Publications

October 1990 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Northwest Airlines Confronts Change

Describes the leadership role of Northwest Airlines' chairman and his key organizational development "lieutenant" during five years of major change and pressure--1985-89. During this time the airline was confronted with major customer service problems, the merger with... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Change Management; Crisis Management; Air Transportation Industry; United States

08 May 2020
News

Which Covid-19 Data Can You Trust?

09 May 2017
News

What Prince Harry’s Grief Over the Loss of Princess Diana Can Teach Every Leader

October 1995 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd.

Li & Fung, one of the largest export trading companies in Asia, works primarily as an agent to connect U.S. and European manufacturers and retailers of nondurable, mass-market consumer goods with suppliers located all over East Asia who manufacture products according... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Marketplace Matching; Supply Chain Management; Trade; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; United States; Europe

2020
Working Paper

Automation and the Plight of Young Workers: Evidence from the Automation of Telephone Operation in the Early 20th Century

By: Daniel P. Gross and James J. Feigenbaum

Telephone operation was one of the most common jobs for young American women in the early 1900s. Between 1920 and 1940, AT&T adopted dial service in over half of U.S. telephone exchanges, automating away a legion of operators. We show that upon a city's adoption of... View Details

Keywords: Employment; Labor; Gender; Technology Adoption; History; Telecommunications Industry; United States

May 2022
Article

Coins for Bombs: The Predictive Ability of On-Chain Transfers for Terrorist Attacks

By: Dan Amiram, Evgeny Lyandres and Daniel Rabetti

This study examines whether we can learn from the behavior of blockchain-based transfers to predict the financing of terrorist attacks. We exploit blockchain transaction transparency to map millions of transfers for hundreds of large on-chain service providers. The... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Bitcoin; Accounting; AI and Machine Learning; National Security; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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This study examines whether we can learn from the behavior of blockchain-based transfers to predict the financing of terrorist attacks. We exploit blockchain transaction transparency to map millions of transfers for hundreds of large on-chain service providers.... View Details

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Organizing for Performance: Four Vignettes

By: Robert Simons

This case provides four examples of organizations with very different business strategies: Walmart, Starbucks, Harvard Business School, and Google. To support their varying strategies, each of these organizations requires a specific configuration to provide the most... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization; Span Of Control; Job Design; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

September 2012 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Kyruus: Big Data's Search for the Killer App

By: Robert F. Higgins, Penrose O'Donnell and Mehul Bhatt

Kyruus is used in a course at HBS on Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS). It describes a young company that has built a very large database on physicians. The company has had some early successful pilots with prominent customers, but it is now faced... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Business Startups; Boston

August 2012 (Revised December 2023)
Background Note

Note on Health Insurance Coverage, Coding, and Payment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Jo Ellen Slurzberg

This note explains how health care technology and service innovators receive payment from government insurers, in the U.S. and abroad, and from private insurers. It describes each of the three steps needed to obtain reimbursement: coverage, coding, and payment. It also... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Health Care Costs; Health Insurance; Health Insurance Marketplaces; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Innovation and Invention; Private Sector; Public Sector; Decision Making; Information Technology; Health Industry; Insurance Industry

24 Sep 2018
News

Harvard Business School to Expand Case Studies Related to Artificial Intelligence

11 Jan 2000
Research & Ideas

Calling All Managers: How to Build a Better Call Center

company can triumph. That's especially true in the financial services industry, where call centers have moved beyond their most obvious function—as low-cost channels for resolving a myriad of customer concerns—to become powerful means of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service; Service

2010
Working Paper

Report on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

By: Robert C. Feenstra, Robert E. Lipsey, Lee G. Branstetter, C. Fritz Foley, James Harrigan, J. Bradford Jensen, Lori Kletzer, Catherine Mann, Peter K. Schott and Greg C. Wright

This report, prepared for the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, examines the state of available data for the study of international trade and foreign direct investment. Data on values of imports and exports of goods are of high... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Price; Globalization; Policy; Information; Intellectual Property

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June 2024
Article

Real Growth in Space Manufacturing Output Substantially Exceeds Growth in the Overall Space Economy

By: Tina Highfill and Matthew Weinzierl

Accurately measuring real economic output in the space economy is made difficult by the rapid increase in capabilities and decrease in prices of launch and satellite technologies achieved over the past two decades. Nominal measures of output in space will tend to... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Economic Growth; Price; Production; Aerospace Industry

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09 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase

Using information collected during a customer’s first purchase, a new marketing tool that leverages machine learning technology can provide firms with valuable predictions about the customer’s future behavior, says Eva Ascarza, a... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Service; Service

March 2020
Case

Hotstar

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Kairavi Dey

Hotstar was an online video streaming platform owned by Star India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation. Since its launch in 2015, the platform had grown to offer over 100,000 hours of TV content, movies in nine Indian languages... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Television Entertainment; Disruption; Business Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; India; Mumbai

Inconsistencies in accounting treatment across countries are a major obstacle for global equity investment. Founded in 1985, HOLT is an equity valuation service provider that offers its clients (e.g., global equity investors) a consistent performance metrics from... View Details

2021
Working Paper

The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market

By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni

We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details

Keywords: Financial Intermediation; Institutional Investors; Research Analysts; Broker Networks; Equity Trading; Institutional Investing; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

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June 2000 (Revised July 2000)
Case

ORIX KK

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Andrew Eggers

Describes the challenges facing a Japanese financial services company as it attempts to maintain its ability to attract and retain talented employees. The CEO's ideas of corporate governance and evidence from the competitive labor environment suggest the need for more... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Geographic Location; Financial Services Industry; Japan