Publications

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06 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

High Hills, Deep Poverty: Explaining Civil War in Nepal

Civil wars have been the dominant form of conflict around the world since World War II, resulting in approximately 20 million deaths. But it's not just sociologists who are diving into the roots of conflict. Increasingly, economists are... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

How Eliminating Non-Competes Could Reshape Tech

Federal restrictions of employee non-compete agreements could be in the cards for 2022, paving the way for increased worker mobility in a variety of industries. Such restrictions would have hiring and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

29 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How to Succeed in Business (According to a 15th Century Trade Merchant)

leaning elsewhere...he might not well prosper in that life, or would only get on with difficulty or remain stuck halfway with small profit to himself and without reaching his objective, which should be to... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

01 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

How Politics Drives Business Decisions in a Polarized Nation

party offering starkly differing prescriptions for growth, it’s more important than ever to understand how political leanings shape the business, the workplace, and beyond. “Political homogeneity of executive teams View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

15 Mar 2021
Office Hours

Readers Ask: What's the Next 'Big Thing' in Finance?

What’s next in finance? Is bitcoin an inflation shield? What’s your favorite weightlifting exercise? Lauren Cohen, the L.E. Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, recently answered these and other... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

17 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Harvard Business School Faculty Comment on Crisis in Japan

lean inventories and just in time deliveries, there is not a lot of slack in the system to act as a buffer. This disaster promises to be quite a test. Consider, for example,... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

02 Dec 2015
What Do You Think?

What Will It Take to Achieve Gender Equality in Leadership?

make it happen? There are several kinds of responses to this question. The first is the “do it yourself” response, characterized by Sheryl Sandberg’s now-famous argument in her book, Lean In. Among other... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

Does Your HQ Operation Fit With Corporate Strategy?

in lean and mean headquarters will be difficult for managers to let go of? A: Lean and mean will be hard to let go of, and to some extent that is appropriate. We found that... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Feb 2021
Research & Ideas

Pandemic Self-Care for CEOs: Rituals, Running, and Cognitive Restructuring

A year of COVID-19 limbo has turned the notion of self-care into a mainstream pursuit. After all, with the pandemic’s end on the distant horizon, we all just need to hang in there a little longer—even CEOs. Earlier this month, we looked... View Details

Keywords: by Gamze D. Yucaoglu, Robin Abrahams, and Boris Groysberg

Working Paper Summaries

Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann

September 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts

The case provides a vehicle for teaching about both corporate intrapreneurship and the use of lean startup methods. It tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Applications and Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry

06 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

Curbing an Unlikely Culprit of Rising Drug Prices: Pharmaceutical Donations

Prescription drug costs continue to climb in the United States, but tightening a loophole in a federal law may help curb rising expenses, according to research published this week View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Insurance; Health; Pharmaceutical

14 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 14, 2009

Bradley R. Staats and David M. Upton Abstract While the concepts of lean production are frequently applied in service organizations, there is little work that rigorously has examined implementing View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

21 May 2024
Cold Call Podcast

The Importance of Trust for Managing through a Crisis

Keywords: Re: Sandra J. Sucher; Tourism

16 Feb 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Fostering Authenticity and Employee Engagement at John Deere

Keywords: Re: Anthony Mayo; Manufacturing

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Rapid Response: Inside the Retailing Revolution

and John T. Dunlop of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and David Weil of Boston University. Their recent book, A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the Transformation of... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Manufacturing; Retail

June 1991 (Revised April 1993)
Case

General Electric: Jack Welch's Second Wave (A)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

By the mid 1980's Jack Welch had completely transformed General Electric with more than 300 divestitures and acquisitions since the beginning of the decade. Welch insisted that his business units be number one or number two in their markets, and have the strength of... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Transformation; Employee Relationship Management; Planning; Corporate Strategy

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

October 2016
Case

Elon Musk: Balancing Purpose and Risk

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Sarah Mehta

The case is used to illustrate the place of ‘Purpose’ versus financial risk and returns in a founder’s objectives. It also addresses personal risk profile of different founders, and when paired with the Risk Tolerance Exercise, it enables evaluating one’s own appetite... View Details

Keywords: Electric Vehicle; Solar Power; Vision; Trade-offs; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Risk and Uncertainty; Entrepreneurship; Failure; United States; North America