Publications

September–October 2023
Article

Reskilling in the Age of AI

By: Jorge Tamayo, Leila Doumi, Sagar Goel, Orsolya Kovács-Ondrejkovic and Raffaella Sadun

In the coming decades, as the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled—a profoundly complex societal challenge that will sometimes require workers to both acquire new skills and... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; AI and Machine Learning; Training; Adaptation; Employees; Digital Transformation

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August 2015
Case

Building an e-Commerce Brand at Wayfair

By: Thales Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

Wayfair, Inc. comprised five home goods, furniture, and décor e-commerce brands. Wayfair.com, the main brand, which was responsible for the majority of sales, targeted the mass-middle home-goods market. AllModern, DwellStudio, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane were niche... View Details

TeachingInterests

Making Corporate Boards More Effective

By: Suraj Srinivasan

While a corporate board may have broadly defined legal duties, its role in evaluating management, providing strategic oversight, and dealing with the complexity of today's regulatory environment has never been more tested—or more critically dependent on effective... View Details

May 1997
Teaching Note

Product Development Process, Organization and Improvement, Instructor's Note

By: Marco Iansiti

Explores how development projects fit (or do not fit) within a firm's development strategy and its wider competitive goals. Module materials, and this note, focus on two broad approaches to process design (sequential and flexible) that were originally introduced in the... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Performance Improvement; Competition

Shawn Cole is the John G. McLean Professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches and conducts research on financial services, impact investing, and Social Enterprise. He serves as faculty chair of the Social Enterprise... View Details

Keywords: banking; financial services; microfinance

Video

Financial Analysis & Valuation for Lawyers

Video

Financial Analysis & Valuation for Lawyers

16 Feb 2021
Blog Post

The Rise of The Sixes: Interview with CEO and Founder Franci Girard

Wall Street to 5th Avenue Girard’s journey to launching The Sixes, a fashion brand designed specifically for tall women, may have started way back in elementary school, but the road to launching the business took many twists and turns. “I... View Details

Eugene F. Soltes

Eugene Soltes is a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School where his work focuses on corporate integrity and risk management. His research utilizes data analytics to identify organizational cultures and compliance systems that can effectively... View Details

07 Aug 2015
News

It Pays to Give Thanks at the Office

July 1993 (Revised September 1995)
Supplement

Block 16: Indigenous Peoples' Perspective

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Susan E.A. Hall

Supplements Block 16: Conoco's Green Oil Strategy (A). Provides the indigenous people's perspective on Conoco's Ecuadorian strategy. Designed to be distributed to students who will be playing the role of Ecuadorian indigenous people. View Details

Keywords: Perspective; Ethnicity

Article

Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them

By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes

Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Programs; Employees; Training; Performance Effectiveness; Measurement and Metrics

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2007
Working Paper

What Have We Learned From Market Design?

By: Alvin E. Roth

This essay discusses some things we have learned about markets, in the process of designing marketplaces to fix market failures. To work well, marketplaces have to provide thickness, i.e. they need to attract a large enough proportion of the potential participants in... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Market Participation; Market Transactions; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety

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March 2008 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Databank in Africa

By: Jordan Siegel and Yi Kwan Chu

This case tackles issues of regional strategy and strategic institutional arbitrage. Databank is a financial services firm designing its regional strategy for Africa and seeking to benefit from institutional arbitrage. View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Local Range; Emerging Markets; Service Operations; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Africa

September 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Electronic Arts: The Blockbuster Strategy

Describes the process that the firm employs to allocate resources to new product development projects. Examines whether the firm can sustain its competitive advantage given its existing game design process. View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Competitive Advantage; Decision Making; Product Development; Video Game Industry

June 2008
Supplement

Kit Hinrichs at Pentagram (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

This case focuses on Kit Hindrichs, a 65 year-old partner at Pentagram, a privately-owned multidisciplinary design firm. One of the world's most prestigious design firms, Pentagram was founded by five designers from different disciplines in London in the 1970s. By... View Details

Keywords: Business Offices; Design; Managerial Roles; Private Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Equality and Inequality; London; San Francisco; New York (state, US)

2021
Case

Walmart's Blockchain Quest: Integrating New Technology into a Complex Supply Chain

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Blockchain is a digital, distributed, immutable ledger designed to build trust among parties without requiring an independent, third-party arbitrator or intermediary. The technology has potential to improve a variety of industries, including the complex, fragmented,... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Supply Chain Management; Technology Adoption

2019
Book

Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation

By: Gary P. Pisano

Creative Construction tackles the myth that larger enterprises are inherently incapable of transformative innovation and are doomed to be disrupted by nimble start-ups. If larger enterprises seem incapable of transformative innovation, it is due to how we design... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Business Growth and Maturation; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Creativity; Leading Change

September – October 2010
Article

The Effect of Product Variety and Inventory Levels on Retail Sales: A Longitudinal Study

By: Zeynep Ton and Ananth Raman

We examine the effects of product variety and inventory levels on store sales. Using four years of data from stores of a large retailer, we show that increases in product variety and inventory levels are both associated with higher sales. We also show that increasing... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Design; Logistics; Product; Quality; Sales; Retail Industry