Publications

10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

Southern Regional Council. “One of the reasons why no such data had been used before is because nobody was aware that they existed in such a systematic way,” Tabellini says. “And nobody went physically to manually collect and digitize... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

12 Dec 2023
Book

HBS Faculty Books of 2023: Find Happiness, Fix Things, and Fail Well

Faculty-authored books that came out in 2023 hit many of the notes one would expect of the quiet quitter era: Finding new paths to happiness. Thriving after failure. Building a flexible and fulfilling life that prioritizes relationships... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

05 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Reflecting on Work Improves Job Performance

Many of us are familiar with the gentle punishment known as "time-out," in which misbehaving children must sit quietly for a few minutes, calm down, and reflect on their actions. New research suggests that... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

November 2016 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Elon Musk's Big Bets

By: David B. Yoffie, Eric Baldwin and Brandon Kaufmann

Between late 2014 and late 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk undertook several major, and risky, initiatives that would dramatically expand the scale and scope of Tesla’s business. In late 2014, Tesla began construction on a $5 billion “gigafactory” that would manufacture... View Details

February 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Supplement

Accounting for Catastrophes: BP PLC and Union Carbide Corporation (C)

By: David F. Hawkins and Namrata Arora

An analyst in 2010 is using the Bhopal catastrophe to illustrate proposed new accounting for contingency losses. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Natural Disasters; Pollutants

02 Jan 2020
News

Hospitals Merged. Quality Didn’t Improve.

December 2001 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Borealis

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Bjorn N. Jorgensen

When Borealis, a European producer of plastics, used a traditional, time-consuming budgeting process, the budget was quickly out of date in a competitive environment characterized by continually changing input and output prices and dynamic market conditions. This case... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Governance Controls; Balanced Scorecard; Management Systems; Manufacturing Industry; Europe

I am a second-year PhD student in the Health Policy and Management program at Harvard Business School where my advisor is Dr. Rob Huckman. I live in Brookline with my fiance Natalie and our two cats, Joe and Huey. Before grad school I was a research assistant in the... View Details

09 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Fearing Fox News, Democratic-leaning Companies Delayed Negative Announcements

world through television and print publications, as they had for decades. There was, however, one big media game changer: the Fox News Channel (FNC). Founded in 1996 by Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch, FNC was an unusual newcomer... View Details

Keywords: by Jen Deaderick; Media & Broadcasting

02 Jul 2014
What Do You Think?

Are Today’s Business Heroes Challenging Our Ideas About Leadership?

Summing Up Is There Really a Formula for Great Leadership? The overall sense of responses to our question for the month is that the leadership stars of today—Jobs, Bezos, Gates, etc.,—should not cause us to change our time-honored ideas... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

June 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Continental Media Group: Business Highlights

By: Robert L. Simons and Kathryn Rosenberg

Continental Media Group has a series of business reviews struggling to achieve profitability. This case focuses on the use of management control systems to identify emerging opportunities and the formulation of new strategies. The interactive system used by top... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Governance Controls; Management Systems; Risk Management; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry

May 2011
Article

The Wise Leader

By: Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi

In an era of increasing discontinuity, wise leadership has nearly vanished. Many leaders find it difficult to reinvent their corporations rapidly enough to cope with new technologies, demographic shifts, and consumption trends. They can't develop truly global... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Values and Beliefs; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leadership; Leadership Development; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Personal Characteristics; Power and Influence

Find at Harvard

Working Paper

Visual Uniqueness in Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: Machine Learning Model Development, Validation, and Application

By: Flora Feng, Charis Li and Shunyuan Zhang

Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces have seen exponential growth in recent years featured by unique offerings from individual providers. Despite the perceived value of uniqueness, scalable quantification of visual uniqueness in P2P platforms like Airbnb has been largely... View Details

Keywords: Peer-to-peer Markets; Marketplace Matching; AI and Machine Learning; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Marketing

Read Now

January 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Army Crew Team, The

By: Scott A. Snook and Jeffrey T. Polzer

The coach of the varsity Army crew team at West Point assembled his top eight rowers into the first crew team and the second tier of rowers into the second team using objective data on individual performance. As the second boat continually beat the first boat in races,... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Performance; New York (state, US)

October 2000 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Z Corporation

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Matthew C. Lieb and Tom Clay

Tom Clay, president of Z Corp., and founder/CEO Marina Hatsopolous must decide between using a direct sales force or using a value-added reseller to begin selling the company's new 3-D printing prototype manufacturing system. View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry

Ryan Raffaelli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He created and teaches the MBA course "Leadership: Execution and Action Planning" (LEAP) and serves... View Details

Keywords: publishing industry; advertising; consulting; information technology industry; grocery; nonprofit industry; retailing; consumer products; federal government

October 1996 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Chiquita Brands International (A)

By: Debora L. Spar and Terence Mulligan

When a new banana import policy is implemented in 1993 by the European Union, Chiquita Brands International, the world's largest banana distributor, watches its sales and net income plummet. The policy, Council Regulation (EEC 404/93), uses a new tariff and quota... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Trade; Government and Politics; Policy; Market Design; Fairness; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Latin America; European Union