Publications

02 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best

ensure that the casinos' best customers return to play another day. “It's not absolute freedom—it's freedom within a framework" —Francisco de Asís Martinez-Jerez And it turns out that casino hosts are ideal subjects to gain insight into an ongoing question debated for... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Entertainment & Recreation

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

Summing Up How Do We Encourage CEOs to Manage for Sustainability? Important forces encourage short-term perspectives among managers as well as investors today. These include governance biases, tax policies,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

From Counting Risk to Making Risk Count: Boundary-Work in Risk Management

Keywords: by Anette Mikes

10 Jan 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Operations Management

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions to be answered: Can "lean" productions methods improve service industries? How can a company's order View Details

29 Aug 2018
What Do You Think?

What Should Harley-Davidson’s Management Do?

CasPhotography What Can the Harley-Davidson Case Teach Us About Managing in a Politicized Environment? The advice to Harley-Davidson’s management from respondents of this month’s column is to (1) ensure that... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Auto

22 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

Manager Visibility No Guarantee of Fixing Problems

Observing and understanding the tasks and challenges that workers face every day is important. But managers who merely put in time "walking the floor" are not doing enough; in fact, it can make employees feel worse about their... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

May 1996 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Colliers International Property Consultants, Inc.: Managing a Virtual Organization

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In less than 20 years, the real estate firm Colliers International expanded into a federation of 180 offices with close to 4,500 professionals in over 30 countries. Because Colliers expanded by signing up existing firms strong in their local markets, its leaders had to... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Globalized Firms and Management; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Budgets and Budgeting; Real Estate Industry

April 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Apple's iPhone Revolution: Pioneering the Circular Economy

By: George Serafeim

When asked to identify an example of a circular economy business model that has generated billions in revenues for a company, ChatGPT, the famous chatbot that in 2022 rocked the world with its ability to perform a variety of tasks, immediately identified and... View Details

Keywords: Iphone; Smartphone; Waste Management; Recycling; Innovation; Product Upgrade; Product Life Cycle; Sustainability; Climate Impact; Digital; Business Model Innovation; Climate Change; Information Technology; Business Model; Electronics Industry; Information Technology Industry

Research Summary

How can General Managers Contribute to IT Success?

US companies are currently spending approximately 5% of their revenue on information technology (IT) each year. Over half of this investment goes to IT intended to change business processes, either within a single enterprise or across several. Hovewer, 30-75% of... View Details

27 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

Religion in the Workplace: What Managers Need to Know

considered one of the last taboos,” says Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.” To fill that need, van Bever wrote... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage; Apparel & Accessories

20 Jun 2018
News

How CEOs manage time: 5 things to know

01 Dec 2004
News

Clubs Offer Popular Management Programs

For thirteen weeks last year, Kelli Socarras got a taste of life as an HBS student. She read two case studies each week, debated management solutions in class, and learned from top executives in a wide range of industries. She... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

Web

General Management - Faculty & Research

General Management Overview Faculty Curriculum Awards & Honors Doctoral Students September 2025 Article Sticky Capital Controls By: Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro and Andrés Fernández There is much ongoing debate on the merits of... View Details

October 2021
Case

Yildiz Holding's Corporate Strategy: Managing Diversification for Growth

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

The case opens in May 2018 with Nurtaç Ziyal Afridi, chief strategy and growth officer of Yıldız Holding, a Turkish conglomerate, reflecting on the group’s diversification journey. In ten years, the group had achieved a remarkable growth through diversification: seven... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Diversification; Growth Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Food and Beverage Industry; North America; United Kingdom; Turkey; Asia

21 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Employee Negativity Is Like Wildfire. Manage It Before It Spreads.

a function of the wind, and whether its overall intensity is increasing or decreasing.” Thinking about managing collective emotions is like thinking about controlling a fire. You care less about the individual trees and more about whether... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

08 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

2008
Working Paper

An Investigation of Earnings Management through Marketing Actions

By: Craig James Chapman and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Prior research hypothesizes managers use "real actions," including the reduction of discretionary expenditures, to manage earnings to meet or beat key benchmarks. This paper examines this hypothesis by testing how different types of marketing expenditures are used... View Details

Keywords: Performance Expectations; Earnings Management; Marketing Strategy; Financial Reporting; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry

SSRN

Read Now

July 2001 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Policy Management Systems Corp.: The Financial Reporting Crisis

Tim Williams, the new CFO of a publicly-traded enterprise software company, attempts to rebuild his company's reputation for reliable financial reporting following a highly visible financial reporting crisis. The crisis begins with an earnings shortfall warning, which... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Revenue Recognition; Capital Markets; Policy; Corporate Governance; Accounting Audits; Technology Industry