Publications

August 2018
Case

Garanti Payment Systems: Digital Transformation Strategy (A)

By: Shelle M. Santana and Esel Çekin

Işıl Akdemir Evlioğlu, executive vice president of marketing at Garanti Payment Systems (GPS), a subsidiary of Garanti Bank, is grappling with three questions. First, should GPS create its own mobile app for credit card customers or leverage the bank’s already... View Details

April 2005
Case

The University of Chicago Investment Office: Investing in Timber

In 2005, the University of Chicago Investment office was deciding how much capital to allocate toward timber investing. Explores the challenges associated with optimal portfolio construction when one of the invested assets is illiquid with limited historical price... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Services Industry; Education Industry

April 1988 (Revised March 1991)
Case

Tektronix: Portable Instruments Division (A)

Tektronix's Portable Instruments Division has recently converted to a JIT production process. The existing cost system was designed for conventional manufacturing and is obsolete. The case describes the new material-burdening system the firm implemented. This system... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Production; Management Systems; Manufacturing Industry

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October 1988 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Seligram, Inc.: Electronic Testing Operations

Explores the obsolescence of a cost system when technology changes. In particular, it asks students to increase the number of cost center and allocation bases. The firm moves from a one-center, direct labor-hour system to a three-center, direct labor-hour and... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Cost Accounting; Change Management

October 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Managing a 401(k) Fund

By: Richard S. Ruback and Kathleen Luchs

Focuses on an individual's decision to participate in his firm's 401(k) plan and how to invest his contributions. Plan participants have a choice of 10 mutual funds with different investment strategies. Includes data from Morningstar on the composition and performance... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment; Saving; Asset Management; Financial Management; Decision Making; Personal Finance; Financial Services Industry

The Price of Fairness

We study resource allocation problems that involve multiple self-interested parties and a central decision maker. We introduce and study the price of fairness, which is the... View Details

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Organizing for Performance: Four Vignettes

By: Robert Simons

This case provides four examples of organizations with very different business strategies: Walmart, Starbucks, Harvard Business School, and Google. To support their varying strategies, each of these organizations requires a specific configuration to provide the most... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization; Span Of Control; Job Design; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

01 Jan 2003
News

Philippe van der Beck

Philippe van der Beck is an Assistant Professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the Finance I course in the MBA required curriculum. Philippe’s research interests are in empirical asset pricing, sustainable finance, and structural estimation.... View Details

Research Summary

Contract Rights and Risk Aversion: Foreign Banks and the Mexican Economy, 1997-2004

In 1997 Mexicos banking laws were reformed, allowing foreign banks, for the first time since the nineteenth century, to purchase controlling interests in the countrys largest banks. Foreign banks controlled 16 percent of Mexican bank assets in March 1997. By June... View Details

2009
Working Paper

Running Out of Numbers: Scarcity of IP Addresses and What to Do About It

By: Benjamin Edelman

The Internet's current numbering system is nearing exhaustion: Existing protocols allow only a finite set of computer numbers ("IP addresses"), and central authorities will soon deplete their supply. I evaluate a series of possible responses to this shortage: Sharing... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Resource Allocation; Market Transactions; Internet; Technology Networks; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry

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September 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Valerie Massoni

Focuses on the current IT applications portfolio and plans for the world's second largest cruise line. An IT-intensive organization, it forces students to think through how IT resources should be allocated in this dynamic environment and what kind of management system... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Resource Allocation; Planning; Situation or Environment; Information Technology; Air Transportation Industry

January – February 2011
Article

The Price of Fairness

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vivek F. Farias and Nikolaos Trichakis

In this paper we study resource allocation problems that involve multiple self-interested parties or players and a central decision maker. We introduce and study the price of fairness, which is the relative system efficiency loss under a "fair" allocation assuming that... View Details

Keywords: Price; Fairness

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28 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Rethinking the Fairness of Organ Transplants

A proposal out of Harvard and MIT to rethink how kidney transplants are allocated could result in a fairer system giving patients longer lives. The new empirical model, which is intensely data driven, would... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Health

2009
Article

Running Out of Numbers: Scarcity of IP Addresses and What To Do About It

By: Benjamin Edelman

Keywords: Internet; Performance Capacity; Technology Networks; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Policy; Price; Information Technology Industry

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December 1989 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Destin Brass Products Co.

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

A specialized manufacturer of brass valves, pumps, and flow controllers is troubled by competitive pricing in pumps and higher than expected margins for flow controllers. Managers suspect that cost accounting and cost allocations to products may be to blame. Two... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Five Forces Framework; Customer Value and Value Chain; Competition; Business Strategy; Design; Inflation and Deflation; Asset Pricing; Governance Controls; Manufacturing Industry

April 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Texas Teachers and the New Texas Way

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Luis M. Viceira, John D. Dionne and Nathaniel Burbank

In 2011 Britt Harris, the Chief Investment Officer for the $107.4 billion Teachers Retirement System of Texas (TRS), was considering whether to pursue strategic partnerships with a group of large private equity firms. After spending four years aggressively moving the... View Details

Keywords: Texas; TRS; Texas Teachers; Private Equity; Texas

2008
Working Paper

Structural Closure and Exposure: Formation of Structural Inequality in Managerial Labor Markets

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Positional advantages arise when actors obtain rewards attached to positions they occupy, but these rewards are not merited by their performance. Existing theory suggests that in competitive markets there should be no positional advantages. This paper proposes a model... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Jobs and Positions; Managerial Roles; Performance Improvement; Alignment; Competitive Advantage; Equality and Inequality