Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(6,003)
- Faculty Publications (1,513)
- December 2004 (Revised October 2005)
- Case
Innovation Corrupted: The Rise and Fall of Enron (B)
Presents a brief historical overview of Enron's rise, its strategic successes and failures, the evolution of its business model, and the organizational processes relied upon by Enron's management to drive and monitor the business. A rewritten version of an earlier... View Details
- November 2004
- Tutorial
Principles of Microeconomics for Strategists
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Pai-Ling Yin and Elizabeth Raabe
Reviews microeconomic principles from a business strategy perspective, using the digital music industry as context. Contains three modules: demand, supply, and equilibrium. The demand module discusses the willingness to pay, market demand, price elasticity, and... View Details
- November 2004 (Revised January 2006)
- Case
Martha Stewart (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Christopher Bruner
Explores Martha Stewart's December 2001 sale of ImClone Systems common stock, the ensuing federal investigations into possible insider trading, and Stewart's criminal prosecution and sentencing. Discusses the impact of publicity on Stewart's company, Martha Stewart... View Details
- November 2004
- Case
The Electronic Product Code: Future Impact on the Global Food System
By: Ray A. Goldberg and James Weber
The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a successor to the Uniform Product Code and will improve the efficiency and traceability of the global food system. This case focuses on how best to implement this new system and respect the privacy of the ultimate consumer, and the... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised March 2006)
- Background Note
Compensation in Professional Service Firms
By: Ashish Nanda
Discusses the compensation of professionals--partners and nonpartners--in a professional services firm. Discusses the considerations that determine the choice of compensation systems and the interrelationship between compensation and other human resources management... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised January 2006)
- Tutorial
Introduction to Responsibility Accounting Systems
By: David F. Hawkins, V.G. Narayanan, Jacob Cohen and Michele Jurgens
Responsibility accounting systems generate financial and related nonfinancial information about the actual and planned activities of a company's responsibility centers--organizational units headed by managers responsible for a unit's performance. The principal... View Details
- September 2004
- Article
Rational Overoptimism (and Other Biases)
Rational agents with differing priors tend to be overoptimistic about their chances of success. In particular, an agent who tries to choose the action that is most likely to succeed, is more likely to choose an action of which he overestimated, rather than... View Details
- August 2004
- Article
Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and Americans Different?
By: Rafael Di Tella, Alberto Alesina and Robert MacCulloch
We study the effect of the level of inequality in society on individual well-being using a total of 123,668 answers to a survey question about “happiness”. We find that individuals have a lower tendency to report themselves happy when inequality is high, even after... View Details
- July 2004 (Revised July 2005)
- Case
Activision: The 'Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer' Project
By: Alan D. MacCormack, Enrico D"Angelo and Kerry Herman
Mike Ward, the producer in charge of developing the Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer game for Activision, must decide whether to launch the game in time for the 2002 Christmas season. Complicating his decision are the lukewarm response from consumers to TV test spots of the... View Details
- July/August 2004
- Article
Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework
By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel
Despite burgeoning research on companies' environmental strategies and environmental management practices, it remains unclear why some firms adopt environmental management practices beyond regulatory compliance. This paper leverages institutional theory by proposing... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
World Vision International's AIDS Initiative: Challenging a Global Partnership
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Daniel F. Curran
After 25 years of building a network of interdependent, national organizations delivering relief and development that are responsive to local needs, World Vision's International office is planning to implement a major global HIV/AIDS initiative that challenges the... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised September 2005)
- Case
Cox Communications, Inc.
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jonathan Gibbons
Cox Communications, the third largest U.S. cable television system operator, is confronting strategy decisions in mid-2004. Cox managers must decide whether to speed its deployment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which offers capital and operating costs savings... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised June 2006)
- Case
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
Scientific-Atlantia (S-A), a leading manufacturer of cable TV equipment, is confronting strategic challenges in mid-2004. For decades, cable operators have faced high switching costs that have locked them into exclusive supply relationships with either S-A or its... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised November 2004)
- Case
Birth of the Swatch, The
By: Youngme E. Moon
In 1993, the Swatch is the best-selling watch in history. Traces the history of the watch industry up to the early 1980s, when the Swatch was introduced. Describes the various elements that made the Swatch different from any watch the industry had ever seen. Also... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)
By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details
- May 2004
- Article
Disclosure Practices of Foreign Companies Interacting with U.S. Markets
We analyze the disclosure practices of companies as a function of their interaction with the U.S. markets for a group of 794 firms from 24 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe. Our analysis uses the Transparency and Disclosure scores developed recently by Standard &... View Details
- April 2004 (Revised September 2007)
- Case
Accounting Fraud at WorldCom
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David Kiron
The principal players in WorldCom's accounting fraud included CFO Scott Sullivan, the General Accounting and Internal Audit departments, external auditor Arthur Andersen, and the board of directors. The case provides sufficient detail to allow for a full discussion of... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised February 2006)
- Case
Salt Lake Organizing Committee, The: 2002 Olympics
By: H. Kent Bowen, Bryce LaPierre and Courtney Purrington
After two and a half years of effort, Fraser Bullock, COO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, faced projected deficits and post-9/11 security requirements only five months before the opening ceremony. Summarizes the organizational structure and processes put in place by... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised July 2004)
- Case
UCB: Managing Information for Globalization and Innovation (A) (Abridged)
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Brian DeLacey
A medium-size European manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and chemicals faces a number of information strategy issues. The case focuses on the issues of coordinating international IT activities and day-to-day operations as well as balancing the company's IT applications... View Details