Publications

December 2012
Supplement

Jefferson County (D): February of 2008

By: Daniel Bergstresser and Randolph B. Cohen

Jefferson County, Alabama, faces an EPA mandate requiring sewer system upgrades. How will they finance the upgrades? What consequences will follow? View Details

Keywords: Local Government; Political Process; Bankruptcy; Debt Management; Financial Planning; Urban Development; Environmental Sustainability; Infrastructure; Government and Politics; Borrowing and Debt; Alabama

Article

Administrative Costs Associated with Physician Billing and Insurance-Related Activities at an Academic Health Care System

By: Phillip Tseng, Robert S. Kaplan, Barak D. Richman, Mahek A. Shah and Kevin A. Schulman

The federal government mandated adoption of certified electronic health record systems (EHR), at least in part, to reduce administrative costs for physicians. This study used time-driven activity-based costing to determine the administrative costs associated with... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Insurance; Problems and Challenges

Find at Harvard

August 1988 (Revised November 1988)
Case

Texas Instruments: Cost of Quality (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Texas Instruments implements a Cost of Quality (COQ) system as part of a company-wide "Total Quality Thrust." After several years of operation, group management questions whether or not the COQ system should be updated to make it more useful in identifying areas for... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement

May 2018
Supplement

Video Supplement to Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A. case (693-019): An updated video of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, Georgetown, KY site showing seat installation

By: Willy C. Shih

This is an updated video of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) assembly facility in Georgetown, KY. It is meant to be paired with the 693-019 Toyota Motor Manufacturing U.S.A. case, but with higher quality video. The vidoe shows a line tour of Assembly Two... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing; Manufacturing Strategy; Lean Management; Toyota Production System; Just-in-time; Lean Production; Automotive Industry; Automobile Manufacturing; Automotive; Automotive Supply Chain; Production; Operations; Logistics; Auto Industry; United States

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

March 2021
Article

Increasing the Level of Abstraction as a Strategy for Accelerating the Adoption of Complex Technologies

By: Willy C. Shih

Many new technologies are complex and embody high levels of technical sophistication, and applying them should require significant knowledge and experience. Yet, the rapid adoption and incorporation of these technologies into other innovations seems inconsistent with... View Details

Keywords: Abstraction; Technological And Scientific Innovation; Technological Progress; Diffusion Of Innovation; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Complexity; Information Technology; Strategy

27 Sep 2010
News

Managing Water as Scarcity Looms

Keywords: Water, Sewage and Supply Systems; Water, Sewage and Supply Systems

13 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

How to Pick Managers for Disruptive Growth

We suspect that the mistakes happen when firms choose managers at any level—from CEO to business unit head to project manager—based on what we call "right stuff" thinking, borrowing the term from Tom Wolfe's famous book and the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Raynor

06 Apr 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Currency Hedging in Emerging Markets: Managing Cash Flow Exposure

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Calani, and Liliana Varela; Financial Services

Web

The Hunger Relief System | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

The Hunger Relief System Background I came to Harvard Business School with an interest in exploring social enterprise. Although my past experience had been in the for-profit world, I was really interested in that intersection between... View Details

14 Dec 2023
News

‘College for All’ Has Failed America. Can the Education System Be Fixed?

January 2005
Case

Managing Failure: American Bankruptcy Law at a Crossroads

By: David A. Moss, Mary Oey and Jonathan Lackow

Introduces the core principles and challenges of bankruptcy law (both individual and corporate) against the backdrop of the early 1970s, when the U.S. bankruptcy system appeared to be failing. With personal bankruptcy filings at record levels and successful corporate... View Details

Keywords: Change; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Policy; Government Legislation; United States

March 7, 2024
Article

Integrating Digital Tools into Every Stage of Your Sales Strategy

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Georg Krentzel

In their growth and customer-acquisition activities, most companies now face twin challenges: understanding and responding to omni-channel buying behavior and doing that without inadvertently decreasing sales productivity. Thirty years ago, Peter Drucker noted that... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Digital Tools; Sales; Marketing Channels; Technology Adoption; Brands and Branding

Read Now

February 1994 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Banc One Corporation: Asset and Liability Management

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Peter Tufano and Jon Headley

Banc One's share price has been falling recently due to analyst and investor concern over the bank's heavy use of interest rate derivatives. Dick Lodge, chief investment officer in charge of the bank's investment and derivative portfolio, must recommend to the CEO a... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Management; Interest Rates; Investment Portfolio; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Banking Industry

Web

Information Management | Baker Library

Information Management Keeping up with the ever-changing information landscape is crucial for maintaining the accessibility and use of your content. The Information Management... View Details

26 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

National Health Costs Could Decrease if Managers Reduce Work Stress

pressure, alcoholism, mental illness. Even so, the connections between job pressures and health—and what management can do to address the problem—have been little studied. “We have not placed a lot of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

January 1993 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

Challenge of Commitment,The

By: Michael Beer and Michael J. Gibbs

Defines commitment, describes the psychological and organizational factors that underly it, and provides a comprehensive discussion of the policies and practices managers can employ to enhance commitment. Identifies control and commitment as two critical strategies... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Governance Controls; Policy; Management Practices and Processes; Managerial Roles; Strategy

August 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Supplement

Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (B)

By: Willy Shih

This case is an opportunity to apply the methods of the Toyota Production System (TPS) to the analysis of an everyday service application: administering Covid-19 vaccines. It describes the start-up of a drive-up Covid-19 mass vaccination site at the Texas State Fair... View Details

Keywords: Operations Management; Operations Improvement; Operations And Processes; Toyota Production System; COVID-19 Pandemic; Operations; Service Operations; Health Pandemics; Service Delivery; Problems and Challenges; Goals and Objectives; Measurement and Metrics; Health Industry; United States