Publications

10 Nov 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

Research News and Tips: Innovating Across Time Zones

minimize temporal distance—that is, largely on a North-South axis,” the paper says. Read the paper: The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time. Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Tommy Fan Pang. Immigrant... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2013
Article

The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Value; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

June 1997
Case

Massachusetts General Hospital: CABG Surgery (B)

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Mikelle Eastley

Once the CABG care path is implemented and other care paths begun, hospital staff and administration examine the resulting data. Further methods of improving care and reducing cost are presented for analysis. View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Policy; Retention; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Operations; Performance Improvement; Health Industry

2006
Book

Service Productivity Management: Improving Service Performance Using Data Envelopment Analysis

By: H. David Sherman and Joe Zhu

Here is an in-depth guide to the most powerful available benchmarking technique for improving service organization performance—Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book outlines DEA as a benchmarking technique, identifies high cost service units, isolates specific... View Details

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis; Economics; Operations; Mathematical Methods

11 Mar 2015
News

Paying more for comparable outcomes in prostate treatment

February 1995 (Revised August 1995)
Case

Siemens Rolm Communications Inc.: Integrated Logistics Core Process Redesign (ILCPR)

In the late 1990s, Rolm realized significant losses and needed to significantly reduce its costs and redesign its logistics process. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Logistics; Telecommunications Industry

August 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Product Development at Dell Computer Corporation

By: Stefan H. Thomke, Vish V. Krishnan and Ashok Nimgade

Describes how Dell redesigned its new product development process after experiencing a major product setback and a significant decline in firm profits in 1993. Dell's new process is challenged during the development of a new line of portable computers when the incoming... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Profit; Managerial Roles; Risk Management; Product Development; Business Processes; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Hardware; Computer Industry

Research Summary

Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal? (with Fabio Kanczuk)

By: Laura Alfaro

We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity-term premium, tax smoothing, rolling over risk and the cost from defaulting. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion,... View Details

February 1998 (Revised May 1998)
Case

SITEL Corporation

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Martha Gershun

SITEL has grown extremely rapidly and is now operating worldwide with operations in more than 30 countries. Since many of its locations serve the same customers, the officers are debating the costs and benefits of additional centralization. Some feel that the autonomy... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth Management; Success

March 2007 (Revised May 2012)
Case

PRG-Schultz International

By: Paul W. Marshall and James Weber

PRG-Schultz will run out of cash within a couple of months unless the new CEO can reduce costs and restructure the company's debt. PRG was the dominant market leader in the audit recovery industry. The industry consisted of firms which employed accounting professionals... View Details

Keywords: History; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Restructuring; Cost Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry

2024
Working Paper

The Value of Open Source Software

By: Manuel Hoffmann, Frank Nagle and Yanuo Zhou

The value of a non-pecuniary (free) product is inherently difficult to assess. A pervasive example is open source software (OSS), a global public good that plays a vital role in the economy and is foundational for most technology we use today. However, it is... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software

Read Now

2007
Book

Management Control Systems

By: Robert N. Anthony and Vijay Govindarajan

Management Control Systems, now in its 13th edition, builds on strengths from prior editions by offering a rich diversity of cases balanced with current material. The primary market for Management Control Systems is an MBA level elective in control systems. The... View Details

04 Oct 2004
What Do You Think?

Does Speed Trump Intellectual Property?

observations of the practices of Japanese manufacturers, concluded that increased speed from product conception to market not only reduced cost but increased quality, variety, and productivity; reduced rework, waiting, and duplicated... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 1990 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Cambridge Software Corporation

Cambridge Software Corp. must decide whether or not to offer multiple versions of a new software product. The firm has identified five market segments for the software and is deciding which, if any, of three product versions (a high end "industrial" version, a... View Details

Keywords: Software; Decision Making; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry

July 2010
Supplement

Post-Crisis Compensation at Credit Suisse (B)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

The (B) case describes how Credit Suisse management allocated the cost of the 25% U.K. banker's tax among shareholders, U.K. managing directors, and the other employees globally. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Cost; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Compensation and Benefits; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Switzerland; United Kingdom

22 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 22

Publications August 2013 hfm (Healthcare Financial Management) Improving Value with TDABC By: Kaplan, Robert S. Abstract—The article discusses the benefits of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) combined with outcomes measurement... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from different regulatory regimes) strengthens our results. Publisher's link: http://www.people.hbs.edu/rsadun/Distinct_Effects_11-023.pdf August 2013 Cambridge Handbook of Institutional... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2022
Case

Mission Produce in 2022

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Founded by CEO Steve Barnard in 1983, California-based Mission Produce was a leading supplier of Hass avocados with a global sourcing, marketing, and distribution network and $892 million in 2021 sales. Barnard had been influential in the global avocado trade’s... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; California; Peru; Guatemala; Colombia; Mexico; Chile