Publications

February 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

February 2020
Supplement

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (B)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum Industry; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

Article

Multi-Echelon Inventory Management Under Short-Term Take-or-Pay Contracts

By: Joel Goh and Evan L. Porteus

We extend the Clark–Scarf serial multi-echelon inventory model to include procuring production inputs under short-term take-or-pay contracts at one or more stages. In each period, each such stage has the option to order/process at two different cost rates; the cheaper... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Multi-echelon Inventory Theory; Karush Lemma; Clark-Scarf Model; Convex Ordering Cost; Advance Commitments; Supply Chain

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January 2004 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Fleet Managed Assets Division (A)

By: Paul W. Marshall and Todd H Thedinga

Paul Kennedy, executive director of Fleet's Managed Asset Division, must decide whether to extend further credit to Polaroid Corp. in the fall of 2001. Polaroid's credit rating had been declining rapidly, but it was a major employer in the Boston area with many... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Credit; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Boston

February 1994 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Banc One Corporation: Asset and Liability Management

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Peter Tufano and Jon Headley

Banc One's share price has been falling recently due to analyst and investor concern over the bank's heavy use of interest rate derivatives. Dick Lodge, chief investment officer in charge of the bank's investment and derivative portfolio, must recommend to the CEO a... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Management; Interest Rates; Investment Portfolio; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Banking Industry

June 2010
Article

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Management; Standards; Employees; Wages; Organizations; Profit; Safety; Health; Policy

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05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Creating the Office of Strategy Management

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

09 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Are Management Consulting Firms Failing to Manage Themselves?

attrition rate to 13%. The irony is clear: These strategy firms, who are experts at diagnosing and solving a variety of issues for their clients, are struggling to apply their own management principles... View Details

Keywords: by David Fubini; Consulting

October 2008 (Revised June 2011)
Case

JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth

By: Robert S. Huckman and Gary P. Pisano

Considers the situation facing David Barger, President and CEO of JetBlue Airways, in May 2007 as he addresses the airline's need to slow its growth rate in the response to increasing fuel costs and the effects of major operational crisis for the airline in February... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Competitive Strategy; Air Transportation Industry

Article

Total Cost Control in Project Management via Satisficing

By: Joel Goh and Nicholas G. Hall

We consider projects with uncertain activity times and the possibility of expediting, or crashing, them. Activity times come from a partially specified distribution within a family of distributions. This family is described by one or more of the following details about... View Details

Keywords: Project Management; Time And Cost Control; Robust Optimization; Satisficing; Linear Decision Rule; PERT; Management; Cost Management; Projects

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June 2020
Article

Evaluation of Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Integration with Hospital Electronic Health Records by US County-Level Opioid Prescribing Rates

By: A Jay Holmgren and Nate Apathy

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) have become a widely embraced policy solution to the opioid epidemic in the US. PDMPs offer prescribers a comprehensive view of patients’ controlled substance prescription history and can be used to monitor and reduce... View Details

Keywords: Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs; PDMPs; Electronic Health Records; Hospitals; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Integration; Performance Evaluation

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September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Managing Multi-Media Audiences at WHDH (Boston)

By: Thales Teixeira and V. Kasturi Rangan

WHDH's Channel 7 News rose to the #1 position in Boston-area news broadcasting through its embrace of an innovative format and for affiliating with NBC. Since the early 2000s, however, other news programs had copied their format, and young audiences had begun to use... View Details

Keywords: Online News; Television Advertising; Attention Economics; Cross-media Efforts; Competition; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Marketing; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Boston

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

PortageBay and ESG Analytics

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Radhika Kak

In 2023, sustainable investors faced several challenges. The first was the lack of access to standardized and vetted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data, and equally, the interpretation of this data into investment-useful insights. Reducing reliance on... View Details

Keywords: ESG Ratings; Investment Funds; Governance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

2018
Article

What Can Managers Privately Disclose to Investors?

By: Eugene F. Soltes

Regulators have long been aware that differential access to information can undermine the efficiency and fairness of financial markets. In an effort to place investors on equal footing, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2000 created Regulation Fair Disclosure... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Information; Communication; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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Research Summary

Lean Startup Management Practices

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Many information technology startups have embraced "lean startup" management practices. Lean startups confront high levels of uncertainty about both customer problems and product solutions: the strength of demand for new... View Details

September 1992 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Germany in the 1990s: Managing Reunification

By: George C. Lodge and James W. Ragsdale

In October 1990, eastern Germany was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany. The German people rewarded the architect of these changes, Helmut Kohl, with an enhanced majority in national elections. But only two years later it was hard to remember these heady... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Inflation and Deflation; Central Banking; Interest Rates; Political Elections; Situation or Environment; Integration; Europe; Germany; Italy; United Kingdom

December 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Managing a Public Image: Kevin Knight

By: Robin J. Ely and Ingrid Vargas

Kevin Knight recounts an uncomfortable situation he faced as an African-American student at Harvard Business School. Concerned with maintaining an image as a calm and rational person, he is appalled when he finds himself in a heated classroom exchange in defense of an... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Ethnicity; Identity; Competency and Skills; Business Education