Publications

20 Sep 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Updating the Balanced Scorecard for Triple Bottom Line Strategies

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan; Accounting

May 2006
Exercise

Improving Performance: Boat Building Exercise

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Kerry Herman

Provides a framework for team problem solving and process improvement following concepts widely attributed to Toyota Motor Co. View Details

Keywords: Framework; Management Practices and Processes; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams

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Spring 2021
Article

Building Cities' Collaborative Muscle

By: Jorrit De Jong, Amy C. Edmondson, Mark Moore, Hannah Riley-Bowles, Jan Rivkin, Eva Flavia Martínez Orbegozo and Santiago Pulido-Gomez

The most pressing social problems facing cities today require multiagency and cross-sector solutions. We offer tools and techniques to facilitate the process of diagnosing and solving problems by breaking down silos to build up cities. View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Cross-sector Collaboration; City; Governance; Problems and Challenges; Cooperation

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14 Dec 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Nonprofit Boards: It is Time to Lift Your Gaze and See the System

Keywords: by Shamal Dass, Kristy Muir, and V. Kasturi Rangan

15 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Algorithmic Foundations for Business Strategy

Keywords: by Mihnea Moldoveanu

February 1985
Background Note

Note on How to Approach POM Cases

Presents a general approach to diagnosing and solving problems in management, especially in production situations with ambiguous problems. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Production; Crisis Management

04 Jul 2016
Research & Ideas

Is Your Org Chart Stuck in a Rut? Try a Scientific Experiment

Digital Initiative and the HBX Live virtual classroom, the o-Lab aims to help businesses solve their problems by changing the way their company is organized, and to make that change by introducing a more... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

05 Sep 2012
What Do You Think?

Will Business Management Save US Health Care?

Summing Up What Role Will Management Play in Saving US Health Care? The verdict is in, according to respondents of this month's column: Problems confronting health care in the US are much larger and broader than those that can be View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

2019
Chapter

The Case Method

By: Joseph L. Bower

The case method was developed concurrently with the emergence of business schools as a way of teaching future executives evidence-based problem solving in the classroom. Harvard Business School faculty led in developing the method. A particular challenge in the writing... View Details

Keywords: Case Method; Case Studies; Case Teaching; Problem-based Learning; Cases; Learning; Teaching

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June 2008
Case

Treadway Tire Company: Job Dissatisfaction and High Turnover at the Lima Plant

By: C. Wickham Skinner and Heather Beckham

Treadway Tire's plant in Lima, Ohio must confront strong job dissatisfaction and high turnover among its line foremen. The foremen are caught in the middle of an adversarial relationship between the union and management, and they must cope with the needs and interests... View Details

Keywords: Superior ＆ Subordinate; Labor Relations; Work Force Management; Human Resource Management; Hiring; Job Satisfaction; Management; Leadership; Retention; Rank and Position; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Selection and Staffing; Satisfaction; Personal Development and Career; Labor and Management Relations; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Ohio

May 2001 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Mexico: The Unfinished Agenda

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Rebecca Evans

President Vincente Fox takes over in Mexico on December 1, 2000--a political revolution ending 71 years of PRI rule. In the past five years, Mexico has solved a number of macroeconomic problems and had a good run of economic growth. But a host of microeconomic problems... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Policy; Government and Politics; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Mexico

27 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 27

U.S. business cycles lead over medium-term fluctuations in Mexico; and (3) why Mexican consumption is not less volatile than output. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-029.pdf Publications Marginality and Problem View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Open Source Science: A New Model for Innovation

Oftentimes, somebody else can make sense of both what the problem has been and what people are proposing as solutions, and can come up with a better answer. I also read a book by Dava Sobel about the longitude prize [Longitude: The True... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Information, Coordination and the Industrialisation of Countries (with Markus Reisinger)

The industrialization process of a country is often plagued by a failure to coordinate firms' investment decisions. Using the Global Games approach we can solve this coordination problem and eliminate the problem of multiple equilibria. We show how appropriate... View Details

09 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Are Management Consulting Firms Failing to Manage Themselves?

are experts at diagnosing and solving a variety of issues for their clients, are struggling to apply their own management principles internally.” To regain equilibrium, over the past two years, some major consulting firms have... View Details

Keywords: by David Fubini; Consulting

March 2015 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Behavioural Insights Team (A)

By: Michael Luca and Patrick Rooney

The Behavioural Insights Team case introduces students to the concept of choice architecture and the value of experimental methods (sometimes called A/B testing) within organizational contexts. The exercise provides an opportunity for students to apply these principles... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Experiments; Choice Architecture; Public Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Economics; Public Administration Industry; United Kingdom

Article

How to Use Heuristics for Differential Privacy

By: Seth Neel, Aaron Leon Roth and Zhiwei Steven Wu

We develop theory for using heuristics to solve computationally hard problems in differential privacy. Heuristic approaches have enjoyed tremendous success in machine learning, for which performance can be empirically evaluated. However, privacy guarantees cannot be... View Details

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July 2017 (Revised July 2025)
Course Overview Note

Public Entrepreneurship

By: Mitchell Weiss

This course is rooted in the belief that there is a large opportunity for creating value and solving large public problems if there are more inventors and builders inside government and more inventors and builders outside government, building for it. The course was... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Public Sector; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations

February 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Barry Riceman at NetD (A)

Brandon Fogg must solve two seemingly unrelated problems in his management of creative R&D professionals. First, despite having hired brilliant research professionals, his firm is having problems commercializing their ideas. Second, his most brilliant engineer has... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Knowledge Management; Contracts; Research and Development; Creativity; Commercialization