Publications

07 Oct 2011
Working Paper Summaries

What Environmental Ratings Miss

Keywords: by Auden Schendler & Michael Toffel

September 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Assembling Smartphones: Takt Time ≠ Cycle Time?

By: Willy Shih and Ethan Bernstein

The case was prepared to be used as part of a process review in the first year Technology and Operations Management course at HBS. It offers students an opportunity to discuss the context of a manufacturing process choice, and then examine actual production numbers... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Research and Development; Design; Six Sigma; Measurement and Metrics; Production

September 2012
Supplement

Intraoperative Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer (B)

By: Willy Shih

The intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) business at Carl Zeiss Meditec had struggled with growth since the time of the (A) case. Though the unit had grown revenues in excess of 50% and had exceeded its EBIT target, it faced several key strategic choices. Should it... View Details

Keywords: Radiotherapy; Breast Cancer; Brachytherapy; Therapeutic Radiation; Oncology; Oncology Treatment Systems; Elekta AB; Varian Medical Systems; Xoft; Electronic Brachytherapy; Intraoperative Radiotherapy; Disruptive Innovation; Health Care and Treatment; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Germany

2006
Article

The End of Nationality? Global Firms and 'Borderless Worlds'

By: G. Jones

This article provides a historical perspective to current debates whether large global firms are becoming "stateless" and whether this is a historically new phenomenon. It shows that a great deal of international business in the nineteenth century was not easily fitted... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Trade; Ownership; International Finance; Economic Systems; International Accounting; Globalized Economies and Regions; Geographic Location; Nationality; Boundaries; Global Strategy

06 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Finance—Benefiting from Irrational Investors

Least Resistance," a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, the authors argue that this sort of passive behavior can have a significant effect on how companies make strategic financing decisions. It all fits under the heading of behavioral... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

2011
Working Paper

Top Executive Background and Financial Reporting Choice

By: Francois Brochet and Kyle Travis Welch

We study the role of executive functional background in explaining management discretion in financial reporting. Taking goodwill impairment as our reporting setting, we focus on top executives (CEOs and CFOs) whose employment history includes experience in investment... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Goodwill Accounting; Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Managerial Roles; Agency Theory

Read Now

Teaching Interest

Launching Technology Ventures

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

This course takes the perspective of founders struggling to achieve product market fit in their early-stage startups. Our cases focus on founder decision during this search and discovery phase, both in the experiments that they design and run as well as the... View Details

September 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Blackstone's Investment in Intelenet

By: Josh Lerner, Sandeep Bapat and Rachna Tahilyani

Three years had passed since Blackstone's investment in Intelenet Global Services, their third largest investment in India. Great progress had been made, but now a new challenge loomed. Globank, a large global bank, was Intelenet's largest customer. Intelenet's... View Details

Keywords: India; Blackstone; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; India

September 2012
Article

The Unwanted Self: Projective Identification in Leaders' Identity Work

By: Gianpiero Petriglieri and Mark Stein

This paper employs a psychodynamic perspective to examine the development and maintenance of a leader's identity, building on the premise that such identity work involves both conscious and unconscious processes. We focus on the latter by suggesting that those in... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Identity

SSRN

June 2012
Case

The Atavist: Reinventing the Book

By: Mukti Khaire and Mary Tripsas

Atavist, a start-up founded by journalists, publishes enhanced ebook singles as well as the software to create enhanced ebooks. The company is currently engaged in both publishing and software development, but as they raise funding and grow, must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Technology; Growth Strategy; Innovation; Publishing; Software Industry; Technological Change; Disruptive Innovation; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Publishing Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Crawford conducts research on innovation in the energy industry, with a special focus on emerging business models. She is developing several cases for the EC course, "21st Century Energy," that specifically examine innovations at the interface of IT and Energy — ... View Details

August 2018
Case

BlackBuck (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case presents the challenges of scaling an asset-heavy company (that relies on its operations). It highlights how decisions on the early team impact a company’s ability to scale, linkage between growth and cash flows, as well the organizational impact of high... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Truck Transportation; Online Technology; India

September 2004 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004)

By: Andrew P. McAfee, F. Warren McFarlan and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Illustrates the challenges associated with centralizing IT decisions at Cisco after a decade of decentralized planning and project funding. When Brad Boston became Cisco's new CIO in 2001, he found that managers were starting to get frustrated with the results of their... View Details

Keywords: Management; Resource Allocation; Information Technology; Problems and Challenges; Business Ventures; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Projects; Planning; Corporate Finance; Information Technology Industry

March–April 2019
Article

Operational Transparency: Make Your Processes Visible to Customers and Your Customers Visible to Employees

By: Ryan W. Buell

Conventional wisdom holds that the more contact an operation has with its customers, the less efficiently it will run. But when customers are partitioned away from the operation, they are less likely to fully understand and appreciate the work going on behind the... View Details

Keywords: Operational Transparency; Customers; Services; Operations; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Customer Satisfaction; Behavior; Service Industry

06 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Strategic Intelligence: Adapt or Die

Sometimes when John R. Wells, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, meets a senior manager from a successful company, he likes to ask the provocative question, "Is your company... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

15 Aug 2019
Blog Post

Stan Chang: “A Guided Experience into the World of Entrepreneurship”

An engineer by training, Stan Chang, MS/MBA 2020 candidate in the SEAS/HBS joint degree program, came to Harvard to “balance a business curriculum with an advanced engineering education. When I saw the curriculum here and the focus on... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Entrepreneurship

July 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

XM Satellite Radio (A)

By: David B. Godes and Elie Ofek

XM Satellite Radio is a radically new way to listen to radio. Management must develop a marketing strategy to launch the firm and the category. A crucial aspect of the strategy is to determine which of two business models the company will pursue. Should it focus... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Sales; Competitive Strategy; Communications Industry

January 2006
Case

Ron Perez (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine

The division human resources officer must decide whether to discipline a long-time employee for misusing company time and for improperly filling out time cards for his work on government contracts. Intended to focus on the various factors relevant to disciplining... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Employees; Business or Company Management; Management Practices and Processes; Organizations; Crime and Corruption