Publications

28 Apr 2021
News

Psychological Safety in a Hybrid World

March 2011
Article

The New M&A Playbook

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising and Andrew Waldeck

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, yet the M&A failure rate is between 70% and 90%. Executives can dramatically increase their odds of success, the authors argue, if they understand how to select targets, how much to pay for them, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Integration

Find at Harvard

November 2012
Case

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. (Abridged)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Robert S. Huckman, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Matthew Preble

Considers whether New Balance, one of the world's five largest manufacturers of athletic footwear, should respond to Adidas' planned acquisition of Reebok—a transaction that would join the second- and third-largest companies in the industry. Highlights the unique... View Details

Keywords: Production; Competitive Strategy; Supply Chain; Brands and Branding; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; United States

September 1988 (Revised December 1998)
Case

Donner Co.

By: Roy D. Shapiro

The management of a small manufacturer of circuit boards faces a number of production and operations management problems. The first day on this case is used to analyze the production capacity of various stages in the process and to examine bottlenecks and key... View Details

Keywords: Information Management; Management; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Performance Capacity; Problems and Challenges; Semiconductor Industry

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

and their health.” · In a memo to employees, Morgan Stanley’s CEO, James Gorman, wrote, “While long term we can’t be sure how this will play out, we want to commit to you that there will not be a reduction in force at Morgan Stanley in 2020. Aside from a View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

09 Dec 2013
Research & Ideas

Cultural Disharmony Undermines Workplace Creativity

harassment or racial discrimination—in which coworkers' morale or performance suffers even when they are not the direct targets of abuse. He coined a term for the phenomenon, "ambient cultural disharmony," which he discusses in depth in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

11 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

Keywords: by Aaron K. Chatterji & Michael W. Toffel

March 2017 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Interline Brands: Don't Stop Believing

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Interline Brands, a leading distributor of residential housing maintenance and repair parts and equipment in the U.S., had just held its November 2014 board meeting. The meeting had been productive but not without some soul searching for both the company’s management... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Consumer Goods; IPO; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Decision Choices and Conditions

03 Jul 2013
What Do You Think?

What Are the Limits of Transparency?

information is delivered." One possible line would include information about a company's strategy. Brad Keller commented that "It takes more than just sharing financials or performance review data It is really a matter of being... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2011
Working Paper

CEO Bonus Plans: And How to Fix Them

By: Kevin J. Murphy and Michael C. Jensen

Almost all CEO and executive bonus plans have serious design flaws that limit their benefits dramatically. Such poorly designed executive bonus plans destroy value by providing incentives to manipulate the timing of earnings, mislead the board about organizational... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Competency and Skills; Cost of Capital; Executive Compensation; Risk Management; Performance Evaluation; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Value

SSRN

09 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

Uncompromising Leadership in Tough Times

Commitment, High Performance: How to Build a Resilient Organization for Sustained Advantage describes organizations that, Beer says, "are diametrically opposite to the firms we saw fail on Wall Street. The book's perspective also leads to answers to the question... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

July 2005
Case

Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession

By: Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna and Daniel Penrice

Since its founding in 1908, Harvard Business School's mission has been to perform a much-needed service for American society by turning business management into a profession. One of the most important factors in the founding of HBS and the nation's other new business... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Mission and Purpose; Alignment; Social Issues; Practice

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

when you're not in the room," he says. "The last thing we need when things are tough is to have people tell us what they think we want to hear." Manage Up "Remind your superiors about your added responsibilities,"... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

August 1999 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Catanese and Vulcan (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Sanjay Pothen

A small CPA firm puts in a new performance measurement system, and profits increase by 350% in less than a year. This case illustrates the reasons for improved profitability as well as the sustainability of levels of growth, the opportunities, and the threats that... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Performance Evaluation; SWOT Analysis; Profit

2013 Winner of Academy of Management Awards for Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior and Best Published Paper in Organization and Management Theory

Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second... View Details

2008
Working Paper

CEO and CFO Career Penalties to Missing Quarterly Analysts Forecasts

By: Rick Mergenthaler, Shiva Rajgopal and Suraj Srinivasan

We find that missing the quarterly analyst consensus earnings forecast is associated with career penalties in the form of a reduced bonus, smaller equity grants, and a greater chance of forced dismissal for both CEOs and CFOs during the period 1993-2004. These results... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Compensation and Benefits; Managerial Roles; Personal Development and Career

SSRN

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 make is the size of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2014
Working Paper

Adding Value Through Venture Capital in Latin America and the Caribbean

By: Josh Lerner, Ann Leamon, James Tighe and Susana Garcia-Robles

Venture capital (VC) investment has long been recognized as an engine for economic growth and development. Unlike bank loans, where the entrepreneur receives money and is left alone as long as the payments arrive on the pre-arranged schedule, venture capital... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Value; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Latin America; West Indies