Publications

26 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

High-Stakes Decision Making: The Lessons of Mount Everest

What went wrong on Mount Everest on May 10, 1996? That day, twenty-three climbers reached the summit. Five climbers, however, did not survive the descent. Two of these, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, were extremely skilled team leaders with... View Details

Keywords: by Michael A. Roberto

18 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

The Bias of Wall Street Analysts

up until the point (and even after) the company tumbled off a cliff. Indeed, HBS professor Mark Bradshaw and collaborators Scott Richardson and Richard Sloan found that pre-year 2000 forecasts and recommendations done View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

the individuals assigned to be “guards” became abusive towards the “prisoners,” causing the “prisoners” to experience acute stress and anxiety (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973). Role-play research by Professor View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

June 2018
Case

Candor at Clever

By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala

Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

Editor's Note: Christian Ketels wrote this paper for the World Bank's Development Debate, "What Do We Mean by Export Competitiveness and How Do Countries Achieve it in an Uncertain World?" held March 29, 2010. Ketels is... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

January 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Case

National Logistics Management: Founder Decisions

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins

Scott Taylor, CEO & founder of NLM, is a serial entrepreneur faced with an important decision. As his industry consolidates, he knows that his company must grow quickly, yet he believes he has reached the limit of what organic growth can achieve. Should he accept the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Supply and Industry; Supply Chain

Find at Harvard

30 Jun 2021
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2021

all of that, I’ve also been enjoying Mezzanine, a recent book of poetry by my spectacular doctoral student Zoë Hitzig, and Peter Winkler’s newest Mathematical Puzzles compendium. Scott Duke Kominers... View Details

Keywords: by Kathryn Haviland

02 May 2023
What Do You Think?

How Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated—if at All?

humanity. Clearly, AI is a big deal with large potential benefits and, at the moment, largely unknown risks for society. It will get more important fast. Why? Two tech giants, Microsoft and Google, are competing for first-mover advantage along with a third competitor,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Information Technology; Technology

30 Mar 2018
What Do You Think?

What Should Mark Zuckerberg Do?

Facebook’s vision and mission statement.” Brendan Coffey led the way in proposing that “FB needs a much more active strategy to place the user in a position of control with respect to how their data is used.” Bhanu Ramenani suggested one way this could be done is View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Information Technology

04 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

When Founders Recruit Friends and Family as Investors

Editor's note: Seasoned entrepreneurs know that a great idea for a new company is no guarantee of a successful exit. Startups fail more often than not, largely due to hubris-fueled mistakes by an inexperienced founding team. Alas, the... View Details

Keywords: by Noam Wasserman

05 Sep 2008
What Do You Think?

Is Case Method Instruction Due for an Overhaul?

Summing Up Is the case method gaining relevance over time? Case method instruction may not be perfect, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill's view of democracy (and Sameer Kamat's response to the column), it's better than the alternatives. At least that's the impression... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Education

September 2019
Case

Starling Trust Sciences: Measuring Trust in Organizations

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber

Stephen Scott needed to decide whether to keep his behavioral analytics startup in the people analytics sector or shift his company into the RegTech sector. Starling had develop technology that enabled its customers to anticipate and shape the behavior of their... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Analytics; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Banking Industry; Consulting Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; United Kingdom

10 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Groupon Good for Retailers?

may file for an initial public offering by the end of 2011, according to the New York Times. "Groupon has attracted remarkable interest," says Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G. Edelman. "With the economy... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising; Technology

04 Nov 2009
What Do You Think?

What is the Role of Government Vis-à-Vis Capitalism?

which to compete for power in the other." Scott argues that past analyses by proponents of the Friedman school of economics fall short because they regard markets and pricing mechanisms as the means... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

19 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Company Loyalty

both employers and employees to strike a brand-new balance when it comes to loyalty—one that gives organizations the focus and expertise they need to compete and employees the career development opportunities they demand? According to the experts interviewed View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Keller Johnson

September 2015 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts

The case provides a vehicle for teaching about both corporate intrapreneurship and the use of lean startup methods. It tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Applications and Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry