big business - Publications - Faculty & Research

September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling

By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall

With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

04 Apr 2011
HBS Case

Reinventing the National Geographic Society

behaviors, and values of a legacy organization, changing a business model from paper to digital, capitalizing on huge brand awareness and international presence, and promoting cross-functional and cross-divisional collaboration.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Publishing

Web

HBS Alumni Conference: Accelerating Climate Solutions - Alumni

the money, or the need for more big science.) Solutions involving gray (built) or green (natural) infrastructure rely on the human infrastructure – the infrastructure for collaboration. Business leaders –... View Details

01 Jun 2023
News

Cultivating Prosperity in Afghanistan

being a force for good and in the ability of a for-profit social enterprise to lay a sustainable foundation for our partners in Afghanistan to connect with people around the world.” “What better way to use our HBS education than for sustainable agriculture and View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

A tiny nudge can motivate big change. (Source: dziewul) Most governments aren’t subtle when they want citizens to do something. The United States spends close to $1 billion annually on advertising--trying to convince citizens to do... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

24 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Building an IT Governance Committee

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, authors Richard Nolan and Warren McFarlan explored the role of the board of directors in IT governance—and how most "fall into the default mode of applying a set of tacit or explicit rules... View Details

Keywords: by Richard Nolan & Warren McFarlan

07 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Harvard Innovation Labs: Where Passion and Purpose Meet

alumni-founded ventures across the globe, and a wet-lab building for life sciences ventures. It is overseen by Thomas Eisenmann, the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration and the Peter O. Crisp Chair of the Harvard... View Details

05 Nov 2021
Blog Post

Video Blog: Why I Decided to Pursue an MBA at HBS

View Video TRANSCRIPT Lauren Sandoval: You may be wondering why did I go ahead and pursue my MBA? So there are a few reasons why, and there's actually three specifically. I'll start with the first. The first reason was because I wanted to improve my View Details

04 Mar 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Lessons from Running GM’s OnStar

Among the most popular elective courses at Harvard Business School is Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (BSSE). Developed by Professor Clayton M. Christensen, the course teaches future leaders how to use well-researched... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Auto

01 Dec 2019
News

Bridging the Gap

business and civic leaders helped the city clean up its act, but by the early 1980s, most of the smokestacks had shut down anyway, as manufacturing jobs moved out of the area. People left in droves. Visitors today see a different... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; illustration by Josh Cochran; photographed by Melissa Golden; cross sector collaboration; local government; nonprofits; education; leadership; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

17 Feb 2015
HBS Case

HBS Cases: The Battle for San Francisco

promising trends, the questions raised by economic inequality in San Francisco are not easily solved. Rose is teaching the case in a relatively new MBA elective, Reimagining Capitalism: Business and Big... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

02 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

It's the rare manager who doesn't partake in quarterly or annual goal-setting exercises. And woe to those who don't make their goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). But do these goals really work? Researchers from four top View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

22 Sep 2023
News

Capital Connection

Vernon Beckford (MBA 2013) saw the gap almost immediately. From the beginning of his career in commercial real estate finance—first at Credit Suisse and then later at CW Capital and Global Atlantic Financial Group—Beckford observed Wall Street’s obsession with... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Real Estate

19 Nov 2021
Blog Post

Alumni Spotlight: Career Advice from Alums Working in Climate

This year the theme of Climate Week is highlighting what businesses and governments can do to meet their climate targets. In that spirit, we have reached out to recent HBS alums working in the climate space and asked them the following,... View Details

Research Summary

Papers in progress

“The ‘Carbon Club’: Oil Companies, Climate Change & the Shaping of Public Policy”. Conspiracy theories abound, but the roles of the major oil companies in influencing public policy on climate change remain largely obscure. This... View Details

24 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Distance Still Matters in Business, Despite the Internet

Lalocracio Location has always been a vital resource in business. “Location, location, location,” as they say in real estate. But then along came the internet in the 1980s, and suddenly distance-related business costs collapsed for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Transportation; Telecommunications; Shipping; Publishing; Technology

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Hard Numbers on Social Investments

In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind, MBA students at Harvard Business School recently analyzed the financial returns generated by 110 early-stage companies backed by Investors' Circle, a national network dedicated to... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

04 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Shackleton: An Entrepreneur of Survival

In recent years, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton has been celebrated through books, memoirs, several films, and a major museum exhibit. His achievements on the ice have much to teach business students and executives, says Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 Apr 2024
News

The Making of a Medical Milestone

On March 16, doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital made history when they successfully transplanted a kidney from a genetically modified pig to a living human. The groundbreaking procedure marked a significant milestone in animal-to-human transplant, or... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

15 May 2015
Blog Post

2+2: A "Liberating and Life-Altering" Choice

towards law school. However, as a result of this new initiative I began thinking critically about business school as a pathway. The opportunity to apply to HBS while still in college struck me as a really interesting one, especially... View Details

Publications