Publications

July 2023
Case

DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome (Abridged)

By: Ayelet Israeli

DayTwo is a young Israeli startup that applies research on the gut microbiome and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized nutritional recommendations to its users in order to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals. After a first year of trial rollout in... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Nutrition; Market Entry and Exit; Product Marketing; Distribution Channels

March 2016
Case

Residency Select or J3Personica?

By: William Kerr and Kathryn S. Roloff

Residency Select, LLC provides psychometric assessments for matching medical students to residency programs. After a series of successful pilots, founder Alan Friedman is considering whether to continue developing his offerings in this area, or whether to expand into... View Details

Keywords: Marketplace Matching; Expansion; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

May 14, 2014
Editorial

In Terms of Social Progress, America Is Not #1—It's #16

By: Michael E. Porter

As Americans, we like to think of ourselves as a world leader. After all, the United States has the largest economy in the world and is near the very top in GDP per capita. We are used to thinking that we lead on social issues like education, access to information, and... View Details

Keywords: Society

Read Now

June 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Case

"One Country, Two Systems"? Italy and the Mezzogiorno (A)

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

GDP per person in northern Italy caught up with average incomes in Britain, France, and Germany in the 1970s, but incomes in southern Italy (the Mezzogiorno) fell further behind. This was partly due to cultural and societal differences that dated to the Renaissance,... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; Crime and Corruption; Social Issues; Economy; Government and Politics; Macroeconomics; Italy

Research suggests making the decision to retire means grappling with three psychological issues. First, identity issues can loom large for any deeply engaged professional. Even a small step away from a career can make a person wonder who they are without it.... View Details

Program

Foundations of Private Equity and Venture Capital

knowledge of industry processes and terminology Assess the implications of different deal structures and terms Establish a successful private equity/venture capital partnership structure Expand your personal and professional network... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance

2018
Working Paper

Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment

By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian

When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

September 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Cathy Benko: WINning at Deloitte (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Deborah M. Kolb and Cailin B. Hammer

Jim Quigley, CEO of Deloitte and Touche's consulting practice, asks senior partner Cathy Benko to lead Deloitte & Touche's much publicized Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women (WIN). Benko, already the Lead Client Service Partner on one of Deloitte's... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Consulting Industry; United States

December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
Exercise

Janet Ames (A)

By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad

The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; Board; Non-profit Management; Career Changes And Transitions; Evaluation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Management; Personal Development and Career; United States

15 Apr 2024
Book

Struggling With a Big Management Decision? Start by Asking What Really Matters

cut through all the questions that inevitably run through their heads so they can instinctively choose the right path. The best way to tackle a tough call: Start by defining on a personal level what is right, says Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2011
Working Paper

The Three Foundations of a Great Life, Great Leadership, and a Great Organization

By: Michael C. Jensen

I argue here that the three factors my co-authors and I identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership can also be seen as the foundations not only for great leadership, but also for a high quality personal life and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizations; Performance Effectiveness; Work-Life Balance; Strategy; Value

SSRN

27 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

Mattel: Getting a Toy Recall Right

design flaws in the toys with the magnets that could come loose. But Mattel deserves praise for now stepping up to its responsibilities as the leading brand in the toy industry. What has Mattel done right? The CEO has taken personal... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

Program

Competing in the Age of Digital Platforms

platform, if you are a traditional product or service business Reinvigorate a struggling platform Explore options for responding to platform competitors Know the steps to take to "buy" a platform to accelerate time to market Expand your View Details

October 2021
Article

Fintech Borrowers: Lax Screening or Cream-Skimming?

By: Marco Di Maggio and Vincent Yao

Personal credit is the fastest-growing segment of the consumer credit market, mainly driven by fintech lenders' staggering expansion. We study this market using a unique individual-level data, which covers most of the top fintech and traditional lenders, and provides... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Lending; Consumer Finance; Credit History; Self-control; Present Bias; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Credit; Behavior

2017
Article

A Brief Money Management Scale and Its Associations with Personality, Financial Health, and Hypothetical Debt Repayment

By: Masha Ksendzova, Grant Edward Donnelly and Ryan Howell

Money management is essential for financial health, and more research is needed to better assess people’s money management practices. Therefore, we factor-analyzed 205 scaled questions from previous money management measures to select the best items and examined their... View Details

Keywords: Budgeting; Debt; Money Management; Financial Health; Scale Development; Budgets and Budgeting; Personal Finance; Behavior; Decision Making

2010
Working Paper

Introductory Reading for Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model

By: Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, Steve Zaffron and Kari L. Granger

This paper is the sixth of six pre-course reading assignments for an experimental leadership course developed by the authors over five years (2004-2008) at the U. of Rochester Simon School of Business working with students, alumni, executives, and faculty from various... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Curriculum and Courses; Strategy; Performance Capacity; Attitudes; Behavior; United States; Netherlands; Texas

SSRN

July 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Echoing Green

By: Julie Battilana, Thomas J. DeLong and James Weber

This case presents the leadership challenges that Cheryl Dorsey, the president of Echoing Green, faces in early 2009. Echoing Green is a fellowship program that seeks to improve society by identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs who launch organizations to... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Crisis; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Social Enterprise

April 2010
Case

School of One: Reimagining How Students Learn

By: Stacey M. Childress, James Weber and Matthew Adams Haldeman

School of One was a start-up with a new approach to learning. Instead of one teacher delivering the entire math curriculum to a class of 20-25 students, School of One utilized a technology platform that allowed several teachers to collectively oversee the learning of a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Learning; Innovation and Invention