Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(7,493)
- Faculty Publications (2,251)
- August 2017 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Fuyao Glass America: Sourcing Decision
By: Willy Shih
In today's global economy, what are the factors that go into production location choice? This case is set in the world's second largest automotive glass producer as it expands from China into the United States. To meet a very aggressive cost target, management is faced... View Details
- Article
Managing Climate Change: Lessons from the U.S. Navy
By: Forest Reinhardt and Michael W. Toffel
The U.S. Navy operates on the front lines of climate change. It manages tens of billions of dollars in assets on every continent and on every ocean, which take many years to design and build and then have decades of useful life. This means that it needs to understand... View Details
Keywords: Climate Change; Environment; Military; Disaster Relief; Refugees; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Sustainability; Energy; Energy Conservation; Energy Sources; Energy Generation; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Supply Chain; Operations; Logistics; Infrastructure; Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Service Industry
- June 2017
- Case
Veolia: Resourcing the World
By: Gautam Ahuja, Tarun Khanna, Kristina Maslauskaite and Vincent Dessain
In March 2016, Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia, a global environmental services provider, was undergoing an important transformation of the company. In 2013, Frérot presented a growth strategy that focused on increasing the share of industrial clients, enhancing growth... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance
By: Diwas S. KC, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino
How individuals manage, organize, and complete their tasks is central to operations management. Recent research in operations focuses on how under conditions of increasing workload, individuals can increase their service time, up to a point, to complete work more... View Details
- June 2017
- Article
Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency
By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay
We investigate whether organizations can create value by introducing visual transparency between consumers and producers. Although operational transparency has been shown to improve consumer perceptions of service value, existing theory posits that increased contact... View Details
- Article
Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies
By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that... View Details
- May 2017 (Revised July 2017)
- Supplement
Aadhaar: From Voluntary to Mandatory
By: Tarun Khanna, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity—Aadhaar—by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets; Information; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Infrastructure; Identity; Projects; Information Management; Government and Politics; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Transformation; Society; Welfare; Social Issues; Private Sector; Public Sector; Information Technology Industry; Asia; India; New Delhi
- May 2017
- Case
Cambridge Franchise Partners
By: Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Two partners commence a rollup in the quick-service restaurant segment. They focus on operating improvements and spinning-off real estate. View Details
- May 2017
- Case
Pho Hoa Dorchester
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Michael Raiche and Roger Zhu
Pho Hoa is a traditional, family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Dorchester, Massachusetts that opened in 1992. As he approached retirement in recent years, the founder/owner has scaled down his involvement in the day-to-day operations, leading to a number of... View Details
Keywords: Pho Hoa; Tam Le; Small Business; Restaurants; Dorchester; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; Family Business; Change Management; Transition; Diasporas; Cash Flow; Food; Employment; Wages; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Ownership Stake; Franchise Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Food and Beverage Industry; Viet Nam; Massachusetts; Boston; Eastern United States
- May 2017 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Webasto Roof Systems Americas: Leadership Through Change (A)
By: Francesca Gino and Paul Green
Webasto Roof Systems, Americas, the North American subsidiary of Germany-based Webasto Group, limped into 2014 in poor financial and operational shape. The company's early optimism emerging from the financial downturn had proven naive, and now, five years later, the... View Details
- May 2017
- Case
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2017)
By: John Gourville
One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details
- May 2017
- Article
Experimental Evidence of Pooling Outcomes Under Information Asymmetry
By: William Schmidt and Ryan W. Buell
Operational decisions under information asymmetry can signal a firm's prospects to less-informed parties, such as investors, customers, competitors, and regulators. Consequently, managers in these settings often face a tradeoff between making an optimal decision and... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to higher operational costs through more product returns in the online retail industry. Dynamic pricing has been widely applied by many online retailers. Research has shown that, in response to dynamic pricing, some customers... View Details
- April 2017
- Case
Global Leadership in a Dynamic and Evolving Region: Molinas @ The Coca-Cola Company (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley and Esel Çekin
Galya Frayman Molinas, President of Coca-Cola's Turkish business and a 20-year company veteran, is unexpectedly asked to take the helm of a newly expanded territory with operations across eight additional countries in Central Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Korea Telecom: Building a GiGAtopia (A)
By: Shane Greenstein, Feng Zhu and Kerry Herman
Korea Telecom (KT) has committed $4 billion in investments and R&D to build a GiGAtopia, essentially ushering in the next generation of mobile (5G) and wired infrastructure. CEO Dr. Chang-Gyu Hwang, and his team are considering which areas to prioritize in terms of new... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Wal-Mart Update, 2017
By: David B. Yoffie and Eric Baldwin
In 2017 Wal-Mart was still the world’s largest company, with over $480 billion in annual revenue and operations in 28 countries. Although it had mostly vanquished its rival discount retailers in the U.S., it was struggling to find the right growth strategy. Facing a... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Edwin Land: The Art and Science of Innovation
By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew G. Preble
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Polaroid first invented—and then continuously reinvented—the field of instant photography. Under the leadership of its mercurial founder Edwin Land, the company regularly released new instant cameras and films, often... View Details
Keywords: Instant Photography; Company History; Change Management; Disruption; Forecasting and Prediction; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Intellectual Property; Patents; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Development; Chemical Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- March 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and an area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Flashion: Art vs. Science in Fashion Retailing
By: Kris Ferreira and Karim R. Lakhani
Kate Wilson, retail analytics manager at Flashion, a fashion flash-sale site, is tasked with developing analytics to optimize pricing for first-exposure products on the site. Many in the industry have relied on years of experience and intuition to determine pricing—can... View Details
- March 2017
- Case
A. Lange & Söhne
By: Stefan Thomke and Daniela Beyersdorfer
The case describes how A. Lange & Söhne became one of world's leading watch companies. Its obsession with quality and innovation were behind its initial rise in the 19th century and, after a 40-year involuntary hiatus under the East German regime, again at the end of... View Details