Publications

For decades, management consultants and the popular business press have urged large firms to flatten their hierarchies. Flattening (or delayering, as it is also known) typically refers to the elimination of layers in a... View Details

16 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 16, 2019

against the backdrop of a turbulent industry and consider the implications for the anesthesiologist. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55974 March 2019 Management Science Open Source Software and View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris

Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details

Keywords: Values; Agile; Vision; Corporate Culture; Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Transformation; Technology Industry; United States; California

July 2001 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Lehman Brothers (C): Decline of the Equity Research Department

By: Ashish Nanda and Boris Groysberg

This case tracks the rapid decline of Lehman Brothers' equity research department from August 1992, when, beset by declining ranking, low morale, and high turnover, firm management decides to clean house and reinvest in building the department. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business or Company Management; Leadership; Human Resources; Financial Services Industry

September 2011
Case

Vibco Industrial Vibrators

By: Das Narayandas, Kerry Herman and Matthew Preble

Karl Wadensten, president of Vibco Vibrators, was deciding whether to grow his small company through a marketing push for one of two technologies that he believed could launch his company to the next level of sales, or if he should continue to grow his company through... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing; Product Launch; Customization and Personalization; Expansion; Manufacturing Industry

Research Summary

The Appropriability of Reputation in Franchises Selling Brands

We develop a multi-market model in which there are two kinds of firms: brands and small firms (or agents). Firms interact with short lived clients in the market for goods (or services) and with each other in the market for franchises. The model is one of adverse... View Details

October 2000 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Digitas (A): Strategic Interactive Group

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, David Lane and Courtenay Sprague

Kathy Biro, president of Digitas, an e-strategy consulting firm, has successfully grown out of the company's roots in the strategic interactive group. Her challenges now include managing the integration of the SIG with Digitas's other component, direct marketing firm... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Integration; Expansion; Business or Company Management; Business Model; Organizational Design; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

Find at Harvard

December 2012
Article

Evidence on the Use of Unverifiable Estimates in Required Goodwill Impairment

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

SFAS 142 requires managers to estimate the current fair value of goodwill to determine goodwill write-offs. In promulgating the standard, the FASB predicted managers will, on average, use the fair value estimates to convey private information on future cash flows. The... View Details

Keywords: Goodwill Impairment; Fair-value Accounting; FASB; SFAS 142; Fair Value Accounting; Standards; Cash Flow; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives; Forecasting and Prediction; Goodwill Accounting

SSRN

Find at Harvard

July 2004 (Revised December 2004)
Case

How Venture Capitalists Evaluate Potential Venture Opportunities

By: Michael J. Roberts and Lauren Barley

Four venture capitalists from leading Silicon Valley firms are interviewed about the frameworks they use to evaluate potential venture opportunities. Questions include: How do you evaluate the venture's prospective business model? What due diligence do you conduct?... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Opportunities; Framework; Entrepreneurship; Forecasting and Prediction

May 1999
Case

The Saga of Prince Jefri and KPMG (A): Mystery of the Missing Billions

By: Ashish Nanda

Accounting and law firms around the globe are following with great interest the progress through British courts of a lawsuit. Those familiar with the suit, filed by Prince Jefri of Brunei against the professional service firm KPMG Peat Marwick, remark that its judgment... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Service Industry

10 Dec 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Information and Incentives in Online Affiliate Marketing

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Wesley Brandi; Publishing; Technology

04 Feb 2020
News

How to Set Up — and Learn — from Experiments

11 Sep 2014
HBS Seminar

Petra Moser, Stanford University

Frank Nagle

Frank Nagle is an assistant professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. Professor Nagle studies how competitors can collaborate on the creation of core technologies, while still competing on the products and services built on top of them - especially... View Details

17 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Competition in Modular Clusters

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin & C. Jason Woodard; Consulting; Communications; Telecommunications; Pharmaceutical

01 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Meijun Liu, Shuo Li Liu, The University of Hong Kong, Division of information and technology & Stanford University School of Engineering

July 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

What Happened at Citigroup? (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

What went wrong at Citigroup? In 1998, the Travelers Group and Citicorp merged to create Citigroup Inc., considered the first true global "financial supermarket" and a business model to be envied, feared, and emulated. By year-end 2006 the firm had a market... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Risk Management; Failure; Financial Services Industry