Publications

02 Jun 2017
News

Why Finance Needs More Humanity, and Why Humanity Needs Finance

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon? Reach Comes at a Price—Harvard Business Review

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers.

In this article, the authors present a... View Details

February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry; Spain

August 1981
Case

West Point: The Cheating Incident (C)

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

An outline of the Secretary of the Army's decision in the matter of the 1976 cheating scandal at West Point. View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Ethics; Judgments; Government Administration; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details

2009
Working Paper

Why Do Countries Adopt International Financial Reporting Standards?

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ewa Sletten

In a sample of 102 non-European Union countries, we study variations in the decision to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). There is evidence that more powerful countries are less likely to adopt IFRS, consistent with more powerful countries being... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Globalized Economies and Regions; Network Effects; Standards; Adoption

SSRN

Read Now

Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor, Emerita, at Harvard Business School. Originally educated and employed as a chemist, Teresa received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University. Her current research investigates how people approach and... View Details

06 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Updating a Classic: Writing a Great Business Plan

uncertainty in the market, investors become quite risk averse. They will only back proven entrepreneurs with truly compelling ideas. People make the numbers, not conversely. So, I still think the people View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 1989 (Revised October 1989)
Supplement

Dow Corning Corp.: Business Conduct and Global Values (C)

Assumes that the reader has also read Dow Corning Corp. (A). Presents two difficult decisions faced by Dow Corning's Business Conduct Committee. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making

03 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 3, 2007

environment is much less rich than in other countries/sectors and in which managers are concerned about measuring the effectiveness of their commercial actions. Among the most immediate decisions they need to View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 1993 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Continental Airlines--1992 (Abridged)

By: Stuart C. Gilson

The CEO is preparing a recommendation to the board regarding several potential outside investments in the company, which is currently operating in bankruptcy. In making his decision, the CEO has to consider various financial and strategic factors, including possible... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Taxation; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation; Aerospace Industry; United States

October 23, 2013
Article

Banyan Family Business Advisors On The Keys to Long-Term Resilience

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Family businesses have been found to excel in resilience during economic downturns compared to publicly-traded ones. This is attributed to their focus on resilience over performance. Key qualities of resilient family firms include managing low debt, practicing... View Details

Keywords: Performance Consistency; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Family Ownership; Family Business; Values and Beliefs; Business Strategy

Read Now

August 1993 (Revised August 2002)
Exercise

Work Methods Design Exercise

Teams of students receive identical product design specifications, a sample unit of the product, and a series of assignment questions that entail time and motion studies, which they must both understand and perform before class discussion. In class, teams explain how... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Product Development

16 Oct 2019
News

Climate Change Is Going to Transform Where and How We Build

28 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Film Rentals and Procrastination: A Study of Intertemporal Reversals in Preferences and Intrapersonal Conflict

Keywords: by Katy Milkman, Todd Rogers & Max H. Bazerman; Entertainment & Recreation

March 1998 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Hamptonshire Express

By: V. G. Narayanan and Ananth Raman

Presents a series of problems that face a newspaper publisher, including inventory level, effort level, subsidy for unsold inventory, and commission for sales. Each problem is accompanied by one or more spreadsheets. Students must make various operational decisions. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Decision Making; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Publishing Industry; United States

January 2011
Supplement

Shar Matin (C)

By: David A. Thomas and Elisa Farri

The head of the subsidiary of a US company faced the decision to present an aggressive growth plan despite his CFO's lack of support. View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Decisions; Growth and Development Strategy; Planning

Find at Harvard

September 2014
Article

Advancing Consumer Neuroscience

By: Ale Smidts, Ming Hsu, Alan G. Sanfey, Maarten A. S. Boksem, Richard B. Ebstein, Scott A. Huettel, Joe W. Kable, Uma R. Karmarkar, Shinobu Kitayama, Brian Knutson, Israel Liberzon, Terry Lohrenz, Mirre Stallen and Carolyn Yoon

In the first decade of consumer neuroscience, strong progress has been made in understanding how neuroscience can inform consumer decision making. Here, we sketch the development of this discipline and compare it to that of the adjacent field of neuroeconomics. We... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Neuroscience; Neuroeconomics; Social Neuroscience; Genes; Machine Learning; Meta-analysis; Consumer Behavior; Decision Making; Science