Publications

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Pioneer Natural Resources: Enhancing the Capital Return Strategy with Variable Dividends

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Elisabeth Kempf and E. Scott Mayfield

In February 2021, Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (an independent oil and gas company based in Texas), was considering the possibility of enhancing the firm’s capital return strategy by introducing a variable dividend tied to cash flows in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Cash Flow; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Value Creation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment Return; Profit; Policy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry; United States; North America; Texas

January 2023
Case

Cleave Therapeutics: Taking a Risk on Oncology Drug Discovery

By: Regina Herzlinger and Brian Walker

What should a successful executive (HBS Baker Scholar) assess as her next move as the CEO of a firm with a promising and yet uncertain new drug? Amy Burroughs’ mandate to successfully commercialize Cleave Therapeutics’ drug for a cancer with no current successful... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Leadership; Health Testing and Trials; Research and Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Condition; Partners and Partnerships; Pharmaceutical Industry

Fall 2018
Article

What Problems Will You Solve with Blockchain?: Before Jumping on the Bandwagon, Companies Need to Carefully Consider how Ledger Technologies Fit into their Overall Strategy

By: Teppo Felin and Karim R. Lakhani

Distributed ledger technologies — collectively known as blockchain — have burst onto the business scene, accompanied by a significant amount of hype.They are widely expected to disrupt existing industries and lead to the creation of new types of companies. Some of the... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Technology Adoption; Strategy; Business Processes; Innovation Strategy

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2014
Working Paper

Lobbying Behavior of Governmental Entities: Evidence from Public Pension Accounting Rules

By: Abigail Allen and Reining Petacchi

We examine the lobbying behavior of state governments in the development of recently issued public pension accounting standards GASB 67 and 68. Consistent with opportunistic motivations, we find that states' opposition to the liability increasing provisions embedded in... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Accounting Industry; United States

SSRN

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April 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Transformation of Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002

Investigates the reform of the Seattle Public Schools from 1995 to 2002. To initiate reform in 1995, the district hired John Stanford, an Army general, and Joseph Olchefske, an investment banker, as the district's superintendent and chief financial officer,... View Details

Keywords: Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Organizational Structure; Education; Business Strategy; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry; Seattle

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Web

Leadership - Faculty & Research

is attracting increasing attention, and when business leaders are increasingly expected to contribute not only to financial value creation, but also to social value creation. In this context, it is important to prepare business school... View Details

January–February 2019
Article

The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures

By: Gary P. Pisano

Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. They’re characterized by a tolerance for failure and a willingness to experiment. They’re seen as being psychologically safe, highly collaborative, and nonhierarchical. And research suggests that these behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Performance Expectations; Leadership

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Web

Frequently Asked Questions - Crossover Into Business

the program? We do not, no. Your league may be willing to reimburse you for those expenses – we will reach out to you with more information upon admission into the program. I am a professional athlete. How much time and effort am I View Details

14 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

You're Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings

their employees are juggling to provide the right professional support. Focus on output, not hours. It’s virtually impossible to track how employees are actually using their time. Instead, managers should focus on the quality of their work. View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Web

Independent Projects | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

student demand and funds available. We expect that you will receive a percentage of your request, based on student demand and funds available. Organizations can find more information about posting an independent project on the MBA... View Details

25 Jul 2023
News

Why Leaders with Big Egos Worry Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott

In a recent profile in the Australian Financial Review, Rob Scott (AMP 179, 2010), CEO of Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers, discussed his career path and management philosophy. “I actually think that one of the biggest dangers in leadership is ego and hubris,” Scott,... View Details

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

necessities of social distancing attenuate or alter the traditional organizational levers. Several CEOs observed: “Keeping spirits high in a sales environment. At the moment our sales force has to work twice as hard for a quarter of the results. We have reduced the... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

30 Sep 2019
Book

6 Steps to Building a Better Workplace for Black Employees

support you in your career, just as they would support your majority counterparts,” Mayo says. “They’re not just going to throw you into the deep end of the pool and expect you to survive on your own. Instead, they’ll stick with you to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Profile

Christina Byrd

When Christina Byrd applied to college, she shattered the expectations of her hometown community. “My parents had encouraged me to get into the best and most challenging school I could,” Christina explains. “I took them up on their bet. I... View Details

Web

Topics - HBS Working Knowledge

Effectiveness (63) Performance Efficiency (6) Performance Evaluation (19) Performance Expectations (6) Performance Improvement (20) Performance Productivity (41) Performance (196) Personal Characteristics (77) Personal Development and... View Details

Fast Answer

Target List: screen for companies by industry, location, and size

exported to Excel. Screening Tip: If companies you are expecting to see aren't included in the results, click "Where's My Company?" to see which criteria don't match. Video of Using Capital IQ: View Details

February 2024
Teaching Note

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth (A) and (B)

By: Mark Egan

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 224-023 and 224-024. As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. A nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand, birddogs had carved its niche in men’s... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Forecasting Demand; Financial Constraints; Apparel; Startups; Corporate Finance; Forecasting and Prediction; Working Capital; Financing and Loans; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Demand and Consumers; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

August 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Unifying Divisions: Joro's Mission to Preserve the Planet

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner

The case focuses on the initial startup team and Founders’ agreements. In March 2018, Sanchali Pal proposed renegotiating the informal founders’ agreement and equity split she and her co-founders had drafted the previous spring. They had been working together for over... View Details

Keywords: Founders' Agreements; Business Startups; Climate Change; Agreements and Arrangements; Conflict Management

2009
Article

Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthfulness: A Nutrition Metric

By: Jolie M. Martin, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Max H. Bazerman and Lisa Sutherland

Research over the last several decades indicates the failure of existing nutritional labels to substantially improve the healthiness of consumers' food and beverage choices. The difficulty for policy-makers is to encapsulate a wide body of scientific knowledge in a... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Food; Nutrition; Labels; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Demand and Consumers; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods