Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(946)
- Faculty Publications (91)
- October 2009
- Case
Low-k Dielectrics at IBM
By: Willy C. Shih and Giovanni Carraro
Innovations at the frontiers of technology carry enormous risk of making wrong choices. This case examines a decision made by IBM in its semiconductor process technology strategy: a material to use as a dielectric insulator in its leading edge silicon chip technology.... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
- Supplement
Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (B)
By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan
As Acumen Fund, a global venture philanthropy firm, moves forward with an investment portfolio exceeding $22 million, it runs into two critical measurement problems. First, how should it track the performance of each investment when its interest is not just the bottom... View Details
- September – October 2009
- Article
U.S. Energy Policy: Overcoming Barriers to Acting
By: Max Bazerman
Energy policy is on everyone's mind these days. The U.S. presidential campaign focused on energy independence and exploration (drill, baby, drill), climate change, alternative fuels, even nuclear energy. But there is a serious problem endemic to America's energy... View Details
- Article
Mission-Driven Governance
By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson
The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details
- March 2009
- Case
Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit
By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Deborah Bell
Barbara Norris struggles to address the many problems facing her as a recently promoted nurse manager in the General Surgery Unit (GSU) at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital (EMU). She has inherited a unit with the lowest employee satisfaction scores and highest... View Details
- February 2009 (Revised March 2013)
- Supplement
Messer Griesheim (B)
By: Josh Lerner, Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Eva Lutz and Kerry Herman
In 2001, Allianz Capital Partners and Godlman Sachs acquired a majority stake in Messer Greisheim, a European industrial gas concern held by Hoeschst. The dealmakers faced several challenges, including delicate corporate governance issues due to partial family... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Variation in Experience and Team Familiarity: Addressing the Knowledge Acquisition-Application Problem
By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Prior work in organizational learning has failed to find a consistent effect of variation in experience on performance. While some studies find a positive relationship between these two variables, others find no effect or even a negative relationship. In this paper, we... View Details
- April 2008
- Case
Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston and Dr. Bradford J. Shingleton (2004)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Marcelo Pancotto
Dr. Bradford Shingleton has developed some of the highest quality eye surgery techniques in the industry. He involves his nurses and technicians in creating a surgical service that is constantly improving. The case has many details about how Dr. Shingleton works with... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the Mirroring Hypothesis
By: Alan D. MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin
A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that this organization produces. Specifically, products tend to "mirror" the architectures of the organizations in which they are... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Opportunity International: Measurement and Mission
By: Herman B. Leonard, Marc J. Epstein and Melissa Tritter
After a "first career" in business, HBS graduate Christopher Crane becomes CEO of a worldwide microfinance network. The organization's twin challenges are: 1) developing metrics to give it an accurate picture of its situation and impacts, and 2) generating rapid... View Details
- May – June 2006
- Article
Choose the Right Measures, Drive the Right Strategy
By: Dennis Campbell
Metrics overload is a common problem that can have serious consequences: Specifically, it can make it difficult for employees to see what actions they should take to execute strategic objectives. Having too many metrics dilutes the focus and invariably means many are... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
Too Motivated?
I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details
- February 2004 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
Pratt & Whitney: Engineering Standard Work
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
As the engineering of state-of-the-art jet engines becomes more and more complex, Pratt & Whitney leaders face major competitive problems. Product development projects are not meeting the cost, quality, and lead-time targets. The leadership develops a design,... View Details
- May 2003 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Harlem Children's Zone, The: Driving Performance with Measurement and Evaluation
By: Allen S. Grossman and Daniel F. Curran
Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, wanted his organization to grow dramatically to reach thousands of poor and underserved children in Harlem. The agency ran a variety of successful social service programs throughout New York City that were separately... View Details
- October 2001
- Exercise
Liability Problems
By: Robert S. Kaplan
This case provides three examples of the recognition and measurement of liabilities. The first focuses on recognizing when employees have rendered services for which future period benefits have been earned, that is, whether unused vacation, sick, and personal days at... View Details
Keywords: Cash; Annuities; Interest Rates; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Wages; Problems and Challenges; Value
- December 2000 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Achieving Customer Satisfaction at Pizza Hut (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan and Preeti Choudhary
Describes how Pizza Hut measures and monitors customer satisfaction, customer complaints, and the quality of its retail locations. View Details
- August 2000 (Revised November 2001)
- Background Note
Liability Reporting
By: Paul M. Healy and Preeti Choudhary
By examining key criteria for recognizing a liability, this case explores liability recognition in straightforward situations and then examines the most difficult reporting issues in recording liabilities. These often arise when: 1) uncertainty arises about whether an... View Details
- 2000
- Other Unpublished Work
Career Concerns and Staged Investment: Evidence from the Venture Capital Industry
By: Malcolm Baker
I develop a model in which career concerns lead to inefficient reinvestment decisions. Managers have incentives to inflate interim returns by continuing bad projects and delaying write-offs. In the venture capital industry, the syndication of follow-on investments can... View Details
- January 2000
- Case
Measurement and Management at CitySoft
By: V.G. Narayanan and Sanjay Pothen
CitySoft is a very small software developer that is grappling with issues of cost measurement and management. View Details
- 1998
- Working Paper
CEO Incentives and Firm Size
By: Brian Hall and George P. Baker
What determines CEO incentives? A confusion exists among both academics and practitioners about how to measure the strength of CEO incentives, and how to reconcile the enormous differences in pay sensitivities between executives in large and small firms. We show that... View Details