Publications

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December 2018
Article

Reserve Design: Unintended Consequences and the Demise of Boston's Walk Zones

By: Umut Dur, Scott Duke Kominers, Parag A. Pathak and Tayfun Sönmez

Admissions policies often use reserves to grant certain applicants higher priority for some (but not all) available seats. Boston’s school choice system, for example, reserved half of each school’s seats for local neighborhood applicants while leaving the other half... View Details

Keywords: Neighborhoods; Equal Access; School Choice; Affirmative Action; Desegregation; Marketplace Matching; Fairness; Local Range; Education; Policy

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3 Technologies that Will Change the World - Course Catalog

opportunities and risks will they create for business leaders? What ethical choices will they force business leaders to confront? In November 2022, the introduction of ChatGPT brought the potential and power of Generative AI into public... View Details

01 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

How Politics Drives Business Decisions in a Polarized Nation

write. The researchers estimated that during a four-year political cycle, a firm loses 0.52 percent to 0.62 percent more of its market capitalization (between $89 million to $107 million) if it is rated by a misaligned credit-rating... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

February 2021 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Sarah Breedlove: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer

This case describes the rise of Sarah Breedlove, who later called herself Madam C.J. Walker, from the cotton fields of Louisiana to the head of a successful, nationwide beauty company providing opportunity and hair care products to Black women. The case describes how... View Details

Keywords: Brands; African-american Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Values and Beliefs; Personal Characteristics; Success; Work-Life Balance; Business Startups; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Personal Development and Career; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

September 2017 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Global Health Strategy

By: Mark R. Kramer and Sarah Mehta

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) was a medical technology firm headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, with 43,000 employees and 2016 revenues of $12.5 billion. For several years, the company had pursued developing products that created shared value, defined as... View Details

Keywords: Shared Value; Creating Shared Value; Odon Device; Medical Technology; Value Creation; Values and Beliefs; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Emerging Markets; Social Issues; Competitive Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Africa; Asia; Middle East

26 May 2016
News

W. James McNerney Jr., MBA 1975

find its way forward after a series of mergers and acquisitions, high-profile ethical missteps, and some tough business challenges. His job was to build on strengths, connecting what was good with what could be better. “Boeing had... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Air Transportation; Transportation

20 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Using Investor Relations Proactively

the financial markets nor found consistent with the firm's previous objectives. Total also learned that it had to be prepared to communicate about accidents. Its slow response when the oil tanker Erika split in 2 and sank in 1999, causing... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

March 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

The Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy: Settling the Opioid Crisis

By: Kristin Mugford, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Susan Pinckney

How to get to a fair outcome for claimants in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy given its significant role in the U.S. opioid crisis. View Details

05 Nov 2014
What Do You Think?

Are We Entering an Era of Neuromanagement?

our choice(s) in life." Henry Kwok commented, "The field of neuroscience and brain scanning will only get more advanced, and thus we can expect better reading However, the job of managing and leading will be evolving in a fast changing business environment... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 23

customer vehicles at higher rates and are more likely to lose customers whom they fail, suggesting that competition intensifies pressure on facilities to provide illegal leniency. We also show that, at least in markets in which pricing is... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2014
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for December 2014

Herlihy (MBA 1981) (Gerard A. Herlihy) A satire about another out-of-control commodity and stock market boom. Blowing Smoke: Essays on Energy and Climate by Rud Istvan (MBA 1974) (Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.) From the... View Details

October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

ITC eChoupal Initiative, The

Soybean farmers in India have traditionally sold their product through ineffective and frequently dishonest physical marketplaces (mandi). Farmers are generally poor and often illiterate and are forced to be "price-takers" after an arduous journey to the mandi. They... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Fairness; Internet and the Web; Supply Chain Management; Emerging Markets; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India