Publications

SSRN

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November–December 2024
Article

Outcome-Driven Dynamic Refugee Assignment with Allocation Balancing

By: Kirk Bansak and Elisabeth Paulson

This study proposes two new dynamic assignment algorithms to match refugees and asylum seekers to geographic localities within a host country. The first, currently implemented in a multi-year pilot in Switzerland, seeks to maximize the average predicted employment... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Refugees; Geographic Location; Employment

08 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching

While some lessons can be learned by watching—a parent’s reaction after touching a hot stove can be a good lesson for a youngster on dangers in the kitchen—other lessons are harder to learn through observation alone. No matter how many times you watch a surgeon View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

March 2020
Case

A Tower for the People: 425 Park Avenue

By: John Macomber, Joseph G. Allen and Emily Jones

Healthy buildings and superior air quality are increasingly important since people now spend so much time indoors. Indoor spaces drive performance and productivity. Commercial real estate landlords and investors are responding to the demands of sophisticated tenants... View Details

Keywords: Health And Wellness; Real Estate; Sustainability; Health; Pollution; Buildings and Facilities; Performance Productivity; Finance; Real Estate Industry; New York (city, NY)

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Hard Numbers on Social Investments

capital through their network. Results would also help IC members discuss the larger question about the relationship of financial returns and social returns. In short, should capital providers expect some lesser degree of financial View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

2010
Working Paper

Valuation When Cash Flow Forecasts Are Biased

By: Richard S. Ruback

This paper focuses adaptations to the discount cash flow (DCF) method when valuing forecasted cash flows that are biased measures of expected cash flows. I imagine a simple setting where the expected cash flows equal the forecasted cash flows plus an omitted downside.... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Performance Expectations; Prejudice and Bias; Valuation

Read Now

05 Jun 2014
News

Harvard Business School to Create New Convening Center

March 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Analog Devices, Inc.: The Half-Life System

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The company has committed to major improvements in quality, cost, and on-time delivery performance. Despite strong senior management support, however, the actual rate of improvement was disappointing until a new measurement philosophy was introduced. The new approach... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Earnings Management; Financial Reporting; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Business or Company Management; Cost Management; Measurement and Metrics; Management Teams; Semiconductor Industry

June 2023
Case

Accounting for Loan Losses at JPMorgan Chase: Predicting Credit Costs

By: Jonas Heese, Jung Koo Kang and James Weber

The case examines the accounting for loan losses at a large bank, how a bank sets its Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) on its financial statements. ALLL, and the rules that set them, determine when banks would and would not extend loans, which significantly... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Accrual Accounting; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry; United States

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Where Morals and Profits Meet: The Corporate Value Shift

this, as I note in the book, is that expectations for corporate behavior are constantly evolving. Conduct that would have been ethically acceptable in one era becomes unacceptable as expectations rise.... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

07 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 7

minimizes a convex approximation of this metric. We further develop an exponential penalty approach and show that its computational performance is far superior and its trade-off between delay and fairness compares favorably. In our... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Forthcoming
Article

Confronting the Limits of Symbolic Actions: How Entrepreneurs Narrow the Presentation-Performance Gap

By: Rebecca Karp and Siobhan O'Mahony

Entrepreneurs often skillfully leverage symbolic actions to manage impressions and gain acceptance for their innovations. Impression management can generate interest, but also heighten expectations beyond an innovation’s capabilities, creating a gap between... View Details

Keywords: Digital Innovation; Integration Strategy; Impression Management; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Health Industry; Technology Industry

May 2024
Case

HarvEast

By: Jeremy Friedman and Natalie Kindred

In late 2023, Dmitry Skornyakov, CEO of Ukrainian agribusiness HarvEast, was navigating the turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014 and escalated into full-scale war in February 2022. Before the full-scale invasion, HarvEast managed 127,000... View Details

Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Natural Resources; Food; Problems and Challenges; Adaptation; Innovation and Management; Crisis Management; Logistics; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Loss; Trust; Human Needs; War; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chile; South America; Latin America; Ukraine

17 Nov 2020
In Practice

How Retailers Can Thrive in a Shopping Season Like No Other

American retailers are heading into a holiday shopping season unlike any other as the spiraling COVID-pandemic and limp economy threaten consumer spending. We asked Harvard Business School faculty members—in particular, authors of recent retail case studies—what... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Retail

1 Mar 2013 - 2 Mar 2013
Conference Presentation

The Value of Flexibility in Baseball Roster Construction

By: Timothy Chan and Douglas S. Fearing

Drawing inspiration from the theory of production flexibility in manufacturing networks, we provide the first optimization-based analysis of the value of positional flexibility (the ability of a player to play multiple positions) for a major league baseball team in the... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Design; Production; Resource Allocation; Groups and Teams; Adaptation; Sports

10 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

social media, responses are immediate.” Also, votes allow companies to perform consumer research cheaply, generating new ideas for products or flavors, or testing consumer preference for options it might be considering. “Firms can... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

04 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?

the promise of eventual reward of candy and soda: They not only completed fewer tasks, but also made more mistakes, which downgraded their performance. “We'd expect to find that being more flexible in monitoring Internet use could... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Article

Overcoming the Winner's Curse: An Adaptive Learning Perspective

By: Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Brit Grosskopf

The winner's curse phenomenon refers to the fact that the winner in a common value auction, in order to actually win the auction, is likely to have overestimated the item's value and consequently is likely to gain less than expected and may even lose (i.e., it is said... View Details

August 2016
Article

Value-Based Breast Cancer Care: A Multidisciplinary Approach for Defining Patient-Centered Outcomes

By: Fayanju M. Oluwadamilola, Tinisha L. Mayo, Tracy E. Spinks, Seohyun Lee, Carlos H. Barcenas, Benjamin D. Smith, Sharon H. Giordano, Rosa F. Hwang, Richard A. Ehlers, Jesse C. Selber, Ronald Walters, Debu Tripathy, Kelly K. Hunt, Thomas A. Buchholz, Thomas W. Feeley and Henry M. Kuerer

Purpose. Value in healthcare—i.e., patient-centered outcomes achieved per healthcare dollar spent—can define quality and unify performance improvement goals with health outcomes of importance to patients across the entire cycle of care. We describe the process... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Improvement; Health Industry

September 1996
Case

Automatic Data Processing: The EFS Decision (Abridged)

By: Robert L. Simons

The managing director of one of ADP's divisions must recommend whether to divest, harvest, or grow the division. Recent performance has been excellent and the near-term outlook for profitability is very promising. Despite some strategic concerns, the strong financial... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Success; Performance Expectations; Strategic Planning; Strategy