Publications

December 2011
Case

Roger Caracappa: Package Deals for the Estée Lauder Companies

By: James K. Sebenius

Roger Caracappa must negotiate a cost-saving, innovative proposal from a potential French supplier that could displace the otherwise satisfactory, long-time incumbent supplier. Shortly after being promoted to executive vice president of the Estée Lauder Companies with... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain Management; Change; Innovation and Invention; Cost vs Benefits; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

June 2012
Article

Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes

By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton

We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Failure

April 2006
Background Note

Informing Service Management with Customer Data

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations. Explores the role of data analysis in ongoing service management. Describes how to realize the maximum amount of value from analyses and use this information in... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Design; Analytics and Data Science; Service Operations; Mathematical Methods; Value

June 2004 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Salem Telephone Company

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Julie Hertenstein

A computer subsidiary appears to be unprofitable. Managers must determine whether it is actually unprofitable and consider whether changes in prices or promotion might improve profitability. Allows clear separation of variable costs from fixed costs. A rewritten... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Business Earnings; Cost vs Benefits; Cost Management; Profit; Telecommunications Industry

March 1992
Case

Applied Materials

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes three subsequent generations of product development effort at an equipment firm supplying the semiconductor industry. The firm is partway into the third generation development and must decide whether and how to accelerate product development to respond to... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Industry Structures; Industrial Products Industry; Semiconductor Industry

2000
Working Paper

The Logic of the First Amendment

By: Clifford G. Holderness, Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling

We develop a framework that is applicable to all freedom of expression disputes. Our framework is based on the meaning of freedom which is based on the meaning of scarcity, and which, in turn, is based on the existence of physical incompatibilities. To maximize... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Courts and Trials; Judgments; Property; Conflict and Resolution; United States

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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

May 2019
Teaching Note

Tesla, Inc. in 2018

By: Siko Sikochi and Suraj Srinivasan

Teaching Note for HBS No. 119-013. The case facilitates a discussion about corporate governance and its role in achieving sustainable profitability and driving long-term shareholder value. The discussion can focus on such questions as what constitutes good governance,... View Details

Keywords: Public Company; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Cost vs Benefits

January 2019 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Ribbon Home: iBacking for Real Estate

By: Marco Di Maggio and Sarah Gulick

In November 2018, Shaival Shah, the founder and CEO of Ribbon Home had to decide on the next steps for the company. Ribbon had introduced a program that backs consumers with cash offers without creating a loan structure in order to help them compete with iBuyers, such... View Details

Keywords: Consumers; Real Estate; Property; Finance; Digital Platforms; Business Model; Decision Making; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry

2015
Working Paper

The Probability of Rare Disasters: Estimation and Implications

By: Emil Siriwardane

I analyze a rare disasters economy that yields a measure of the risk neutral probability of a macroeconomic disaster, p*t. A large panel of options data provides strong evidence that p*t is the single factor driving option-implied jump risk measures in the cross... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics

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2013
Article

Boardroom Centrality and Firm Performance

By: David F. Larcker, Eric C. So and Charles C.Y. Wang

Firms with central or well-connected boards of directors earn superior risk-adjusted stock returns. Initiating a long position in the most central firms and a short position in the least central firms earns an average risk-adjusted return of 4.68% per year. Firms with... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Governing and Advisory Boards; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance

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June 2009 (Revised March 2010)
Supplement

Hansson Private Label, Inc.: Evaluating an Investment in Expansion, Student Spreadsheet (Brief Case)

By: Erik Stafford and Joel L. Heilprin

Keywords: Present Value; Forecasting; Expansion; Valuation; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting

July 2009
Article

Bad Riddance or Good Rubbish? Ownership and Not Loss Aversion Causes the Endowment Effect

By: C. K. Morewedge, L. L. Shu, D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson

People typically demand more to relinquish the goods they own than they would be willing to pay to acquire those goods if they didn't already own them (the endowment effect). The standard economic explanation of this phenomenon is that people expect the pain of... View Details

Keywords: Value; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

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1997
Chapter

On the Dynamics of Forecasting in Technologically Complex Environments: The Unexpectedly Long Old Age of Optical Lithography

By: Rebecca M. Henderson

Keywords: History; Information Technology; Situation or Environment; Complexity; Forecasting and Prediction; Technology Industry

August 2006 (Revised November 2007)
Background Note

A Framework for Pursuing Diversity in the Workplace

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Michael Brookshire

Assesses the costs and benefits of pursuing diversity and pinpoints the primary barriers to creating diverse workplaces. It also proposes some options for advancing diversity in an organization. View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Diversity

09 Apr 2021
News

Negotiation, Diplomacy, Leadership, and Conflict Resolution

07 Oct 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen & William H. Meckling

October 1994
Article

When Worlds Collide: The Implications of Panel Data-Based Choice Models for Consumer Behavior

By: R. S. Winer, R.E. Bucklin, J. A. Deighton, J. Erdem, P.S. Fader, J.J. Inman, H. Katahira, Katherine N. Lemon and A. Mitchell

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions