Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(767)
- Faculty Publications (175)
- June 2008 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Cook Composites and Polymers Co.
By: Deishin Lee, Michael W. Toffel and Rachel Gordon
This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Future of Social Enterprise
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Herman B. Leonard and Susan McDonald
The Future of Social Enterprise considers the confluence of forces that is shaping the field of social enterprise, changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. We trace a growing pool of potential funding sources to... View Details
- April 2008
- Teaching Note
Viagen: Revolutioning the Livestock Industry (TN)
By: David E. Bell, Mary L. Shelman and Eliot Sherman
Teaching Note for [507021]. View Details
- 2008
- Article
Ambidexterity as a Dynamic Capability: Resolving the Innovator's Dilemma
By: Charles O'Reilly and Michael Tushman
How do organizations survive in the face of change? Underlying this question is a rich debate about whether organizations can adapt—and if so, how. One perspective, organizational ecology, presents evidence suggesting that most organizations are largely inert and... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised May 2009)
- Case
Offering the Right Service in the Right Place: Growing Orthopedics at the Brigham and Women's/Faulkner (BW/F) Hospitals
By: V.G. Narayanan, Michael G. Wilson and Rachel Gordon
After the merger of two local hospitals, hospital leaders much decide how to reorganize services to take advantage of newly created efficiencies. Focuses on the Orthopedics department at one of the hospitals. View Details
- October 2007 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Advanced Energy: Programs for Energy Conservation
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Brooke Barton
Describes the dilemma facing Advanced Energy (AE), a $6 million nonprofit engaged in energy conservation in North Carolina. Most of the money for its programs comes from a Public Benefits Fund (PBF) enacted by the state legislature. With renewed effort by activists in... View Details
- September 2007 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Buildings and Energy
By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Nazli Uludere
Presents data on opportunities to conserve energy in buildings, which account for about a third of all energy use. Encourages readers to think about the impediments to energy efficiency in the buildings sector and the ways in which entrepreneurs can profitably surmount... View Details
- June 2007
- Article
Does Employment Protection Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States
By: David H Autor, William R. Kerr and Adriana D. Kugler
Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect... View Details
Keywords: Theory; Production; Selection and Staffing; Cost; Employment; Capital; Performance Productivity; United States
- June 2007
- Article
Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in a Structured Market
By: A. E. Roth, Tayfun Sonmez and M. Utku Unver
Patients needing kidney transplants may have donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other pairs only when there is a "double coincidence of wants." Developing... View Details
- January 2007
- Article
Introducing the First Management Control Systems: Evidence from the Retail Sector
By: Tatiana Sandino
Focusing on a sample of US retailers, I study the management control systems (MCS) that firms introduce when they first invest in controls, and identify four categories of initial MCS, which are defined in terms of the purposes these MCS fulfill. The first category,... View Details
- November 2006
- Article
Breaking the Trade-Off Between Efficiency and Service
By: Frances X. Frei
Keywords: Performance Efficiency
- March 2006 (Revised April 2008)
- Module Note
Conceptualizing the Customer Operating Role
By: Frances X. Frei
The module introduces students to the concept and implications of a customer operating role. Building on the first year operations curriculum in which only employees' and machines' operating roles are considered, it provides the additional perspectives needed to bring... View Details
- March 2006
- Background Note
Customer-Introduced Variability in Service Operations
By: Frances X. Frei
Presents a typology of customer-introduced variability and offers guidance on how to manage each type. Central to the ideas developed is how to mitigate the effects of the apparent trade-off between reducing variability and diminishing the service experience or... View Details
- 5 Nov 2005 - 8 Nov 2005
- Conference Presentation
New Perspectives on the Business Value of IT
By: David James Brunner, Bradley R. Staats and Marco Iansiti
We sought to unravel the link between IT investment and firm performance by examining deployed IT functionality (ITF). First, ITF appears to be an important link in the IT spend to business value chain. Second, ITF does not seem to be a commodity and has... View Details
- November 2005 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
Leading Change at Simmons (A)
By: Tiziana E. Casciaro, Amy C. Edmondson, Stacy McManus and Kate Roloff
Explores the challenge of managing large-scale organizational change at Simmons, an old and established company that manufactures and distributes mattresses. The new CEO, Charlie Eitel, hired to turn the organization's performance around, considers whether to implement... View Details
- November 2005
- Case
Playgrounds and Performance: Results Management at KaBOOM! (A)
By: Herman B. Leonard, Marc J. Epstein and Laura Winig
KaBOOM!, a successful playground-building social enterprise funded through corporate partnerships, wants to develop a performance measurement system that will enable the organization to expand its impact substantially. The board of directors and management are trying... View Details
- October 2004
- Case
DNA Traceability at Maple Leaf Foods
By: Ray A. Goldberg, Joan McRobbie and Matthew L. Reisman
Maple Leaf Foods is concerned about the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) issue in Canada and the reputation of Canadian meat products in the domestic and global markets. DNA can now trace products from sow and piglets to consumer pork products.... View Details
- November/December 2003
- Article
Building the Velcro Organization: Creating Value Through Integration and Maintaining Organization-Wide Efficiency
By: Joseph L. Bower
- October 2003 (Revised November 2003)
- Module Note
Organizing to Learn Module Note
By: Amy C. Edmondson
Teaches a framework for managing in dynamic or uncertain organizational contexts, designed for either MBA or Executive Education courses. Offers a new perspective on how managers can help stimulate and guide a collective learning process in their organizations. The... View Details