Publications

2009
Chapter

Do Private Equity-owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Private Ownership; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity

Article

Milestones in Marketing

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine Jocz

Marketing flourished in U.S. business schools in the prosperous years following World War II. Students preparing for assistant-product-manager positions at the likes of Procter & Gamble, Lever, and General Foods enrolled in courses in marketing management, management... View Details

Keywords: Education; Business History; Marketing; Practice

2008
Working Paper

New Framework for Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability

By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Central Banking; Risk Management

15 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Hal Hershfield, University of California, Los Angeles

The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick

The field of customer experience (CX) design — which aims to ensure that customers have positive touch points with companies while buying and consuming their products and services — has grown quickly in recent years. Research has shown that memorable experiences,... View Details

Program

Audit Committees in a New Era of Governance

profit objectives Ensure the integrity of financial information Foster the right culture regarding compliance and risk Develop a financial reporting strategy Improve audit committee effectiveness Develop better tools to manage... View Details

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

backgrounds. One media executive predicted that in five years, engineers would comprise a third of his company’s workforce. Today, digital transformation requires upskilling all employees so they can harness digital tools and data.... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

2022
Case

Can Salesforce Compete in the Carbon Accounting Market?

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

This case describes Salesforce's development of Sustainability Cloud, a suite of software tools built to help companies measure, track, and report carbon emissions and other sustainability metrics. The goal of this case is to provide students with a background and... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Applications and Software

2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (D) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ping He, Xiohua Wu and Lijuan Liu

This case describes the financing decisions of a software company at difference stages of its development. Started from 1988 as an individual business, along with the "Reform and Open" policy of China, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, and has become a... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Computer Software; Emerging Markets; Financial Strategy; IPO; Investments; China; Applications and Software; China

March 2011
Article

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Recent accounting scholarship has used statistical analysis on asset prices, financial reports and disclosures, laboratory experiments, and surveys of practice. The research has studied the interface among accounting information, capital markets, standard setters, and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Asset Pricing; Risk Management; Surveys; Capital Markets; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation; Fair Value Accounting; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Financial Reporting

May 2008 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Kenny Kahn at Muzak (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

Founded in 1934, Muzak pioneered the industry of background music. Equipped with propriety technology and a vast music library, over the ensuing decades the Muzak franchise organization expanded geographically. Despite a history of innovation, by the late 1990s Muzak... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Design; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Franchise Ownership; Music Industry

2006
Book

Design-Inspired Innovation

By: James Utterback, Bengt–Arne Vedin, Eduardo Alvarez, Sten Ekman, Susan Walsh Sanderson, Bruce Tether and Roberto Verganti

When an innovation is inspired by design, it transcends technology and utility. The design delights the user, seamlessly integrating the physical object, a service, and its use into something whole. A design-inspired innovation is so simple that it becomes an extension... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development

15 May 2024
Research & Ideas

A Major Roadblock for Autonomous Cars: Motorists Believe They Drive Better

AI in Adapting to Change Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense? Can we automate our way to better decision making? Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu. Image: Illustration created by HBSWK using images generated by... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Transportation; Auto

Web

Social Progress Index - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential. Our research supports the development of effective... View Details

29 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely

while they're still close enough to seek their employer's support in person. Technology tools can support light supervision. The USPTO's program focused on examiners who worked independently. However, when an employee's work needed a... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

13 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Employee Selection as a Control System

Keywords: by Dennis Campbell; Banking

February 2024
Supplement

JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership: What JTC Did and Its Impact

By: Ethan Bernstein

Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of Jersey-based financial services firm JTC, firmly believed that "shared ownership" was at the heart of his company’s successful track record. The firm had seen its revenues, profits, and number of clients and staff grow steadily throughout its... View Details

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Leadership Style; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Employee Ownership; Financial Services Industry

2022
Article

Data Poisoning Attacks on Off-Policy Evaluation Methods

By: Elita Lobo, Harvineet Singh, Marek Petrik, Cynthia Rudin and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Off-policy Evaluation (OPE) methods are a crucial tool for evaluating policies in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, where exploration is often infeasible, unethical, or expensive. However, the extent to which such methods can be trusted under adversarial threats... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Cybersecurity; Mathematical Methods

July 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Background Note

Electronic Commerce: Trends and Opportunities

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Janis Lee Gogan

In a 1966 Harvard Business Review article, Felix Kaufman implored general managers to think beyond their own organizational boundaries to the possibilities of interorganizational systems (IOS)--networked computers that enable companies to share information and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Trends; Opportunities