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Publications
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(1,119)
- Faculty Publications (250)
- February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry
- January 2013
- Case
Luotang Power: Variances Explained
By: Robert Simons and Craig Chapman
The general manager of Luotang Power, a coal-fired power plant located in central China, reviews annual results before a meeting with the board of directors. He thought the company performed well during the year and both plant availability and fuel economy had improved... View Details
- November 2012
- Case
Ahold versus Tesco—Analyzing Performance
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Penelope Rossano
The case relates to understanding and comparing the performance of two leading retail companies—Ahold and Tesco. The case introduces the tools of Dupont and Modified Dupont Decomposition. While performance as measured by return on equity has been similar for the two... View Details
- August 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
EnerNOC: DemandSMART
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
EnerNOC is an energy company with an innovative business model: it serves as an intermediary between electric utilities and electricity users. It contracts with electricity users willing to reduce demand during periods of peak energy demand, and sells this as excess... View Details
Keywords: Production Planning; Productivity; Environmental Protection; Energy; Environment; Business Government Relations; Laws And Regulation; Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Opportunities; Risk and Uncertainty; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Supply Chain Management; Production; Energy Conservation; Energy Industry
- May 2012
- Case
Indigo Telecom Australia
By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and Keith Chi-ho Wong
Two entrepreneurs identify an opportunity to bring ubiquitous satellite phone service to the outback of Australia. This case challenges students to carefully identify and evaluate the added-value the firm is bringing to the market, its priorities in implementation, and... View Details
- April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Dovernet
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details
- April 2012 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
eBay, Inc. and Amazon.com (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Anant Thaker
This case has been designed to explore strategic interactions among organizations with different business models. The case considers how a competitor successfully challenged the incumbent in a platform market defined by strong network effects and high switching costs.... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised February 2013)
- Background Note
The Hybrid Vehicle Market
By: Michael W. Toffel and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon
This note describes the hybrid electic vehicle market, the results of different automaker strategies, and the environmental regulatory issues that can promote or inhibit market growth in the United States. Introduces students to the technologies and regulatory aspects... View Details
- January 2012 (Revised March 2012)
- Case
Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s Entry into the Retirement Market
By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy
This case examines Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s decision to enter the retirement market with their new "Dimensional Managed DC" product, a complete retirement solution that aimed to provide investors with what they really wanted: the same standard of living in... View Details
- July 2011 (Revised April 2012)
- Case
The Clorox Company: Leveraging Green for Growth
By: Elie Ofek and Lauren Barley
The Clorox Company needs to decide on the marketing strategy going forward for its three sustainable brands, Brita, Burt's Bees and Green Works. These brands had fared differently over the past 3 years and each presents multiple courses of action heading into 2011.... View Details
- July 2011 (Revised August 2013)
- Background Note
Note on Evaluating Empirical Research
This note is intended to provide students with a basic understanding of how to evaluate empirical research papers. While reading both case studies and empirical research require close attention and scrutiny, evaluating empirical research requires a different... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised June 2013)
- Case
Businesses for Sale by Briggs Capital, 2010
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Briggs Capital was a regional mergers and acquisitions advisory firm that helped owners to sell their small firms. The case presents a company that was for sale in the fall of 2010—a troubled manufacturer of post and beam style homes and log homes. Using the actual... View Details
- 2011
- Teaching Note
UFIDA (D) (TN)
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ping He, Xiohua Wu and Lijuan Liu
This case describes the financing decisions of a software company at difference stages of its development. Started from 1988 as an individual business, along with the "Reform and Open" policy of China, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, and has become a... View Details
- August 2010
- Case
Flash Memory, Inc.
By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson
The CFO of Flash Memory, Inc. prepares the company's investing and financing plans for the next three years. Flash Memory is a small firm that specializes in the design and manufacture of solid state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for the computer and electronics... View Details
- April 2010
- Case
Jones Electrical Distribution
By: Thomas R. Piper and Jeffrey DeVolder
Jones Electrical Distribution is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed and assess the attractiveness of the loan to the... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
The Congressional Oversight Panel's Valuation of the TARP Warrants (A)
The Congressional Oversight Panel wants to value the warrants issued to the government in connection with the TARP investments of 2008, in order to increase the transparency of options repurchases. The case describes the methodology used to value the warrants. Students... View Details
- January 2010
- Case
Five and Six Dulles Station
By: Arthur I Segel
Cricket Real Estate Advisors needs to decide if they should invest in a proposed joint venture development with Buddy Holly & Associates. Holly is a successful northern Virginia office developer who plans to develop two buildings containing 232,750 rentable square... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised November 2017)
- Background Note
GUIDES: Insight through Indicators
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Jonathan Schlefer and Ann Cullen
GUIDES is an easily remembered framework that can help the business leader and student to confidently and quickly identify, organize, and interpret a country's key economic indicators. Alternatively, it can help them to evaluate third-party analyses and to compare such... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
AME Learning Inc.
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Ann Leamon
Justin Joffe is about to graduate from HBS in Spring 2009. He must decide whether to join his father's company, Toronto-based AME Learning, as president working alongside his father who will be CEO. AME has been in business for 12 years, mostly as a small consulting... View Details
- October 2009
- Case
Noble Group
By: C. Fritz Foley, Michael Shih-ta Chen, Matthew Johnson and Linnea Meyer
What role does trade finance play in facilitating global supply chain management? Richard S. Elman, founder and CEO of Noble Group Ltd., a global commodities trading company based in Hong Kong, must raise capital to support the firm's working capital and investment... View Details