Publications

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April 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Fermenting Accounting Problems at Vermont Kombucha Corp.

By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann

Founded in 2005, Vermont Kombucha Corp. (V-Ko) was an early mover in the fledgling U.S. market for kombucha, a drink brewed for its health benefits. Early on, the company captured more than 90% of market share. Under the leadership of its founder and CEO, Joe Williams,... View Details

Keywords: Going Public; Business Model; Financial Reporting; Ethics; Corporate Governance; Stock Shares; Food and Beverage Industry

Article

Active World Model Learning with Progress Curiosity

By: Kuno Kim, Megumi Sano, Julian De Freitas, Nick Haber and Daniel Yamins

World models are self-supervised predictive models of how the world evolves. Humans learn world models by curiously exploring their environment, in the process acquiring compact abstractions of high bandwidth sensory inputs, the ability to plan across long temporal... View Details

Keywords: World Models; Mathematical Methods

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Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Aiyesha Dey

Financial Reporting and Control
Throughout their careers, business leaders are required to measure and evaluate their organization's economic performance, improve resource allocation and strategy implementation within their organizations, and build accountability... View Details

March 2006
Book Review

Review of Capitalism, Social Privilege and Managerial Ideologies, by Ernesto R. Gantman. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.

By: Rakesh Khurana

Keywords: Economic Systems; Society; Management; Information

June 2005 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Amazon.com's European Distribution Strategy

By: Janice Hammond and Claire Chiron

Describes how Amazon's distribution system evolved from the company's inception. In 2003, Amazon Europe must decide how to reconfigure its distribution network in light of expected growth, products proliferation, and geographical expansion in Europe. Examines how... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Supply and Industry; Distribution; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Web Services Industry

11 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

When Parents Tell Kids to ‘Work Hard,’ Do They Send the Wrong Message?

who have less, you might assume they didn’t work hard enough—as opposed to recognizing the systems and institutions we know can stand in the way.” Whillans explored these questions in a trio of studies View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

Regina E. Herzlinger

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; insurance industry; medical devices; retailing; digital health

October 2018 (Revised July 2023)
Case

The Boston Beer Company (A): New CEO

By: Christina R. Wing and Marco Iansiti

In 1984, when the Boston Beer Company’s Samuel Adams Boston Lager was first sold, founder Jim Koch had helped ignite a craft beer movement by making small-batch premium beers in an era of industry consolidation. By 2018, Boston Beer was a publicly traded company that... View Details

Keywords: Beer/brewing Industry; Succession; Leadership; Change; Supply Chain; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Supply Chain Management; Management Succession; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Boston

23 Nov 2021
News

Job Hunting Nightmare: 1,000 Plus Job Applications and Still No Offers

April 1990 (Revised November 1992)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh (Abridged)

By: James E. Austin

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Developing Countries and Economies; Information Publishing; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Agreements and Arrangements; Product; Nonprofit Organizations; Pharmaceutical Industry; Bangladesh; Washington (state, US)

May 2013
Article

Hybrid Innovation in Meiji Japan

By: Tom Nicholas

Japan's hybrid innovation system during the Meiji era of technological modernization provides a useful laboratory for examining the effectiveness of complementary mechanisms to patents. Patents were introduced in 1885, and by 1911, 1.2 million mostly non-pecuniary... View Details

Keywords: Prizes; Technological Innovation; System; Patents; Knowledge; Value; Cost vs Benefits; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Performance Effectiveness; Japan

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12 Dec 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Bottlenecks, Modules and Dynamic Architectural Capabilities

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin

January 2005 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Gretta Enterprises

Describes Gretchen ("Gretta") Monahan's founding and management of Gretta Enterprises, which has grown to five outlets--salons, day spas, and fashion boutiques--and $10 million in annual revenue in 10 years. Monahan's role as a television host on TLC's A Makeover Story... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Fashion Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

2011
Article

Too Big to Live: Why We Must Stamp Out State Monopoly Capitalism

The problems of excessive economic concentration, so lucidly and incisively analysed here, are not limited to the financial services industry. For the problem is now widespread: while five firms control 80% of the banking industry, a similar or greater concentration is... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Monopoly

11 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Adding Time to Activity-Based Costing

managers substantial benefits that would be difficult to realize without the ERP IT infrastructure. Q: Must a company have an ERP system in place to use time-driven activity-based costing? A: Clearly, having... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

May 1995 (Revised April 1998)
Case

AT&T Paradyne

By: Robert S. Kaplan

A company making data communication devices has adopted a Total Quality philosophy for working with suppliers, employees, and customers. The finance group finds its existing cost system has become obsolete because of a shift from manual to automatic production... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Product; Corporate Accountability; Activity Based Costing and Management; System; Performance Efficiency; Financial Reporting; Operations; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry

September 1992 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.

On May 1, 1992, Doug Friesen, manager of assembly for Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, faces a problem with the seats installed in the plant's sole product--Camrys. A growing number of cars are sitting off-line with defective seats or are missing them entirely.... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Production; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Kentucky

July 2000 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Deaconess-Glover Hospital (A)

Chronicles the initial efforts to teach a health care organization to manage itself according to the principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Describes the decision and dilemmas that arose from the implementation experiment. Builds on Bowen and Spear's earlier... View Details

Keywords: Management; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Massachusetts

March 1998 (Revised July 1998)
Case

United Way Community Services

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Describes in detail the fund development and distribution system of United Way Community Services. A key question is how to measure the outcome/impact of the work done by the agencies that receive United Way funding. A follow-on question is how to reinvent the... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Management Systems; Measurement and Metrics; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Outcome or Result; Nonprofit Organizations