Publications

February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

19 Jan 2024
News

The Values and Virtues of a Quick Fix

the height of this health crisis. You know, It's this big hospital system and this powerful-but-frustrated employee group, and these are conversations that are, like, prone to paralysis. One thing that kept... View Details

November 1989 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Automatic Data Processing: The EFS Decision

By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston

Illustrates how ADP's top management uses formal planning and control systems to establish strategic boundaries for its business units. Top management has developed a detailed list of strategic criteria that ADP managers use to evaluate products and business units, as... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Strategic Planning; Management Systems; Accounting; Acquisition

December 1998 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Carver Consulting Co.

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

The managing partner of a relatively new consulting firm is concerned because training costs at the firm's new training center are higher than expected. Analysis of actual costs compared to those expected is required. In addition, he is considering capitalizing some... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Training; Management Systems; Consulting Industry

30 Dec 2013
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2013

productivity and quality of care can be increased by uncovering organizational factors associated with operational failures so that hospitals can reduce the frequency with which these failures occur. Research by Anita L. Tucker and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

different countries; and share their learning with the class when they return. The reflection piece is crucial. It is important to build leadership skills in the context of a global world. Q: What are you working on now? Garvin: I am on... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

02 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

The Secret of How Microsoft Stays on Top

of the company from Harvard Business School professors Marco Iansiti and Alan MacCormack. Their take: Microsoft wins through effective management of its intellectual property... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Web

New Levels of Capitalism: Finance - Railroads and the Transformation of Capitalism | Harvard Business School

Railroads Finance Management Business Analysts Mass Distribution Mergers & Syndicates Research Links New Levels of Capitalism: Finance The rapidly growing industry required an extraordinary amount View Details

September 2021
Case

Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details

11 Jun 2021
News

The Power of Resilience

you is accurate. If you're getting a second opinion, start with a blank slate. Don't say what the diagnosis is that you've already been told. There's confirmation bias in a system that can lead to years of... View Details

15 Jun 2021
News

The Path out of Polarization

true, which sounds a lot like the moment through which we’re living, but they managed to get there without Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. I do have a certain kind of hope for generational change in two... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Telecommunications; Information

February 2025
Article

Disclosure, Humanizing, and Contextual Vulnerability of Generative AI Chatbots

By: Julian De Freitas and I. Glenn Cohen

In the wake of recent advancements in generative AI, regulatory bodies are trying to keep pace. One key decision is whether to require app makers to disclose the use of generative AI-powered chatbots in their products. We suggest that some generative AI-based chatbots... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Applications and Software; Well-being

Read Now

December 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Cann: High Hopes for Cannabis Infused Beverages

By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne V. Wilson

Founded in 2018 by Jake Bullock and Luke Anderson, Cann sold “social tonics,” or cannabis-infused beverages. By 2022, the company had several notable celebrity investors and talent partners, had sold over 10 million beverages to consumers, was distributing in six... View Details

April 1999
Case

French Pension System, The: On The Verge Of Retirement? (Abridged)

By: David A. Moss

Surveys the French pension system, its particular institutional characteristics, and some of the critical challenges and opportunities facing French reformers. Like almost every other industrialized country, France has a large pay-as-you-go public pension system that... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Economic Growth; Economics; Capital Markets; Wages; Public Administration Industry; France

June 2011
Case

Leaders Who Make a Difference: Joel Klein's Transformation of NYC's DOE, Day 1

By: Joseph L. Bower and Sonja Ellingson Hout

Joel Klein takes over NYC's public schools and begins to reform the nation's largest system by depoliticizing, rationalizing management, and confronting the union so that the focus is on the kids. View Details

Keywords: Public Sector; Organizations; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Management

15 Jun 2021
News

The Value of Difficult Conversations

residents were killed and homes and businesses along 35 square blocks of the city were destroyed at the hands of a white mob over the course of 18 hours. Unfounded accusations... View Details

Keywords: April White; Tulsa Massacre

January 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral

By: William C. Kirby and John P. McHugh

In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a... View Details