Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(676)
- Faculty Publications (90)
- June 2010
- Case
FoldRite Furniture Company: Planning to Meet a Surge in Demand
By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Afarin Bellisario
Demand for folding and stackable chairs and tables at FoldRite Furniture Co. is unexpectedly strong. The company spent the previous two years improving manufacturing quality and efficiency, dropping poor-performing product lines, developing new products that are... View Details
- June 2010
- Article
Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers
By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety... View Details
Keywords: Quality; Management; Standards; Employees; Wages; Organizations; Profit; Safety; Health; Policy
- Article
Open to Negotiation: Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination
By: Corinne Bendersky and Kathleen L. McGinn
Phenomenological assumptions-assumptions about the fundamental qualities of the phenomenon being studied and how it relates to the environment in which it occurs-affect the dissemination of knowledge from subfields to the broader field of study. Micro-process research... View Details
- Article
Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Human Capital; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multinational Firms and Management; India; Brazil; United States
- November 2008 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
Omron: Sensing Society
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ethan S Bernstein
"Leading profitable growth is only part of the goal. We cannot live without breathing, but we do not live in order to take a breath,” said Omron's President and CEO, Hisao Sakuta, in 2008. Omron, a $7B global supplier of sensors, control system components, advanced... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
South Pole Carbon Asset Management-Going for Gold?
By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Jost Hamschmidt and Mikell Hyman
In late 2008, Christoph Sutter, CEO of South Pole Carbon Asset Management, reflects on his firm's early success at originating carbon credits in developing nations and selling them to governments and firms that seek to offset their greenhouse gas emissions voluntarily... View Details
- November 2008
- Journal Article
Can Research Committees Add Value for Investors? An Analysis of Lehman Brothers' Ten Uncommon Values® Recommendations
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Yang Gui
Since 1949 Lehman Brothers has used an investment committee to select the top ten recommendations made by its analysts each year. We examine the performance of this committee's recommendations and find that on average its selections generated abnormal returns of 2.7%... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Open to Negotiation: Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination
By: Corinne Bendersky and Kathleen L. McGinn
Phenomenological assumptions-assumptions about the fundamental qualities of the phenomenon being studied and how it relates to the environment in which it occurs-affect the dissemination of knowledge from subfields to the broader field of study. Micro-process research... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
ViaGen: Revolutionizing the Livestock Industry
By: David E. Bell, Reed Martin and Mary L. Shelman
ViaGen has invested heavily to develop cloning technology for the livestock industry. Cloning has the potential to significantly improve the genetics of livestock, leading to higher quality meat, healthier animals, and more efficient production. Since 2003, the firm... View Details
- October 2005 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Ripe 'n Ready
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Laura Winig
Stoned fruit has quality variations, reducing consumption. Five independent growers formed a cooperative to provide quality control and a brand name--Ripe 'N Ready--that enabled retailers to differentiate their stores and producers to differentiate the products they... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised November 2004)
- Case
Rwandan Tea Industry, The: Looking into the Future
By: Debora L. Spar
In 2003, the Rwandan government was focused on transforming the nation's tea industry into a world-class competitor. To accomplish this objective and stave off the downward prices that plagued the international tea market, the government believed that the industry... View Details
- October 2002 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
Dell Computers (A): Field Service for Corporate Clients
By: Frances X. Frei, Amy C. Edmondson and Corey B. Hajim
Explores the highly successful PC and low-end server manufacturer's entry into the large-scale server market in the United States. A key difference of this new market is the intense service element required to support the larger hardware. Specifically, the industry... View Details
- December 2000
- Case
Friona Industries, L.P.
By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis
As the food industry becomes more sophisticated, and as genomics and other factors provide for quality control from the producers to the consumers in the food chain, the beef industry has been one of the last commodity systems to organize the vertical systems to... View Details
- October 1998
- Case
"Pathways to Independence": Welfare-to-Work at Marriott International
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ellen Pruyne
In 1991 Marriott International established a program called Pathways to Independence to recruit and train people from the welfare rolls. The program graduated over 1,000 people in eight years and retained about 20% more of its participants than regular hires. Now the... View Details
- April 1997
- Case
Peoria Engine Plant (A): (Abridged)
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Amy P. Hutton
Describes the cost control system used at an automobile engine plant for labor and overhead costs. The finance staff prepares daily, weekly, and monthly variance reports against budgets. Department supervisors, finance staff, and the plant manager discuss the use and... View Details
- December 1992 (Revised March 1997)
- Case
Peoria Engine Plant (A)
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Amy P. Hutton
Describes the cost control system used at an automobile engine plant for labor and overhead costs. The finance staff prepares daily, weekly, and monthly variance reports against budgets. Department supervisors, finance staff, and the plant manager discuss the use and... View Details
- November 1992 (Revised January 2002)
- Case
Process Control at Polaroid (A)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright
Describes the initial efforts at a film production plant to shift from a traditional QC inspection mentality to a worker-based process control mentality. Students can prepare SPC charts, propose actions needed, and combine steps into an overall action plan. View Details
- November 1992
- Case
Process Control at Polaroid (B)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright
The plant manager of a film production operation wants to create and implement a new approach to quality within the next 12 months. Issues of personnel (and their roles), production processes (and their control), and quality standards must be addressed. View Details
- October 1991 (Revised September 1998)
- Case
Maxwell Appliance Controls
By: Robert S. Kaplan
A profitable manufacturing division of a large company is looking for new ways to identify sources of productivity improvements. Led by its senior finance officer, an activity-based cost system is developed to identify activities performed for its highly varied product... View Details