Publications

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Article

Portfolio Value-at-Risk Optimization for Asymmetrically Distributed Asset Returns

By: Joel Goh, Kian Guan Lim, Melvyn Sim and Weina Zhang

We propose a new approach to portfolio optimization by separating asset return distributions into positive and negative half-spaces. The approach minimizes a newly-defined Partitioned Value-at-Risk (PVaR) risk measure by using half-space statistical information. Using... View Details

Keywords: Robust Optimization; Portfolio Management; Value-at-risk; Mathematical Methods; Finance

November 2013
Article

The Performance of Corporate Alliances: Evidence from Oil and Gas Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

By: John Beshears

I use data on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to measure how a corporate alliance—a group of firms that jointly develops an offshore tract—performs relative to a solo firm. I employ a regression discontinuity strategy based on bids in first-price sealed-bid... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Form; Corporate Alliances; Oil And Gas Production; Lease Auctions; Regression Discontinuity; Alliances; Organizational Structure; Auctions; Performance; Energy Sources; Leasing; Energy Industry

Despite the rapidly increasing prominence of data and analytics functions, the majority of chief data officers (CDOs) fail to value and price the business outcomes created by their data and analytics capabilities. It comes as no surprise then that many CDOs fall... View Details

07 Jan 2020
Cold Call Podcast

Can Capitalism Be Fixed by Making Companies More Just?

Keywords: Re: Ethan C. Rouen & Charles C.Y. Wang; Financial Services

Article

Don't Stop Believing: Rituals Improve Performance by Decreasing Anxiety

By: Alison Wood Brooks, Julianna Schroeder, Jane Risen, Francesca Gino, Adam D. Galinsky, Michael I. Norton and Maurice Schweitzer

From public speaking to first dates, people frequently experience performance anxiety. And when experienced immediately before or during performance, anxiety harms performance. Across a series of experiments, we explore the efficacy of a common strategy that people... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Performance; Emotions

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09 Mar 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Exploring the Relationship Between Architecture Coupling and Software Vulnerabilities: A Google Chrome Case

Keywords: by Robert Lagerström, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Dan Sturtevant, and Lee Doolan

Kathleen L. McGinn

Kathleen L. McGinn

Professor Kathleen L. McGinn, Baker Foundation Professor and Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration (emeritus) at Harvard Business School, has served in various leadership roles at HBS, including Research... View Details

March 1999 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Environmental Risk Management at Chevron Corporation

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Monica M Mandelli and Jennifer Burns

Chevron Corp., headquartered in San Francisco, manages a worldwide, vertically integrated value chain from the oil well to the gasoline station. Mishandling of oil at any stage of production can damage the natural environment, human health, corporate profitability, or... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Generation; Supply Chain Management; Metals and Minerals; Management Systems; Management Teams; Trade; Vertical Integration; Energy Industry; Mining Industry

Educators

Christopher Stanton is Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. Professor Stanton's research streams focus on personnel economics, organizational economics, labor markets, and entrepreneurship. His MBA... View Details

October 1, 2021
Article

An Evaluation of Cross-efficiency Methods: With an Application to Warehouse Performance.

By: B.M. Balk, M.R. De Koster, Christian Kaps and J.L. Zofio

Cross-efficiency measurement is an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis that allows for tie-breaking ranking of the Decision Making Units (DMUs) using all the peer evaluations. In this article we examine the theory of cross-efficiency measurement by comparing a... View Details

Keywords: Efficiency Analysis; Performance Benchmarking; Warehousing; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Evaluation; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods

2004
Working Paper

Judging Fund Managers by the Company They Keep

By: Randolph Cohen, Joshua Coval and Luboš Pástor

We develop a performance evaluation approach in which a fund manager's skill is judged by the extent to which his investment decisions resemble the decisions of managers with distinguished performance records. The proposed performance measures are estimated more... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Performance Evaluation; Investment Funds; Investment

December 13, 2022
Article

6 Ways Companies Fail to Help Workers Grow

By: Joseph Fuller, Matthew Sigelman and Nik Dawson

The authors recently studied Fortune 250 companies and ranked them based on the lived experience of three million of their U.S. workers. One of their key findings was that even top-ranked firms fail to deliver consistently on worker advancement. To understand why this... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Training; Business Model; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Opportunities

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May 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Coats: Supply Chain Challenges

By: Willy C. Shih and Adina Wong

Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Supply Chains; Digital; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia

Educators

03 Mar 2015
News

Is Social Media Actually Helping Your Company’s Bottom Line?

08 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Colloquium: The Future of Social Enterprise

changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. Our paper traces a growing pool of potential funding sources to solve social problems, much of it stemming from an intergenerational transfer... View Details

Keywords: Re: V. Kasturi Rangan & Dutch Leonard

2014
Working Paper

Profits and Economic Development

By: Dan Schwab and Eric Werker

Are rents, or excess profits, good for development? Using industry-level manufacturing data, this paper demonstrates a negative effect of rents, measured by the mark-up ratio, on productivity growth. The negative effect is strongest in poor countries, suggesting that... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Rent; Mark-up; Competition; Manufacturing; Development Economics; Profit; Economic Growth; Renting or Rental

SSRN

2008
Working Paper

Unraveling Yields Inefficient Matchings: Evidence from Post-season College Football Bowls

By: Guillaume R. Frechette, Alvin E. Roth and M. Utku Unver

Many markets have "unraveled" and experienced inefficient, early, dispersed transactions, and subsequently developed institutions to delay transaction timing. However, it has previously proved difficult to measure and identify the resulting efficiency gains. Prior to... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Television Entertainment; Market Timing; Market Transactions; Marketplace Matching; Sports Industry

Video

2012 Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship: Honorable Mention

2008
Book

Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Operations; Performance; Strategic Planning; Business Strategy

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