Publications

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May–June 2021
Article

Eliminate Strategic Overload

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with greater... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Initiatives; Value-based Strategy; Organizational Effectiveness; Strategy; Value Creation

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March 1994
Case

Materials Technology Corp.

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Materials Technology Corp. (MTC) is an MIT-based start-up company that identified an initial product market for its advanced materials-processing technology using conventional market research techniques. While pursuing that market--advanced microelectronic... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Technology; Markets; Product Development; Innovation and Management; Electronics Industry; Computer Industry; United States

October 2014 (Revised April 2023)
Case

Gilead: Hepatitis C Access Strategy (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Vikram Rangan and David E. Bloom

Gilead had come up with an innovative drug for Hepatitis C, which affected 180 million people worldwide. The drug was priced at $1,000 a pill for the US market. Gilead had to decide how to price and market the pill in developing countries that bore the brunt of the... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Pharmaceuticals; Pricing; Access To Care; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Strategy; Ethics; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

April 2019
Article

Rituals and Nuptials: The Emotional and Relational Consequences of Relationship Rituals

By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Ovul Sezer and Michael I. Norton

Four studies reveal the benefits of relationship rituals: couples with relationship rituals report more positive emotions and greater relationship satisfaction and commitment than those without them. We show that rituals are crucial for understanding consumption... View Details

Keywords: Rituals; Relationship Satisfaction; Relationships; Satisfaction; Spending; Behavior; Perception; Emotions

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02 Jun 2013
News

Signing at the Top: The Key to Preventing Tax Fraud?

15 Feb 2018
News

Black Business Leaders Series: John Rogers and the Importance of Hiring Minority-Owned Services Firms

03 Jun 2021
News

CEOs Are the Problem

04 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?

temptation on work performance. The idea for the study came from a conversation that Piovesan and his research partner Alessandro Bucciol of the University of Verona had with Daniel Houser, head of George Mason's Interdisciplinary Center... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

November 2005 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Two Tough Calls (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

A young female manager must decide whether to terminate two poorly performing managers who work for her. Shows the practical and ethical issues involved in firing decisions. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Resignation and Termination; Management; Performance

20 Aug 2014
Research & Ideas

Why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a Social Media Blockbuster

increasingly by individuals. People who use Facebook and Twitter are for all practical purposes running little media houses, and face the problem of their much larger brethren, where will the next story come from? Originality is too... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton

17 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Rating Fund Managers by the Company They Keep

Many tools for rating the performance of mutual funds and their managers rely heavily on past performance. But what about the future? Now comes a system devised by Randolph B. Cohen and Joshua D. Coval of... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

Article

Music's Last Best Hope Lies in Live-Streaming

By: Scott Duke Kominers

With big crowds and concerts off limits, there is almost no other way for performers to make money. View Details

Keywords: Music Entertainment; Online Technology

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January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

'GEnron'? Markopolos versus General Electric (A)

By: Jonas Heese and David Lane

In August 2019, Harry Markopolos—the forensic accountant known for uncovering Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—alleged that General Electric had committed accounting fraud totaling $38 billion, coining the term “GEnron” for perceived similarities with the 2001 accounting... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Communication; Energy; Financial Condition; Insurance; Performance; Planning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Value; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry; Energy Industry

March 2011
Article

What Do Dividends Tell Us About Earnings Quality

By: Douglas Skinner and Eugene F. Soltes

Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes in the distribution of earnings (cross-sectional variation has increased, with increasing left skewness) as well as in corporate payout policy, with many fewer firms paying dividends and the emergence of stock... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Business Earnings; Change; Policy; Stocks; Investment Return; Performance Consistency; Quality

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Here is an in-depth guide to the most powerful available benchmarking technique for improving service organization performance — Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book outlines DEA as a benchmarking technique, identifies high cost service units, isolates... View Details

January 2005 (Revised March 2008)
Exercise

New Service Design Exercise

By: Frances X. Frei

Used in the second module of a course on Managing Service Operations, which addresses the design of sustainable service models (606-031). Provides an opportunity for students to design a new service offering, paying careful attention to the link between strategic... View Details

Keywords: Design; Management; Service Operations; Strategy