Publications

18 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Breaking Through a Growth Stall

evaluate business development opportunities. Driven by cash needs, they may call this "experimentation," but in effect they tell salespeople to "go forth and multiply!" By selling to anyone, though, ventures fragment... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Feb 2022
News

A Big Bet

person’s social capital,” Chertavian told the New York Times. Palandjian’s Social Finance hopes to add more training partners this year; an independent research firm, MDRC, will evaluate the performance of... View Details

Keywords: jobs training; social enterprise; upskilling; Technical and Trade Schools; Educational Services

July 2002 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Unilever Superannuation Fund vs. Merrill Lynch, The

By: Andre F. Perold and Joshua Musher

In 2001, the Unilever Superannuation Fund sued Merrill Lynch for damages of 130 million British pounds. Over the period 1977 to 1998, the Unilever Fund had significantly underperformed the benchmark, and its trustees contended that the poor returns resulted from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Performance Evaluation; Agreements and Arrangements; Customer Relationship Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Asset Management; Risk Management; Legal Liability; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

September 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Emergia: Driving Profitability on Help Desk Contracts

Emergia wants to keep its customer happy with its contact center service, but the margins on the help desk contract are dangerously low. Can Miguel Neira, the COO, increase margins while preserving the customer relationship? View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Evaluation; Mathematical Methods; Service Industry

03 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

NFL Black Monday: How Much Do Coaches Really Matter?

that perform poorly (suffering from the performance gap) and good teams that under-perform (suffering from the opportunity gap). In both cases, teams need quality coaches to improve their on-field... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik; Sports

14 Mar 2023
Blog Post

How Inclusive Managers Create Glass-Shattering Organizations

Development. Assess how managers assign training and development opportunities, and ensure they use objective criteria. Increase women’s access to mentors and sponsors. Performance assessment. Educate managers about gender biases that can... View Details

September 2020
Teaching Note

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 720-422. TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increase ten times,... View Details

January 2010
Case

Pratham - Every Child in School and Learning Well

By: Srikant M. Datar, Stacey M. Childress, Rachna Tahilyani and Anjali Raina

The case focuses on how Pratham, a non-governmental organization, provided quality education to underprivileged children in India by collaborating with the government. It focuses on the problem Madhav Chavan, the founder, is trying to solve, the contributing factors... View Details

Keywords: Non-Governmental Organizations; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Social and Collaborative Networks; Performance Evaluation; Change Management; Organizational Design; Early Childhood Education; Management Systems; Strategy; Quality; Education Industry; India

September 2014
Case

Balanced Scorecard at Delta/Signal Corp.

By: V.G. Narayanan

This auto parts company has just ousted its longtime CEO and founder, and the new, professional CEO is badly in need of a coherent strategy, clear objectives and metrics, and initiatives that are aligned with the strategy and objectives. Will the balanced scorecard... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Business Strategy; Financial Reporting; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Auto Industry

Web

Hiring Process | Employment

assessment in order to evaluate a specific skill set that is necessary to perform a component of the job. If a skills assessment is required you will be made aware during the phone screen or first interview.... View Details

September 2002 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Siebel Systems: Organizing for the Customer

By: Robert Simons and Antonio Davila

Siebel Systems is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Tom Siebel, the company's founder, has organized the business to accommodate growth and focus on the customer. Innovative information technology systems and clear accountability prove to be essential to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Business Growth and Maturation; Information Technology; Performance Evaluation; Performance Expectations; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management Teams; Information Technology Industry; North and Central America

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

implement a rigorous analytical framework for empirically evaluating the relative performance of firm-level expected-return proxies (ERPs). We show that superior proxies should closely track true expected... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Navigating a Career in Education | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

After my Fellowship ended, I stayed on as a permanent hire and shifted to our human assets team, focusing on an overhaul of our performance evaluation system and the way we think about leadership... View Details

February 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Cimetrics Technology (A-1)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jose Royo

Jim Lee, president of Cimetrics (a young, fast growing, software start-up) is reevaluating his small company's geographically dispersed product development model. To take advantage of talented low-cost labor in Russia, the company has relied on two software engineering... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Applications and Software; Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Labor and Management Relations; Product Development; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Russia; Canada; United States

Web

Institutions, Macroeconomics, and the Global Economy - Course Catalog

framework can be used to evaluate how globalization is likely to change the performance of specific markets and thus assess the associated risks and opportunities. Course Content and Organization Most of the... View Details

08 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

A Bold Proposal for Investment Reform

time. (Of course, we later learned that this performance was over-stated due to accounting problems at Enron.) Unless we can ensure that analysts and professional investors use information to evaluate a... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

10 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: First Look: October 10

continue to support Tolcher's first album, increase the stakes by financing a second album, or cut their losses and instead focus on other artists. At the same time, Octone had to evaluate a proposal from Universal Music Group to buy out... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Supplement

Multifactor Models (CW)

By: Malcolm P. Baker

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Cost of Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment Funds; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods; Performance Evaluation

October 1987 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Boston Fights Drugs (A): Designing Communications Research

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Describes in detail the research mounted by five individuals with a $20,000 budget to combat drug abuse among Boston's school-going population. Using the focus group methodology they discover that most of the current anti-drug advertising is useless. They create their... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Communication Intention and Meaning; Brands and Branding; Performance Evaluation; Research and Development; Segmentation; Pharmaceutical Industry; Boston