Publications

Research Summary

Financial Incentives

My research examines how the performance effects of internal governance and the design of compensation vary by managerial position. For example, I document links between innovation and stock options for corporate R&D heads;... View Details

April 2025
Case

Salesforce Agentforce: The Limitless Workforce

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Allison Ciechanover and George Gonzalez

In early 2025, Salesforce was a global leader in cloud-based enterprise software, best known for pioneering customer relationship management (CRM) delivered as a service. Over the past two decades, the company had expanded into marketing, customer service, analytics,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Relationship Management; Price; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sales; Business Strategy; Ethics; Product Launch; Technology Industry; United States

27 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 27, 2018

associated with the passage of a directive in the European Union (EU) mandating increased nonfinancial disclosure. These disclosures relate to firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and would be applicable to firms... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Whole Foods Under Amazon

By: Dennis Campbell, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett and Christine Snively

In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new... View Details

Keywords: Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Employee Relationship Management; Acquisition; Change Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

03 Dec 2020
Blog Post

The HBS Show Must Go On

The HBS Show is a cherished tradition at Harvard Business School. Twice a year, theater nerds among the student body congregate and perform two productions – the fall cabaret and the spring full-scale... View Details

September 2009
Case

Intel NBI: Image Components Organization

By: Willy C. Shih and Thomas Thurston

The Image Components Organization (ICO) was an internal venture that was part of Intel's New Business Initiatives. It sought to initially develop and sell a high performance integrated CMOS image sensor module for cellular phones. ICO's opening assumptions were that it... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Product Development; Production; Failure; Diversification; Semiconductor Industry

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28 Nov 2012
What Do You Think?

Should Pay-for-Performance Compensation be Replaced?

Summing Up Let's Pay for Performance But How? In spite of its naysayers, pay for performance still makes sense to most of us, according to those responding to this month's column. But there is a difference... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

16 Jul 2020
News

Crisis offers a chance to rewrite accounting to include impact

August 2018 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Revenue Recognition at HBP

By: Paul Healy and Siko Sikochi

In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company’s CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP’s three business units, would be... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Budgets and Budgeting; Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Publishing Industry; Education Industry; United States

July 2023 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Revenue Recognition at Stride Funding: Making Sense of Revenues for a Fintech Startup

By: Paul M. Healy and Jung Koo Kang

The case explores the challenges of revenue recognition and financial reporting for Stride Funding (Stride), a fintech startup that has disrupted the student loan market. Stride leveraged proprietary machine learning and financial models to underwrite alternative... View Details

Keywords: Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Governance Compliance; Accrual Accounting; Financial Services Industry; United States

October 1991 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Dynashears, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Piper

A senior loan officer is reviewing the recent performance of a company that has failed to repay its loan as scheduled. The failure results from a cyclical downturn in sales, coupled with a lag in cutting back production. Inventory risk is minimal. Teaching objective:... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Business Cycles; Financial Condition; Risk and Uncertainty; Failure

10 Nov 2013
News

Work Up a Sweat, and Bargain Better

17 Feb 2012
News

Saints Beat Sinners for Sustainable Investing: Stock Chart

November 2012
Article

The Organization of Firms Across Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Social Capital; Theory Of The Firm; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Management Of Technological Innovation And R＆D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Technology Adoption; Multinational Firms and Management

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Read Now

September 2002 (Revised December 2005)
Case

DaimlerChrysler Post-Merger Integration (A)

By: Richard F. Meyer, Michael G. Rukstad, Peter J. Coughlan and Stephan A. Jansen

Describes the background, process, and aftermath of the merger between Daimler-Benz of Germany and Chrysler Corp. of America. Describes the economic structure and trends of the world automobile industry at the turn of the century as well as the individual histories and... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Negotiation Process; Corporate Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Auto Industry; Germany; United States

September 2013 (Revised August 2024)
Exercise

Process Analytics Simulation: Solutions

By: Robert S. Huckman, Aizan Radzi, Willy Shih, Roy D. Shapiro and Michael W. Toffel

A set of exercises and instructions to be used with the Process Simulator software made by Pro Model. These exercises allow students to investigate the impact of variable processing times on the performance of simple in-line processes. Includes color exhibits. View Details

Keywords: Operations; Business Processes; Performance; Measurement and Metrics