Publications

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19 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?

Kenneth A. Froot spends more time thinking about natural disasters than the average business school professor. In addition to the rise and fall of the Dow and the long-term implications of the financial... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Financial Services

Profile

Erik Dyson

Erik Dyson (MBA 1999) uses the management skills he learned at HBS to lead All Hands Volunteers, a nonprofit that coordinates volunteers around the world to help communities affected by natural disasters. View Details

Keywords: Energy / Extractive Minerals; Manufacturing; Nonprofit / Government

22 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

How to Learn from the Big Mistake You Almost Make

department report near misses and whether that changes based on the nature of the incident. "A near miss ... can also be thought of as a success, where they say, 'Whew, we caught the error and delivered great care.'" “What's interesting... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Health

Paula C. Rettl

Paula Rettl is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. Her primary areas of expertise are comparative politics, political economy and political behavior, with a focus on Latin America and... View Details

12 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Enron’s Lessons for Managers

reckless gambling of assets. Its hubris was to attempt to commoditize electric power, water, and broadband, despite what Salter called critical points of difference from natural gas. (Electric power and water are politically sensitive at... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Sep 2005
What Do You Think?

What are the Lessons of New Orleans?

Red Cross. They should be listened to for counsel in scenario planning before the next natural nightmare hits. . . ." Nikhil Zaveri proposed that ". . . there should be training and development of citizens by the government,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

17 Nov 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Managing the Family Business: Are Optimists or Pessimists Better Leaders?

the worst. Never disappointed." Which do you pick up first? It's probably a good thing for us that so-called rationalists (tagline: "Why so emotional?") are in the minority, because studies show that without optimism or pessimism people don't accomplish... View Details

02 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

The Role of Government When All Else Fails

consumers to producers, has dramatically influenced the calculus of production in a large number of industries. Our federal disaster relief policy, meanwhile, has likely affected housing patterns all over the country. In fact, the list... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

November 2022
Case

Goonj: Growing in the Face of a Pandemic

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Priyank Narayan

Founded by the husband and wife team of Anshu and Meenakshi Gupta in 1999, Goonj had quickly emerged as one of the leading disaster relief and rural development organizations in India. Their main mode of development was through providing a clothing kit to the village... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Management; Family Business; Natural Disasters; Social Issues; Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business and Community Relations; Strategy; India

January 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

The Kursk Submarine Rescue Mission

By: Anette Mikes

The Kursk, a Russian nuclear-powered submarine sank in the relatively shallow waters of the Barents Sea in August 2000, during a naval exercise. Numerous survivors were reported to be awaiting rescue, and within a week, an international rescue party gathered at the... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Moral Sensibility; Leadership; Organizational Structure; Crisis Management; Failure; Cooperation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Norway; United Kingdom; Russia

February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Utilis: Designing, Producing, and Selling Rapid Deployment Shelters for a Troubled World

By: Herman B. Leonard, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Simon Harrow

How can a company that supplies disaster response and humanitarian agencies best handle the intrinsically unpredictable and highly volatile demand for its products? Utilis is a French supplier of rapid-deploy high-end tent solutions for civilian and military uses (such... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Strategic Planning; Natural Disasters; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; France

15 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

John-Paul Ferguson, Stanford Graduate School of Business

June 2012
Article

Managing Risks: A New Framework

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes

Risk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that can be solved by drawing up lots of rules and making sure that all employees follow them. Many such rules, of course, are sensible and do reduce some risks that could severely damage a company. But... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Governance Controls; Corporate Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Framework

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November 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Rebuilding Puerto Rico

By: Laura Alfaro, Laura Phillips Sawyer and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept over Puerto Rico, devastating the island’s infrastructure and agriculture. The natural disaster was layered atop years of mounting financial distress. Before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had accumulated $74 billion in debt and... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Financial Crisis; Infrastructure; Borrowing and Debt; Economy; Strategic Planning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Puerto Rico

23 Aug 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Management Lessons from the Sinking of the SS El Faro

Keywords: Re: Joseph B. Fuller; Shipping

January 2013
Supplement

The Great East Japan Earthquake (E): Yamato Transport's Response

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi, Leonard Kosinski, Christina Royce, Anna Stetsovskaya and Evgeny Vasilyev

CEO Kikawa of Yamato Transport gave orders to his managers right after the triple disaster hit the Tohoku region of Japan to do whatever it takes to save lives and not to worry about costs. He also felt that he had to confront the government to make donations to the... View Details

Keywords: Japan; Earthquake; Yamato Transport Company; Natural Disasters; Business and Shareholder Relations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Transportation Industry; Japan

May 2023
Article

How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates

By: Caroline Le Pennec and Vincent Pons

We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the... View Details

Keywords: Political Debates; TV Debates; Voting; Political Elections; Decision Choices and Conditions

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April 2012
Case

Renesas Electronics and the Automotive Microcontroller Supply Chain (A)

By: Willy Shih and Margaret Pierson

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011 caused extensive damage to Renesas Electronics wafer fabrication facility, a critical link in the global automotive supply chain. Many OEMs sole-sourced customized microprocessors from the fab, so its... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Crisis Management; Supply Chain Management; Production; Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Auto Industry; Japan