Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,174)
- Faculty Publications (104)
- 2016
- Article
Does volunteering improve well-being?
By: A.V. Whillans, Scott C. Seider, Lihan Chen, Ryan J. Dwyer, Sarah Novick, Kathryn J. Gramigna, Brittany A. Mitchell, Victoria Savalei, Sally S. Dickerson and Elizabeth W. Dunn
Does volunteering causally improve well-being? To empirically test this question, we examined one instantiation of volunteering that is common at post-secondary institutions across North America: community service learning (CSL). CSL is a form of experiential learning... View Details
- Article
Financing Innovation
By: William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda
We review the recent literature on the financing of innovation, inclusive of large companies and new startups. This research strand has been very active over the past five years, generating important new findings, questioning some long-held beliefs, and creating its... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services
By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details
Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Delegation; Behavioral Operations; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry
- October 2015
- Case
BandPage (A)
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Colin Maclay and Greta Friar
BandPage CEO James "J" Sider is about to receive results from BandPage's targeted advertising campaign on music streaming service Rhapsody and learn whether BandPage's strategy to improve ad click through rates and generate revenue has succeeded. BandPage, which began... View Details
- Article
Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing: A Driver for Provider Engagement in Costing Activities and Redesign Initiatives
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Nancy McLaughlin, Michael A. Burke, Nisheeta P. Setlur, Douglas R. Niedzwiecki, Alan L. Kaplan, Christopher Saigal, Aman Mahajan and Neil A. Martin
Object. To date, health care providers have devoted significant efforts to improve performance regarding patient safety and quality of care. To address the lagging involvement of health care providers in the cost component of the value equation, UCLA Health... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
Open English
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Lisa Mazzanti
Open English, a Miami-based startup offering online English language learning services, had more than 30,000 active students across Latin America in 2012. The company had just closed a $43 million financing round in order to rapidly scale its service to the next level.... View Details
- January–February 2014
- Article
IDEO's Culture of Helping
By: Teresa Amabile, Colin M. Fisher and Julianna Pillemer
Leaders can do few things more important than encouraging helping behavior within their organizations. In the highest-performing companies, it is a norm that colleagues support one another's efforts to do the best work they can. That has always been true for efficiency... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Management: Theory and Practice, and Cases
By: Richard L. Nolan
This working paper reports on a major Harvard Business School project designed to enhance MBA and practicing executives in case learning. The work is built on the foundation of HBS field cases employing the monomyth "hero's journey" classic story structure along... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; CIO; CEO; Hero's Journey; Monomyth; Management; Practice; Cases; Theory; Innovation and Invention
- March 2013
- Case
NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details
Keywords: Short Selling; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Financial Analysts; Valuation; Business Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Statements; Securitization; Securities Analysis; Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Fraud; Financial Crisis; Financial Intermediaries; Financial Firms; Corporate Accountability; Subprime Lending; Mortgage Lending; Accounting; Accrual Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States; California
- 2012
- Working Paper
An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn and Deborah Kolb
We study the process by which a professional service firm reshaped its activities and beliefs over nearly two decades as it adapted to shifts in the social discourse regarding gender and work. Analyzing archival data from the firm over eighteen years and... View Details
- November 2012
- Case
Ahold versus Tesco—Analyzing Performance
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Penelope Rossano
The case relates to understanding and comparing the performance of two leading retail companies—Ahold and Tesco. The case introduces the tools of Dupont and Modified Dupont Decomposition. While performance as measured by return on equity has been similar for the two... View Details
- June 2012
- Article
The Transparency Paradox: A Role for Privacy in Organizational Learning and Operational Control
Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second largest mobile phone factory in the world, located in China, I theorize and test the implications of transparent organizational design on workers' productivity and organizational... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Organizational Learning; Operational Control; Organizational Performance; Chinese Manufacturing; Field Experiment; Rights; Interpersonal Communication; Management Practices and Processes; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Performance Productivity; Boundaries; Organizations; Social and Collaborative Networks; Labor and Management Relations; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry; China
- March 2011 (Revised September 2011)
- Background Note
Everyone and Everything is Online
By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett
The twenty-first century digital world enabled mobile, empowered, content-hungry individuals to capture the value of enabling technologies and applications to manage, create, share, and influence content across the creation and delivery spectrum. Users were online in... View Details
- Article
A Learning Perspective on Intraorganizational Knowledge Spill-Ins
By: James Oldroyd and Ranjay Gulati
This exploratory study examines the role of intraorganizational knowledge spill-ins in the process of inferential learning. Drawing on the notions of knowledge reliability (the creation of shared meanings) and validity (understandings of cause and effect), we explore... View Details
- April 2010
- Article
Complex Business Models: Managing Strategic Paradoxes Simultaneously
By: Wendy K. Smith, Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman
As our world becomes more global, fast paced and hypercompetitive, competitive advantage may increasingly depend on success in managing paradoxical strategies - strategies associated with contradictory, yet integrated tensions. We identify several types of complex... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised February 2013)
- Case
NFL UK
By: Elie Ofek, David B. Godes and Peter Wickersham
The NFL faces a decision on how to continue efforts to grow its fanbase in the U.K. The decision needs to take into account lessons learned from previous NFL activities in Europe, market research on the U.K. sports fan, and the implications of any move on the U.S. fan.... View Details
- January 2010
- Case
Pratham - Every Child in School and Learning Well
By: Srikant M. Datar, Stacey M. Childress, Rachna Tahilyani and Anjali Raina
The case focuses on how Pratham, a non-governmental organization, provided quality education to underprivileged children in India by collaborating with the government. It focuses on the problem Madhav Chavan, the founder, is trying to solve, the contributing factors... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
Elkay Plumbing Products Division
By: Robert S. Kaplan
The vice president of sales learns that the most profitable 1% of the division's customers generate 100% of profits, and that two of the division's largest customers lose 50% of profits. The division has just finished a project to install a time-driven activity-based... View Details
- September 2009
- Article
The Technology Manager's Journey: An Extended Narrative Approach to Educating Technical Leaders
By: Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O'Donnell
Technology management poses particular challenges for educators because it requires a facility with different kinds of knowledge and wide-ranging learning abilities. We report on the development and delivery of an information technology (IT) management course designed... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Virtual Team Learning: Reflecting and Acting, Alone or With Others
By: Deborah L. Soule and Lynda M. Applegate
This paper examines virtual team learning in new product development situations. New product development activities manifest novelty, uncertainty and complexity, presenting an extreme need for learning in the course of the work. We present data from an exploratory... View Details