Publications

June 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (A2)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Second of a two-part case on the development and use of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at Mobil's US Marketing and Refining Division. This case describes the completed BSC, and how this was linked to the BSCs of the independent business units and the internal service... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Performance Evaluation; Management Teams; Management Practices and Processes; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Strategy; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; United States

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

expressed as shareholder value. Its focus is on formal structure and systems. It is driven from the top with extensive help from consultants and financial incentives. Change is planned and programmatic. Theory O has as its purpose the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

04 Feb 2022
Book

Beyond the Cold War: Reinventing Socialism in 5 Countries

Although many view socialism through the rigid lens of Soviet orthodoxy, it has always been a work in progress and an evolving and adaptable ideology on a global scale, says Harvard Business School Marvin Bower Associate Professor Jeremy Friedman. In his new book, Ripe... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 2006
Module Note

Finance in Weak Institutional Environments

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes the sixth module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. The module explores the issues confronting firms that operate in weak institutional environments. The cases examine situations where investor protections are limited and how... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Curriculum and Courses; Business Ventures; Framework; Organizational Design; Outcome or Result; Education Industry

Research Summary

The Origins, Current State, and Future of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert

Starting with the dawn of market capitalism in Renaissance Italy, Professor Reinert works at the intersection of economic ideas, policies, and practices in history, particularly as seen through the lens of national strategies in international competition. He seeks to... View Details

Jill J. Avery

Dr. Jill Avery is a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in the marketing unit at Harvard Business School. She is a respected authority on branding and brand management, customer relationship... View Details

Keywords: consumer products; arts; advertising; automobiles; retailing; fashion; hotels ＆ motels; food; beverage

January 2011 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Mochi Media

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Amit Jain

In late 2009, the management of Mochi Media, a venture-backed startup, must decide how to invest scarce resources to achieve continued growth. Mochi has developed a three-sided platform, connecting Flash game developers, sites that aggregate these games, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Network Effects; Multi-Sided Platforms; Partners and Partnerships; Competition

2012
Book

Banks as Multinationals

By: G. Jones

This is a revised edition of a comparative, international study which looks at the history of multinational banks. Researchers from the United States, Japan, Europe, and Australia survey the evolution of multinational banks over time and suggest a conceptual framework... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Banks and Banking; Business Strategy; Geographic Location; Trends; Theory

Research Summary

Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances

By: Laura Alfaro

We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign-to-sovereign... View Details

2022
Working Paper

The Stock Market Value of Human Capital Creation

By: Matthias Regier and Ethan Rouen

We develop a measure of firm-year-specific human capital investment from publicly disclosed personnel expenses (PE) and examine the stock market valuation of this investment. Measuring the future value of PE (PEFV) based on the relation between lagged... View Details

Keywords: Intangibles; Market Valuation; Human Capital; Stocks; Financial Markets; Valuation

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04 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Making the Numbers? ‘Short Termism’ & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

Keywords: by Hazhir Rahmandad, Nelson P. Repenning & Rebecca Henderson

Article

Governments as Owners: State-Owned Multinational Companies

By: Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Andrew Inkpen, Aldo Musacchio and Kannan Ramaswamy

The globalization of state-owned multinational companies (SOMNCs) has become an important phenomenon in international business (IB), yet it has received scant attention in the literature. We explain how the analysis of SOMNCs can help advance the literature by... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Corporation; State-owned Enterprises; State Capitalism; FDI; Internationalization; Government And Business; National Oil Companies; State Ownership; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Acquisition; Pharmaceutical Industry; Energy Industry; China; India; Europe

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October 1991 (Revised September 1998)
Case

Maxwell Appliance Controls

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A profitable manufacturing division of a large company is looking for new ways to identify sources of productivity improvements. Led by its senior finance officer, an activity-based cost system is developed to identify activities performed for its highly varied product... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Management Teams; Quality; Performance Improvement; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Production; Manufacturing Industry

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October 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Cyprus (A)

By: Eric Werker, Sebastian Berardi, Stelios Elia, Omar Muakkassa and James Zumberge

Cyprus is a small Mediterranean island located at the cross-roads of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Since its 1974 split, Cyprus has grown real GDP more than fivefold—in large part because of its development as an "international business" center. The country... View Details

Keywords: Tax Havens; Taxation; Financial Crisis; Business and Government Relations; Cyprus

March 2019
Article

The New Silk Road: Implications for Higher Education in China and the West?

By: William C. Kirby and Marijk C. van der Wende

Recent geopolitical events, such as Brexit and the retreat from multilateral trade and cooperation by the USA, have created waves of uncertainty, especially in the field of higher education, regarding international cooperation. Meanwhile, China is publicly seeking to... View Details

Keywords: New Silk Road; Globalization; Higher Education; Global Range; International Relations; Cooperation

15 Dec 2006
Working Paper Summaries

The Business of Free Software: Enterprise Incentives, Investment, and Motivation in the Open Source Community

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Gregory L. Richards; Video Game; Web Services

June 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (A1)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

First of a two-part case on the development and use of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at Mobil's US Marketing and Refining Division. Split from the original (A) case to give students an opportunity to suggest objectives and measures for the division's initial BSC, without... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Measurement and Metrics; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Marketing Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; United States

June 2013 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Rawabi

By: Arthur I. Segel, Sarika Agrawal, Nimrod Brandt, Daniel Kuhagen, Thomas Reithinger and Margot Eiran

Bashar Masri is developing the first new stand-alone Palestinian city 25 kilometers north of Jerusalem and 9 kilometers north of Ramallah in the West Bank on 6300 dunams (1556 acres) for 40,000 people with financial support from the Qatari investment authority and... View Details

Keywords: Housing; Urban Development; Projects; Problems and Challenges; Construction Industry; Middle East

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation