Back Running - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Is Baseball Ready to Compete for the Next Generation of Fans?

While football and basketball are now the most popular and financially successful of the four major professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball appears to be rallying. Last week, MLB said revenue for the 2022 regular season, which featured an American League... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Media & Broadcasting; Sports

25 May 2011
HBS Case

QuikTrip’s Investment in Retail Employees Pays Off

group of retailers is challenging this notion of an industry built on the backs of crummy jobs, very prosperous companies that include Costco, Mercadona, Trader Joe's, and QuikTrip. What do they know that their competitors don't? In a new... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

16 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 16

right place at the right time. Others argued differently, emphasizing in particular his unique style of investing and his focus on selecting the right people. Was this a case of luck or a classic example of the principle: back the right... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Can Amazon Remake Health Care?

At a time when health care providers have gone all in on telemedicine, Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, surprised Wall Street in late July when it announced it would acquire 1Life Healthcare Inc., which runs the... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Health

29 Aug 2018
What Do You Think?

What Should Harley-Davidson’s Management Do?

business is business,’ is an important statement of Milton Friedman in this context. The criticism on Harley would be worse if they did not run their business in the most cost-effective way, including offshore manufacturing.” JimHBS89... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Auto

28 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)

From neighborhood to neighborhood—even from block to block—customers have different tastes in the products they buy and the retail experience they find most enjoyable. As a business owner operating stores across multiple markets, is it possible to please everyone? Can... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

20 Apr 2021
Book

A Simple Question That Can Guide Companies to Epic Success

they are then able to better serve their customers. This is particularly true in service industries. A third difference is that I emphasize the strategic value of operational effectiveness. Traditionally, we did not make much of running... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

10 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

High Commitment, High Performance Management

strengths of and barriers to commitment and performance. These task forces are clearly instructed by the CEO or business unit manager (depending on the level of the organization in which this process is applied) to bring back the truth.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

31 Jul 2017
HBS Case

It’s Hard to Fix the Family Business Without Offending the Family

1981. Opened in 1992, Pho Hoa has been run with few formal processes in place and no regular income statement reporting, forecasting, or budgeting. Thanh, wanting to take a well-deserved retirement after 25 years of hard work, has named... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

underinvestment in the economy and managers trying to buy back stocks to appease shareholders while neglecting good investments. Or, worse yet, managers could be trying to boost earnings metrics to flatter themselves. At the same time,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

14 Apr 2022
Op-Ed

Let’s Move Forward from COVID—Without Forgetting What We’ve Learned

decline, and even the spike created by the delta and omicron variants could not stop corporations from recalling workers to the office. Many companies want to go back to the way things were, but that would be a mistake. “Organizational... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and MaShon Wilson

06 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea

by delay can be a very powerful strategy because it's so easy to deploy. A case is made that sounds so reasonable, where we should wait (just a bit) until some other project is done, or we should send this back into committee (just to... View Details

Keywords: by John Kotter & Lorne A. Whitehead

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

are hiring a manager to help run this system, what are the attributes of the ideal candidate? A: We observed that the best managers in these TPS managed organizations, and the managers in organizations that seem to adopt the Rules-in-Use... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

Tactics, deal design, and set-up are three crucial components of the most effective negotiations. Yet many negotiators focus only on the tactical part, running the risk of undermining their own best interests. How can you negotiate more... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

01 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

The Big Influence of Small Countries in the United Nations Secretariat

Who really runs the world? We're not talking in a power-brokers-conspiring-in-the-back-room sort of way. Rather, by looking at the institutions that countries themselves have set up to organize the world's affairs, can we determine who is... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

06 Aug 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

looking out the window at the Clydesdales in the field, and they notice They block the road, and the next scene is the puppy running back with the Clydesdales. The brand logo isn't even shown until the very... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

06 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

telecommunications company in which there was a greater than 50 percent difference in revenue-per-call between top-quartile and bottom-quartile employees. “There are common pitfalls that people face in the sales process,” says Stanton. “People repeatedly View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

20 Jan 2022
Op-Ed

3 Steps to Help Companies Rebuild Trust During the Pandemic

struggled with whether to lay off or furlough employees. Business leaders have had to make tough calls amid rapidly changing conditions with official guidance that keeps changing, and their decisions have run the gamut from trust building... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

04 Jul 2005
What Do You Think?

How Can Business Schools Be Made More Relevant?

are not the skills that most doctoral candidates are asked to master as part of their training." Leonard Lane reinforces this view in saying that "Relevancy requires that the MBA-level instructor be a true practitioner-scholar who has . . . View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

the export-orientation is still feasible if it is being pursued by a large number of countries in parallel. It might have negative terms-of-trade effects if all exports focus on the same industries. It might to lead to unsustainable macroeconomic imbalances with... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

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