Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,015)
- Faculty Publications (244)
- October 8, 2012
- Column
Henkel's Culture Shift
By: Robert Simons
This case descriibes a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details
- April 2012
- Article
Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry
By: Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman
The long-standing argument that focused operations outperform others stands in contrast to claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development... View Details
- February 2012
- Case
Henkel: Building a Winning Culture
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
The Impact of Modularity on Intellectual Property and Value Appropriation
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel
Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect intellectual property (IP). We... View Details
- September – October 2011
- Article
The Manufacturer's Incentive to Reduce Lead Times
By: Santiago Kraiselburd, Richard Pibernik and Ananth Raman
It is generally a well acknowledged fact that, ceteris paribus, reducing the lead times between downstream and upstream parties in a supply chain is desirable from an overall system perspective. However, an upstream party (e.g., a manufacturer) may have strong... View Details
- Article
Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
This paper surveys recent empirical studies on the economic impacts of immigration. The survey first examines the magnitude of immigration as an economic phenomenon in various host countries. The second part deals with the assimilation of immigrant workers into... View Details
- January – February 2011
- Article
Creating Shared Value
By: Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer
The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely thought to be prospering at the expense of their communities. Trust in business has fallen to new... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised December 2015)
- Supplement
Toyota Motor Corporation: 1990-2010
By: Roy D. Shapiro and Stephanie van Sice
This case follows Toyota's remarkable growth and geographic expansion from 1990 to 2010 and, in the recalls of 2009 and 2010, poses questions about the impact of that growth. Issues of increasing technological complexity also play a part. View Details
- September 2010
- Article
How Firms Respond to Being Rated
By: Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms... View Details
- 2010
- Mimeo
An Analysis of the Impact of 'Substantially Heightened' Capital Requirements on Large Financial Institutions
By: Anil Kashyap, Jeremy C. Stein and Samuel G. Hanson
We examine the impact of "substantially heightened" capital requirements on large financial institutions, and on their customers. Our analysis yields three main conclusions. First, the frictions associated with raising new external equity finance are likely to be... View Details
- May 2010
- Article
Bye Bye Bundles: The Unbundling of Music in Digital Channels
By: Anita Elberse
Fueled by digital distribution, unbundling is prevalent in many information industries. What is the effect of this unbundling on sales? And what bundle characteristics drive this effect? I empirically examine these questions in the context of the music industry, using... View Details
- Article
Open to Negotiation: Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination
By: Corinne Bendersky and Kathleen L. McGinn
Phenomenological assumptions-assumptions about the fundamental qualities of the phenomenon being studied and how it relates to the environment in which it occurs-affect the dissemination of knowledge from subfields to the broader field of study. Micro-process research... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised June 2010)
- Case
Whose Money Is It Anyway? (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Richard G. Hamermesh and Rachel Gordon
The Brigham and Women's Physician's Organization (BWPO) and its corporate parent disagree over who has jurisdiction over significant legacy funds. Are they controlled by the BWPO or do they belong to BWPO's corporate parent? The BWPO and its corporate parent must... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability: A New Framework
By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details
- December 2009
- Article
Hiding the Evidence of Valid Theories: How Coupled Search Processes Obscure Performance Differences Among Organizations
By: Nicolaj Siggelkow and Jan Rivkin
Theorists argue that an organization's high-level choices, such as its organizational design or the attributes of its top management team, should influence its performance, yet empirical researchers have struggled to detect such influence. The impact of high-level... View Details
- 2009
- Other Paper
Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Andrew F. Newman and Harald Fadinger
We examine how trade policy affects firms' organizational choices. We embed a model of firms' vertical integration decisions into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. In the model, integration decisions are driven by a trade-off... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
- Supplement
Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (B)
By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan
As Acumen Fund, a global venture philanthropy firm, moves forward with an investment portfolio exceeding $22 million, it runs into two critical measurement problems. First, how should it track the performance of each investment when its interest is not just the bottom... View Details
- September 2009 (Revised September 2010)
- Case
Genzyme Center (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Aldo Sesia
Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green... View Details
Keywords: Green Building; LEED Rating System; Economic And Environmental Performance; Program Evaluation And Assessment; Tradeoffs Between Process- And Performance Standards; Buildings and Facilities; Business Headquarters; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry
- 2009
- Working Paper
Systemic Risk and the Refinancing Ratchet Effect
By: Amir E. Khandani, Andrew W. Lo and Robert C. Merton
The confluence of three trends in the U.S. residential housing market—rising home prices, declining interest rates, and near-frictionless refinancing opportunities—led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Systemic Risk and the Refinancing Ratchet Effect
By: Amir E. Khandani, Andrew W. Lo and Robert C. Merton
The confluence of three trends in the U.S. residential housing market-rising home prices, declining interest rates, and near-frictionless refinancing opportunities-led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is... View Details