Publications

January 2010 (Revised February 2010)
Case

IFP, Indonesia

By: Roy D. Shapiro

IFP, Ltd. is a Europe-based multinational mining and minerals company contemplating an investment to produce forest products in Indonesia. The primary case decisions are 1) how to assess political and operating risk, 2) how to integrate economic and political risk... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Investment; Geographic Location; Risk Management; Supply Chain Management; Business and Government Relations; Forest Products Industry; Indonesia

January 2010
Case

DR Corporation

By: Roy D. Shapiro

DR Corporation is a manufacturer of major appliances. The traffic manager is facing a decision of selecting a carrier for the inbound movement of motors. The primary case decisions are 1) what factors are critical to the decision; 2) how to calculate the tradeoffs... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Managerial Roles; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Truck Transportation; Consumer Products Industry

January 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Background Note

Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Rakesh Khurana

Large-scale societal issues increasingly appear on the agenda of business leaders, including poverty, health, education, business-government relations, and the degradation of the environment. These problems are not entirely new, but the forces of globalization and the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Framework; Global Range; Leadership; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Enterprise; Social Issues; Complexity

January 8, 2010
Other Article

Multinational Firms, Agglomeration, and Global Networks

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen

Agglomeration effects are important but difficult to measure. This column uses a new database with precise geographical information to investigate the locational interdependence of multinational firms. Knowledge spillovers and capital- and labour-market externalities... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Business Subsidiaries; Industry Clusters; Multinational Firms and Management; Network Effects

2010
Article

An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender: The Unlikely Case of Offshore Oil Platforms

By: Robin J. Ely and Debra E. Meyerson

This case study of two offshore oil platforms illustrates how an organizational initiative designed to enhance safety and effectiveness created a culture that unintentionally released men from societal imperatives for "manly" behavior, prompting them to let go of... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Gender; Emotions

Article

Are Self-service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper investigates the impact of self-service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self-service customers. Our empirical... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Competition; Cost; Banks and Banking; Behavior; Market Transactions; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

Article

Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change

By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

The article focuses on career development and job change. The challenges, transaction costs, and risks associated with job moves are discussed. The authors' research with executives is noted. The mistakes in career development that job hunters make are not doing enough... View Details

Keywords: Change; Resignation and Termination; Job Search; Managerial Roles; Personal Development and Career; Strategic Planning

2010
Casebook

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

By: Laura Alfaro

All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations

2010
Chapter

Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability: A New Framework

By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Economy; Financial Condition; Central Banking; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Risk Management; Measurement and Metrics; System Shocks

Article

Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Human Capital; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multinational Firms and Management; India; Brazil; United States

December 2009 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Monsanto: Helping Farmers Feed the World

By: David E. Bell, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Mary Shelman

Monsanto has led the effort to bring biotechnology to bear on food production. Through some management missteps and consumer resistance the company had difficulties in its early years. But since Hugh Grant became CEO the picture has brightened with widespread adoption... View Details

Keywords: Food; Global Strategy; Leadership; Production; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States

December 2009
Article

Hiding the Evidence of Valid Theories: How Coupled Search Processes Obscure Performance Differences Among Organizations

By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin

Theorists argue that an organization's high-level choices, such as its organizational design or the attributes of its top management team, should influence its performance, yet empirical researchers have struggled to detect such influence. The impact of high-level... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Teams; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Power and Influence; Balance and Stability

November 2009 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Managing Drugs on the Forefront of Personalized Medicine: The Erbitux and Vectibix Story

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Raju Kucherlapati and Rachel Gordon

In May 2007, Amgen Inc. (Amgen) received disappointing news from the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) that its drug Vectibix, developed to fight metastatic colorectal cancer, had been rejected. This was especially surprising news given that a similar rival drug had... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Testing and Trials; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Genetics; Biotechnology Industry; Europe; United States

2009
Working Paper

Opening Up or Shutting Down? The Effects of Multiple Identities on Problem Solving

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

Across three studies, I investigate the distinct effects of multiple identity conflict and enhancement within people on two crucial aspects of resolving problems with others: integrative behavior and openness. The results of two studies support the hypotheses that... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Problems and Challenges; Behavior; Conflict Management; Identity; Integration

October 2009
Article

Managing Risk in the New World

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Anette Mikes, Robert Simons, Peter Tufano and Michael Hofmann Jr.

Five experts gathered recently to discuss the future of enterprise risk management: Kaplan, the Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, who with his colleague David Norton developed the balanced scorecard; Mikes, an assistant professor at HBS who studies... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Risk Management

October 2009
Article

Shaping Online Consumer Choice by Partitioning the Web

By: Jolie M. Martin and Michael I. Norton

This research explores how partitioning attributes in online search interfaces changes the valuations of those attributes-and impacts subsequent choice-such that attributes that are displayed as separate categories tend to receive greater decision weight than... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Information Management; Demand and Consumers; Research; Internet and the Web; Valuation

September 2009
Module Note

Leading Teams Note

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer

This note, which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership; Business Processes; Groups and Teams

August 2009
Supplement

The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)

By: Willy C. Shih

When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Disruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Cost; Cost Management; Business or Company Management; Time Management; Network Effects; Production; Hardware; Manufacturing Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

August 2009
Case

Meeting the Diversity Challenge at PepsiCo: The Steve Reinemund Era

By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie Creary

This case profiles PepsiCo's diversity journey under the leadership of former chairman and CEO Steve Reinemund who instituted diversity as one of the company's strategic imperatives. It demonstrates the ways in which Reinemund partnered with his leadership team and... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; United States