Systemic Impact - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Apr 2020
News

What My Time in Vietnam Taught Me About Dealing with Shortages

shortages, we set up a special system called “Flagpole Reports.” (“Run it up the flagpole so everyone can see it.”) The first reports from Vietnam identified emerging shortages in aircraft flares, 40-mm ammunition, collapsible petroleum... View Details

02 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part One]

margin. [Our book] was first and foremost an effort to influence thinking in Japan. Because Japan has such an impact on thinking, we were also very anxious to set the record straight about what actually happened there. The preface... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

30 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers

Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human, a groundbreaking report that pushed the issue of medical errors into the public spotlight. That we all make mistakes was certainly nothing new: Operational failures occur across all industries. But the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

12 Sep 2024
Blog Post

Amager Bakke: I Like This Waste Incinerator in My Backyard!

approximately 600,000 citizens and 68,000 businesses, private homes account for 50% of the combustible waste provided. Waste is also occasionally imported from countries as far away as Italy, as the environmental impact of waste... View Details

15 Dec 2020
Blog Post

MBA Voices Blog: A Year in Review

Below is an excerpt from one of these letters. “Black students in our community have spent the last few weeks grappling with the weight of a devastating truth: that our country and society has undeniably and systemically failed Black... View Details

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Cable TV: From Community Antennas to Wired Cities

John Walson launched the first commercial cable television system in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, an Appalachian town eighty-six miles from Philadelphia. 1,2 Walson worked as a lineman for Pennsylvania Power & Light and also owned a... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann; Media & Broadcasting; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation

June 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

State Grid: Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Christopher Marquis, Nancy Dai, Dongning Yang and Hong Wu

In October 2009, State Grid, the largest utility company in the world, and a pioneer and leader in CSR practices in China, was planning its 2009 CSR Report and long-term CSR implementation. Some of the specific challenges faced at the time include: How could the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Management Systems; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Accountability; Behavior; Change Management; Global Range; Employees; Utilities Industry; China

Citation

Educators

19 Jun 2020
Blog Post

Black MBA Students Pen Letters to the HBS Community: Letter 4/5

Black students in our community have spent the last few weeks grappling with the weight of a devastating truth: that our country and society has undeniably and systemically failed Black communities – and the false narrative that being... View Details

28 May 2019
News

Ask the Expert: In Security

Young takes your questions about how to safeguard an enterprise against today’s threats and those of the never-too-distant future. Where should companies invest their time and dollars to ensure minimal impact of an event and fastest... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; cybersecurity

24 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Busting Six Myths About Customer Loyalty Programs

was very clear that he wanted to ensure that customers who visited another casino would lose something by not accumulating rewards with Harrah's: the opportunity to get to higher levels of rewards and services that have a material impact... View Details

Keywords: by Marcel Corstjens & Rajiv Lal; Retail; Consumer Products

08 Apr 2011
News

Management Matters In Health Care, Too

field. Although they come from very different backgrounds, the three panel members presented a unified view of why management really matters. HBS assistant professor Raffaella Sadun described her groundbreaking research on the impact of... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

January 2022
Case

VidyaGyan: Bridging the Rural Urban Divide

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Rachna Chawla, Kairavi Dey and Anjali Raina

Set up in 2008, VidyaGyan was a residential school for children in grades 6-12 from low-income rural families in Uttar Pradesh in northern India. It was the brainchild of Shiv Nadar and Cabinet Secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, who recognized the enormous potential hidden... View Details

Keywords: Non-profit; Education; Social Enterprise; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Wealth and Poverty; Demographics; Equality and Inequality; Performance Evaluation; Opportunities; Education Industry; South Asia; India

Citation

Educators

Purchase

01 Sep 2024
News

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

shared experiences as we once did, brand loyalty remains strong. The third is having an efficient system to collect the used products, which works for Apple because they have their own stores and partners like AT&T and Verizon. While the... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Meyers

13 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Improving Public Health for the Poor

School of Public Health, Project Antares aims to create a system for devising commercial incentives that provide affordable public health initiatives, or "interventions" in healthcare parlance. Examples of commercial high-impact... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

01 Jun 2018
News

Ask the Expert: Star Search

determine direction and how hiring can impact that direction. Working in an ultra-tight job market for a growing company—and with years at Bain Capital’s private equity group giving her insight on the importance of strong teams—Gulliver... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

27 Jul 2019
Op-Ed

Does Facebook's Business Model Threaten Our Elections?

In the 2012 US presidential election, the Obama campaign deftly used a Facebook app to register voters and have friends message them to get out the vote. But it was 2016 presidential campaign that really changed social media’s impact on... View Details

Keywords: by George Riedel

Web

Transforming Education through Social Entrepreneurship - Course Catalog

test scores? What are the skills and aptitude necessary for the future? How will the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of the U.S. impact the definitions of success, merit, and equity? Achieving systemic... View Details

12 Nov 2014
Op-Ed

A Challenge to the New Congress: Pass Housing Finance Reform

(whatever its title) will also charge an unsubsidized fee to cover the catastrophic risk it assumes. What impact will these fees have? Understandably, with the best economic models, we will be unable to predict with certainty the impact,... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas Retsinas & Rob Couch; Construction; Real Estate

01 Jun 2022
News

Closing the 'Network Gap'

longer underrepresented,” says Hu. “This is an opportunity to get the whole community involved and help change minds as well as create the seeds of more equitable systems in the long term.” STUDENTS READY TO MAKE AN View Details

Keywords: April White

Profile

Marc Wilson

a propulsion engineer who designed systems for space satellites. "The ones I was excited about," Marc says, "were those destined to other planets and to the sun." Here on Earth, Marc has been most inspired by his... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit/Government/Education

Publications