Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,933)
- Faculty Publications (237)
- October 2015
- Case
Transpower New Zealand: Evaluating Board Performance
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Sarah L. Abbott
Mark Verbiest, Chairman of Transpower New Zealand, initiated a performance review of Transpower's board of directors. The review, which took four months to complete, provided board members with individualized feedback on their performance, as well as information on how... View Details
- October 2015 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Ozark Feed and Ag Corporation: The ERP Decision
By: Jan Hammond, Paul Kalmbach and Eric Bernstein
This case describes a medium-sized business that manufactures animal feed for commercial and companion animals. The company has been growing rapidly and is considering whether or not to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Ozark currently uses an IT... View Details
- June 2015
- Case
1996 Welfare Reform in the United States
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Alastair Su
On August 22, 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)—a dramatic reform of the American system of economic assistance for the poor that, as its title suggested, attempted to... View Details
- Article
Leaders as Decision Architects: Structure Your Organization's Work to Encourage Wise Choices
By: John Beshears and F. Gino
Everyone from CEOs to frontline workers commits preventable mistakes—for example, underestimating how long it will take to finish a project or focusing too much on information that supports their current view. It is extraordinarily difficult to rewire the human brain... View Details
- Article
Stretch the Mission? A Nonprofit That Supports Emerging-market Entrepreneurs Considers Expanding to the U.S.
By: William A. Sahlman and Ramana Nanda
A case study is presented concerning a nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs in emerging-markets countries in regions including Latin America and Asia, focusing on the decision over whether to expand its services into the Miami, Florida, area, a question on... View Details
- April 2015
- Supplement
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp: Redefining Success in the U.S. (B)
By: Gautam Mukunda, Thomas DeLong and Aldo Sesia
This (B) case describes the actions André Wyss, president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, took in early 2012 to transform the company's General Medicines group and build its specialty medications, marketing the selling capabilities in the face of falling... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised August 2016)
- Case
Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg
"Not another Bochum." Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila was clear in the goals he set for the 2011 restructuring that Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, had decided was necessary to address the dramatically changed competitive environment the company faced in smartphones... View Details
- November 2014
- Article
The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying
By: William R. Kerr, William F. Lincoln and Prachi Mishra
We study the determinants of the dynamics of firm lobbying behavior using a panel data set covering 1998–2006. Our data exhibit three striking facts: (i) few firms lobby, (ii) lobbying status is strongly associated with firm size, and (iii) lobbying status is highly... View Details
- August 2014 (Revised August 2015)
- Supplement
Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (B)
By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats
Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details
Keywords: Valve; Self-Managed Organizations; Organization Design; Strategy; Flat Organization; Video Games; Organization Alignment; Family Business; Steam; Steam Machine; Design; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Human Resources; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Leadership Style; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Groups and Teams; Alignment; Software; Hardware; Video Game Industry; Seattle
- 2016
- Working Paper
Signaling without Certification: The Critical Role of Civil Society Scrutiny
By: Susan A. Kayser, John W. Maxwell and Michael W. Toffel
In response to stakeholders' growing concerns, companies are joining voluntary environmental programs to signal their superior environmental management capabilities. In contrast to the literature's focus on certification programs that require a third-party audit, we... View Details
Keywords: United Nations; Labor Standards; Supplier Relationship; Procurement; Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Quality And Safety; Risk; Globalization; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Working Conditions; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Quality; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Reputation
- 2014
- Working Paper
Don't Take 'No' for an Answer: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations
By: Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth
Over 10,000 people in the U.S. die each year while waiting for an organ. Attempts to increase organ transplantation have focused on changing the registration question from an opt-in frame to an active choice frame. We analyze this change in California and show it... View Details
- Article
The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts
By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton
Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details
- 2014
- Article
Unequality: Who Gets What and Why It Matters
Who should get what, and what are the consequences? Economic inequality in the United States has been rising for decades, yet only recently have behavioral scientists explored two central questions surrounding the optimal level of inequality. First, what are the... View Details
- January 2014
- Case
Steven Carpenter at Cake Financial (Abridged)
Steven Carpenter reflects on the successes and failures of his recent venture, Cake Financial. Carpenter had just sold the four-year-old startup and was at work on a new business plan. But first, he wanted to understand why Cake Financial, a service that allowed users... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
- Case
Tech Mahindra and the Acquisition of Satyam Computers (A)
By: Srikant M. Datar, Anjali Raina and Namrata Arora
Set in 2008, the case details Tech Mahindra, an information technology (IT) company within the Mahindra Group, an Indian multi-industry company with a diverse stable of businesses including automotives, farm equipment, and financial services, and its decision to... View Details
- September–October 2013
- Article
The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring
By: Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel
Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard, which can be particularly onerous when outsourcing the monitoring and... View Details
Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Accountability; Governance Compliance; Policy; Management Practices and Processes; Demand and Consumers; Market Design; Market Entry and Exit; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Expectations; Practice; Transportation; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; United States; New York (state, US)
- July 2013
- Case
Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?
By: John A. Quelch and Diane Badame
Andrea Torres, director of new product development at a high-end chocolate confectionery company, leads her team through a carefully sequenced program of market research to support the development and launch of a new product, healthy dark chocolate with fruit. This is... View Details
- July 2013 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted
By: Clayton Rose and Noah Fisher
After years of vigorous denials, on January 14, 2013 Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey that he "doped" in each of his record seven consecutive Tour de France victories, confirming the findings a few months earlier by the US... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Leadership; Culture; Sports Industry; United States; Europe; France
- May 2013
- Case
Altius Golf and the Fighter Brand
By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong
Altius Golf is the clear leader in the golf ball market despite a long-term decline in the number of golfers and a drop in sales following the financial crisis. The firm has maintained its position by introducing generations of advanced, super-premium golf balls that... View Details
- March 2013
- Article
From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
This article draws on historical material to examine the co-evolution of economic science and business education over the course of the twentieth century, showing that fields evolve not only through internal struggles but also through struggles taking place in adjacent... View Details
Keywords: Professions; Disciplines; Neo-Liberalism; Education; Economics; Finance; Society; United States