Publications

Find at Harvard

The world of retailing has changed dramatically in the past decade. This edited book examines the challenges and opportunities arising from the shift towards omni- channel retail. We examine these issues through the lenses of operations management, emphasizing... View Details

April 2012 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Merck: Operating Science-Based Business

By: Ananth Raman, Inga Maurer and William Schmidt

Merck is known for its commitment to investing in basic R&D. Are Merck's long-term investments justifiable when the firm faces extreme earnings pressure? View Details

Keywords: Science-Based Business; Management; Research and Development; Business and Shareholder Relations; Operations; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

Research Summary

Managing Service Operations Course Development

By: Frances X. Frei

Managing Service Operations is an Elective Curriculum course taught at HBS. Over thirty cases and exercises have been created for the course. For a list of the cases developed for this course, please see the Publications link below. For the most recent syllabus,... View Details

Dataset

Carrefour: Countries of Operation

Dataset

McDonald's: Countries of Operation

June 2020 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Vanguard Retail Operations (A)

By: Willy C. Shih and Antonio Moreno

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or... View Details

Keywords: Pooling; Generalist Model; Specialist Model; Operations; Service Operations; Management; Job Design and Levels; Financial Services Industry; United States

01 Sep 2003
News

Incentives and Operational Excellence

Operational problems can be the cause of an organization’s demise. Often they can be traced to poor controls in interorganizational settings, according to HBS associate professor V.G. Narayanan, a specialist in measurement systems and... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Retail Trade

February 2016
Exercise

Jim Sharpe: Operational Cash Flow Tool

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton

In this exercise, you will examine the cash flow implications of different operating model assumptions and the effect that this has on financing decisions. View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Financing and Loans

April 2010
Module Note

Balancing Specialization and Diversification in Operations

By: Robert S. Huckman

This note describes a module—taught as part of Operations Strategy, a second–year MBA elective at Harvard Business School—that helps students understand and manage the tradeoff between specialization and diversification in operations. The module introduces students to... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Diversification; Organizational Design; Curriculum and Courses

Research Summary

Technology and Operations Management

Last updated: Aug 2007

View Details

2013
Other Teaching and Training Material

Operations Management Reading: Forecasting

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Ann B. Winslow

This reading provides an introduction to forecasting methods. It includes a brief summary of methods based on judgment and a longer section on quantitative analysis. It also provides sample data so students can develop an understanding of concepts such as correlation,... View Details

November 1994
Case

Hewlett-Packard: French Manufacturing Operations

By: Robin Cooper, Patricia Bost and Robert S. Kaplan

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Cost Accounting; France

Find at Harvard

November 1999 (Revised June 2011)
Background Note

Accounting for Foreign Operations

By: David F. Hawkins

Students are required to compute and explain the quality annual earnings per share figures and major differences between managing domestic and global operations. View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Financial Statements; International Accounting; Globalized Firms and Management

Dataset

Tesco: Countries of Operation

2013
Working Paper

Work Design Drivers of Organizational Learning about Operational Failures: A Laboratory Experiment on Medication Administration

By: Anita L. Tucker

Operational failures persist in hospitals, in part because employees work around them rather than attempt to prevent recurrence. Drawing on a process improvement tool—the Andon cord—we examine three work design components that may foster improvement-oriented behaviors:... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Process Improvement; Organizational Learning; Behavioral Operations; Prosocial Behavior; Experiments; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Behavior; Performance Improvement; Health Care and Treatment; Business Processes; Health Industry

Read Now

April 2008
Teaching Note

Exercise: Challenging Operational Assumptions

By: Frances X. Frei and Christine van Keuren

Teaching Note for [608128]. View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Performance Improvement

12 Sep 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Can Remote Surgeries Digitally Transform Operating Rooms?

Keywords: Health

December 2024
Supplement

Vanguard Retail Operations

By: Antonio Moreno, Willy C. Shih and Margaret Underwood

August 1986 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Wal-Mart Stores' Discount Operations

Facilitates a discussion of the sources of Wal-Mart Stores' competitive advantage in discount retailing, and the future sustainability of that advantage. Also profiles the company's major diversification move in the early 1980s. View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Competitive Advantage; Retail Industry; United States