Publications

May 1994 (Revised January 1995)
Case

Warner Cable (A) and (B) (Condensed)

The new general manager of Warner Cable's Medford, Massachusetts complex faces a number of turnaround challenges in 1985, including service deficiencies, customer complaints, high turnover, and low employee morale. By 1988 he has turned the situation around, but some... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Change Management; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; Massachusetts

14 Jan 2014
News

‘Hot Stove’ simmering

March 2024
Article

Do Safety Management System Standards Indicate Safer Operations? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard

By: Kala Viswanathan, Matthew S. Johnson and Michael W. Toffel

Problem definition: Given the enormous disruptions and costs of occupational injuries, companies and buyers are increasingly looking to voluntary occupational health and safety standards to improve worker safety. Yet because these standards only require... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Occupational Safety; Program Evaluation; Safety Performance; Injuries; OHSAS 18001; ISO 45001; Working Conditions; Safety; Standards

28 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

The Clock Is Ticking: 3 Ways to Manage Your Time Better

number of meetings required of employees has risen by 12.9 percent on average since the pandemic began. And according to Reclaim.ai., a calendar-app company, the average full-time, white-collar American worker spends 21.5 hours a week in... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

October 2016 (Revised January 2017)
Background Note

The U.S. Health Club Industry, 2005–2016

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2015, the U.S. health-club industry generated revenues of $25.8 billion, up from $14.8 billion in 2004. Members of health clubs accounted for 17% of the population, up from 14%. The number of clubs had grown from 26,830 in 2004 to 36,180. In the process, the list of... View Details

Article

Analyzing Scrip Systems

By: Kris Johnson, David Simchi-Levi and Peng Sun

Scrip systems provide a nonmonetary trade economy for exchange of resources. We model a scrip system as a stochastic game and study system design issues on selection rules to match potential trade partners over time. We show the optimality of one particular rule in... View Details

Keywords: ＂Repeated Games＂; Stochastic Trust Game; Dynamic Program; P2P Lending; Scrip Systems; Artificial Currency; Non-monetary Trade Economies; Marketplace Matching; Currency; Operations; Game Theory

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2013
Working Paper

Learning from Double-Digit Growth Experiences

By: Eric D. Werker

This extended memorandum identifies episodes of sustained double-digit growth in real GDP, defined as a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent or more over a period of 8 years or longer. Using a measure of real GDP reported in the World Development Indicators, we... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Liberia

June 2001 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Spir-It, Inc. (B): Managing People

When Jack Sindler founded Spir-it, Inc. in 1934, he was the company's sole employee. By 1999, Sindler's firm more than survived its first 55 years. Employment was up to nearly 200, with facilities in two states and work done in three shifts. The product line--which had... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Production; Business Growth and Maturation; Interpersonal Communication; Logistics; Human Resources; Diversity Characteristics; Manufacturing Industry

2023
Article

Balancing Risk and Reward: An Automated Phased Release Strategy

By: Yufan Li, Jialiang Mao and Iavor Bojinov

Phased releases are a common strategy in the technology industry for gradually releasing new products or updates through a sequence of A/B tests in which the number of treated units gradually grows until full deployment or deprecation. Performing phased releases in a... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Mathematical Methods; Product Development

January 1990 (Revised March 1994)
Case

Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office

Over the past several years both the share of women receiving accounting degrees and the share of women entering public accounting have risen substantially. However, the number of women holding senior positions, such as partner, remains low. This case provides data on... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Retention; Gender; Accounting Industry

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January 1989 (Revised February 1993)
Case

Warner Cable (A)

The new general manager of Warner Cable's Medford, Massachusetts complex faces a number of turnaround challenges in 1985, including service deficiencies, customer complaints, high turnover, and low employee morale. By 1988 he has turned the situation around, but some... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Human Resources; Telecommunications Industry; Massachusetts

26 May 2021
News

Employee Well-being & Company Success Are Linked: How to Foster Flourishing Teams that Last

13 Mar 2019
News

Amazon gets an edge with its secret squad of PhD economists

March 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

The Huffington Post

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Toby E. Stuart and David Kiron

In Feb. 2010, management of the Huffington Post, a fast-growing but not-yet-profitable Internet newspaper that aggregates blog posts from unpaid contributors and excerpts of stories originally published by other news sites, faces a number of decisions about its growth... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Business Model; Cost vs Benefits; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Publishing Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

January 2008 (Revised July 2008)
Case

The Allstate Corporation

By: John R. Wells

In 2007, Allstate was the number two property and casualty insurer in the USA and had enjoyed five years of rapid profit improvement. The question facing CEO Thomas J. Wilson was how to maintain the momentum. This case tracks the evolution of Allstate's strategy over... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Institutions; Insurance; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry

March 1987 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Paul Revere Insurance Co. (B)

Describes a program of value-analysis workshops undertaken by this company as part of its massive effort to regain the number one position in its industry. The value-analysis workshops are the second half of the company's two-part Quality Has Value process. The focus... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Valuation; Competitive Strategy; Insurance Industry; United States