G. Eccles

Eden McCallum pioneered the network-based ("virtual") consulting firm model in the U.K. Contracting freelance consultants on a per-project basis keeps overheads lean so that Eden McCallum's fees are a fraction of the big firms' rates. Their flexible, low-cost model has... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Consulting Industry; United Kingdom

2010
Working Paper

Preference Intensities and Risk Aversion in School Choice: A Laboratory Experiment

By: Flip Klijn, Joana Pais and Marc Vorsatz

We experimentally investigate in the laboratory two prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools. We study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Education; Marketplace Matching; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Personal Characteristics

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July 2007 (Revised August 2010)
Case

JP Morgan Partners - Cabela's Inc.

JP Morgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase, owned 15% of Cabela's, Inc., a hunting and fishing equipment retailer in the U.S. In June of 2003, founders Dick and Jim Cabela wanted to liquidate some of their holdings. However, Cabela's was not... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Ownership Stake; Retail Industry; United States

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December 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Celtel International B.V.

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Mo Ibrahim, chairman of Celtel International, the largest provider of cellular services in sub-Saharan Africa, must decide on his company's future. After an amazing six years that took it from minority positions in three countries to nearly $1 billion in revenues and... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Business Growth and Maturation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; Africa

November 2003 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Beverly Stern: Retail Executive

By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Experience and Expertise; Personal Characteristics; Jobs and Positions; Decisions; Retail Industry

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Web

Welcome to HBS | MBA

entertain a new perspective, and to accept new data. We know it takes humility to listen rather than speak, to be able to change your mind, to change your course of action. We know it takes empathy and courage to stand up and make View Details

Web

1.12 Clearance for Return | MBA

roommates, suitemates, friends, or HBS staff will take on health care responsibilities for other students. Any student may, of course, refuse to allow consultation between the student’s clinician(s) and HBS, but such a refusal will not prevent HBS from View Details

01 Dec 2018
News

INK: The Bookshelf

Belsky “It turns out that we are not our greatest selves at either the low or the high points of a journey. Because during the lows, we tend to make decisions out of fear, and at the peaks, we View Details

Profile

Anddria Clack

interest and practice in a way that I had not experienced before. Through the case study method and experiential activities, I knew that I would be challenged to make important decisions in a managerial... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Investment Management / Hedge Fund; Other Financial Services

September 2023
Supplement

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs’ Growth (B)

By: Mark Egan

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working... View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Expansion; Production; Apparel and Accessories Industry

June 2021
Supplement

Reversing Course on a Reverse E-Auction (C)

By: Kym Lew Nelson, James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

Global consumer products powerhouse LSP has found enormous savings in a trial run of a new competitive bidding tool for their procurement organization known as a reverse e-auction. But when Jen Baldwin is asked to achieve the same savings from her suppliers for a... View Details

Keywords: Reverse E-auctions; Bids and Bidding; Auctions; Complexity; Cost vs Benefits