Publications

Web

Spangler Center | About

daughters, Anna Spangler Nelson (MBA 1988) and Abigail Riggs Spangler. Dick Spangler was a successful entrepreneur in several industries, including construction, hospitality, and banking. In the early 1980s, he led the merger of Bank of... View Details

18 Oct 2023
News

Spreading the Words

Shafiq Khan (MBA 1982) loves to solve problems. It’s what attracted him to the case study method at HBS and, after graduation, to consulting at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Then, at United Airlines, Khan encountered another challenge: The company was spending one-sixth of... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Sep 2023
News

Solving for Z

With nearly 20 years of experience as a senior human resources executive, Matthew Breitfelder (MBA 2002) has seen a lot of change in the corporate talent space. But what’s happening now looks like a tectonic generational shift. From his perch as global head of human... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; Illustrations by Doug Chayka; Administration of Human Resource Programs; Government

Research Summary

Overview

By: Boris Vallee

Professor Vallée focuses on financial innovation, investigating it from different angles. This research thread has led him to relate the methods and insights of corporate finance and banking with those of other subfields, including household finance, public finance,... View Details

Research Summary

Managing Processes

David A. Garvin is examining the nature and use of managerial and organizational processes—the means by which work is accomplished—including strategic processes that chart corporate direction, resource allocation processes that distribute funds,... View Details

19 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 19, 2009

Working PapersDon't Just Survive—Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad (revised) Authors:Lynda M. Applegate and Bruce Harreld Abstract Battered by contracting markets and frozen credit, many businesses today are fighting for survival. Indeed, the current... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Oct 2024
Cold Call Podcast

Choosing Passion: A Founder’s Mission to Meet a Need for Obesity Care

Keywords: Re: Jon M. Jachimowicz; Health

September 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth

By: Mark Egan

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working... View Details

Keywords: Inventory; Working Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financing and Loans; Apparel and Accessories Industry

August 2022
Teaching Note

BTS & ARMY

By: Doug J. Chung and Kay R. Koo

Industry leaders must define a particular outcome of interest (i.e., an objective) to establish an organization’s strategy. BTS’s initial objective was to increase brand recognition and to acquire a solid fanbase. The proliferation of social network platforms... View Details

Keywords: Cultural Diversity; Brand Equity; Go-to-market Strategy; Social Network; Entertainment Industry; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Music Industry

Article

Measuring the Scientific Effectiveness of Contact Tracing: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By: Thiemo Fetzer and Thomas Graeber

Contact tracing has for decades been a cornerstone of the public health approach to epidemics, including Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and now COVID-19. It has not yet been possible, however, to causally assess the method’s effectiveness using a randomized... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Public Health; Infectious Diseases; Health Pandemics

November 2020
Case

Truebird—An AlleyCorp Venture

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In December 2018, Kevin Ryan and Wendy Tsu faced an important decision – to finalize the CEO candidate for Truebird, an innovative, automated coffee café concept. Like many of AlleyCorp and Ryan’s companies, Truebird started with the observation of an unmet need – an... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Hiring; Staffing; Recruiting; Business Startups; Finance; Leadership; Management Skills; Management Teams; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Technology Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

April 2019 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)

By: Ryan Raffaelli, David G. Fubini and Aldo Sesia

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Innovation Leadership; History; Technological Innovation; Investment; Decision Making

February 2019
Article

Bounded Ethicality and Ethical Fading in Negotiations: Understanding Unintended Unethical Behavior

By: McKenzie Rees, Ann E. Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman

The business scandals in the past several decades led to the rising importance of ethics as a topic central to management scholarship. Behavioral scientists in particular were attracted to the topic in far greater numbers, and the study of ethical decision-making... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior; Negotiation; Situation or Environment; Perception

Find at Harvard

2017
Book

Managing Risk in Reinsurance: From City Fires to Global Warming

By: Niels Viggo Hauter and Geoffrey Jones

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive history of the reinsurance industry from the nineteenth century to the present day. Reinsurance developed at the fringe of financial services and, for most of its existence, was largely unnoticed outside the expert... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Risk Management; Business History; Globalization; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America; Asia

Find at Harvard

June 2015
Article

The Organization of Enterprise in Japan

By: Tom Nicholas

Recent research reveals that the joint stock corporation was not a superior form of business organization in many countries historically. In Japan, however, it played a more fundamental role. Between 1896 and 1939 joint stock enterprises accounted for 44 percent of... View Details

Keywords: Japan; Legal Form; Enterprise; Modernization; Business Organization; Entrepreneurship; Japan

Find at Harvard

2013
Working Paper

Punctuated Generosity: How Mega-events and Natural Disasters Affect Corporate Philanthropy in U.S. Communities

By: Andras Tilcsik and Christopher Marquis

This article focuses on geographic communities as fields in which human-made and natural events occasionally disrupt the lives of organizations. We develop an institutional perspective to unpack how and why major events within communities affect organizations in the... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Situation or Environment; Balance and Stability; Organizations; Business and Community Relations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

SSRN

October 2005 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Red Flag Software Co.

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Tarun Khanna, David Lane and Elizabeth Raabe

In 2005, just five years after its formal launch, Beijing-based Red Flag Software was the world's second-largest distributor of the Linux operating system and was expecting its first annual profit. On a unit basis, Red Flag led the world in desktops (PCs) shipped with... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competitive Advantage; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Technology Industry; Distribution Industry; Beijing; United States