Publications

Educators

2008
Book

Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Operations; Performance; Strategic Planning; Business Strategy

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: banking; asset management; investment banking industry; consumer products; shipping; wine; financial services

January 2016
Teaching Note

Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency

By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice

This case examines a start-up service provider that helps clients improve the energy efficiency of their factories, warehouses, and commercial and office spaces by integrating and installing lighting, heating, and cooling technologies. The company seeks to double... View Details

Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Energy Efficiency Paradox; Environment; Environmental Strategy; Growth; Energy; Energy Conservation; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Industry

2017
Working Paper

Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events

By: Rafael Di Tella, Lucía Freira, Ramiro H. Gálvez, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Diego Shalom and Mariano Sigman

We study desensitization to crime in a lab experiment by showing footage of criminal acts to a group of subjects, some of whom have been previously victimized. We measure biological markers of stress and behavioral indices of cognitive control before and after treated... View Details

Keywords: Crime; Biological Markers; Experiment; Victimization; Desensitization; Crime and Corruption; Perspective; Attitudes; Behavior

SSRN

May 2023
Article

How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates

By: Caroline Le Pennec and Vincent Pons

We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the... View Details

Keywords: Political Debates; TV Debates; Voting; Political Elections; Decision Choices and Conditions

09 Jul 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Activist Directors: Determinants and Consequences

Keywords: by Ian D. Gow, Sa-Pyung Sean Shin & Suraj Srinivasan

17 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 17, 2006

influence facility managers' decisions. As a result, managers of facilities that are subjected to comparable institutional pressures adopt distinct sets of management practices that appease different external constituents. Using an... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Apr 2011
HBS Case

Reinventing the National Geographic Society

Teaching a case study on the National Geographic Society for the first time, HBS professor David A. Garvin walks out to the middle of the horseshoe-shaped classroom and asks his students, "How many of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Publishing

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

the limitations of models and markets. At these crossroads, how should business education proceed? We wrote the book to outline the needs and to explain how schools are addressing them in surprisingly innovative ways. We include in-depth View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

Article

Performance Effects of Setting a High Reference Point for Peer‐Performance Comparison

By: Henry Eyring and V.G. Narayanan

We conduct a field experiment, based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research, to test performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer‐performance comparison. Relative to providing the median as a reference point for... View Details

Keywords: Relative Performance Evaluation; Reference Points; Social Comparison; Field Experiment; Performance; Performance Evaluation; Education

June 2002
Case

Southwest Airlines in Baltimore

By: Rogelio Oliva, Jody Hoffer Gittell and David Lane

The number of connecting passengers through Southwest Airlines' Baltimore station has grown 100% CAGR since 1997. Originally designed as a point-to-point network, this load of connecting passengers has been stressing Baltimore ground operations, resulting in an erosion... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Growth Management; Air Transportation; Service Operations; Air Transportation Industry; Maryland

Educators

18 Mar 2013
HBS Case

HBS Cases: LEGO

Although it isn't part of the admissions criteria, experience playing with LEGOs can come in handy at Harvard Business School. When Stefan H. Thomke teaches his new case about the iconic toy company, he gives students eight-studded LEGO... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Entertainment & Recreation

January 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Leonard Bernstein: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun

This case traces the rise of Leonard Bernstein from a middle-class family in Boston to the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The case describes how he studied music intensely as a young man and developed mentors to open doors for him. As his fame grew,... View Details

Keywords: Impact; Personal Development and Career; Music Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Educators

July 2014
Article

Convergence of Position Auctions under Myopic Best-Response Dynamics

By: Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna Karlin, Scott Duke Kominers, Claire Mathieu and Michael Schwarz

We study the dynamics of multi-round position auctions, considering both the case of exogenous click-through rates and the case in which click-through rates are determined by an endogenous consumer search process. In both contexts, we demonstrate that the dynamic... View Details

Keywords: Sponsored Search; Advertising; Google; Equilibrium Selection; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

24 May 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows

Keywords: by John Horton, William R. Kerr, and Christopher Stanton

29 Mar 2022
News

Michael Brune’s Next Battle: Clean Up Bitcoin

Research Summary

Institutional influences on the firm: cross-country comparisons

A third stream of work examines the influence of country institutions on firms in a cross-country comparative context. In a paper co-authored with Jordan Siegel (published in Management Science in 2009), we employed a quasi-natural experiment: a... View Details

Article

Use of Connected Digital Products in Clinical Research Following the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comprehensive Analysis of Clinical Trials

By: Caroline Marra, William J. Gordon and Ariel Dora Stern

Objectives: In an effort to mitigate COVID-19 related challenges for clinical research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidance for the conduct of ‘virtual’ clinical trials in late March 2020. This study documents trends in the use of... View Details

Keywords: Connected Digital Products; Telehealth; Remote Monitoring; Health Testing and Trials; Research; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology