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July 2020
Supplement

Sesame Workshop (B): Celebrating 50 Years of Helping Kids Grow Smarter, Stronger, and Kinder

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

In 2019, Sesame Workshop celebrated its 50th anniversary while on a winning streak of social impact, innovation, and peak media and financial results. Over the past four years, CEO Jeff Dunn and his turnaround team exhibited values-driven leadership, instituted... View Details

Keywords: Social Impact; Children; Media; Television Entertainment; Education; Innovation and Invention; Change Management; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Education Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

April 2019 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Western Governors University: 10x Vision

By: William R. Kerr and Susie L. Ma

Western Governors University (WGU) was a nonprofit institution of higher education whose online learning model served more than 100,000 students in 2019 and was scaling rapidly. President Scott Pulsipher wanted to expand WGU’s reach to millions more with a plan called... View Details

Keywords: Online Education; Enrollment; Scaling; Higher Education; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Education Industry; United States

January 2017 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Sesame Workshop (A): Bringing Big Bird Back to Health

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Information Technology; Education; Media; Strategy; Education Industry

2008
Working Paper

Learning Processes in Environmental Policy Making and Implementation

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

This paper explores how "learning" occurs in the context of environmental policy formulation and implementation. Rather than viewing policy learning as a rational and technocratic process, the emphasis here is on the political and institutional contexts within which... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Business and Government Relations; Natural Environment; Power and Influence; South Africa; Brazil

September 2003 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Performance Pay for MGOA Physicians (A)

Examines the transition of an orthopedic surgical group at a premier teaching and research hospital from a system in which the surgeons are compensated with flat salaries to a system where they are compensated based on profitability. Allows for an examination of... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Motivation and Incentives; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Compensation and Benefits; Health Industry

2008
Chapter

Learning in Environmental Policymaking and Implementation

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

This paper explores how "learning" occurs in the context of environmental policy formulation and implementation. Rather than viewing policy learning as a rational and technocratic process, the emphasis here is on the political and institutional contexts within which... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Accountability; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Natural Environment; Power and Influence; South Africa; Brazil

2016
Working Paper

The Climate Custodians

By: Robert G. Eccles and Tim Youmans

Can custody banks become key players in climate change? Custody banks joining the battle against climate change will signal a significant shift in governance ideology for this highly regulated industry so critical to the global financial system. While global custody... View Details

Keywords: Pollutants; Climate Change; Capital Markets; Investment Banking; Institutional Investing; Policy

SSRN

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Web

Entrepreneurial Management - Faculty & Research

bargaining units. Taken together, our findings highlight the potential for “inequality traps,” where rising inequality erodes the very institutions designed to counteract it. About the Unit The Entrepreneurial Management Unit strives to... View Details

Web

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets - Faculty & Research

Insider’s Perspective on How to Reduce Fraud in the Social Sciences By: Max Bazerman I will describe how a fraudulent paper developed and offer insights into the institutional changes that are needed. I was a co-author on a paper... View Details

January 2022 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Introducing EVA at ISS: A Better Way to Evaluate CEO Performance and Compensation?

By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and James Weber

In early 2019, Anthony Campagna, the global director of fundamental research at ISS EVA, a unit of the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), was preparing to release ISS's analyses of public company performance and CEO compensation ahead of Say... View Details

Keywords: Jobs and Positions; Compensation and Benefits; Performance; Performance Productivity; Measurement and Metrics; Analytics and Data Science; Value; Business or Company Management; Performance Evaluation; Business and Shareholder Relations

March 2021
Article

The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Satisfaction; Profitability; Service Operations; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Performance

06 Feb 2014
HBS Seminar

Karthik Ramanna, Harvard Business School

22 Jul 2020
Blog Post

Why We Started the HBS Black Investment Club

institutional racism to become so entrenched in American life. Although the past few months have been difficult on myself and other members of the Black community, I am cautiously optimistic that the BLM movement can create lasting and... View Details

October 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

The Bronx Community Foundation

By: Brian Trelstad and Aldo Sesia

Derrick and Desmon Lewis were both successful professionals in the consulting and banking industries. They were born and raised in The Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough. The Lewis brothers had always wanted to give back to the community. In 2016 they launched a... View Details

Keywords: Community Foundations; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Business Model; Social Issues; New York (city, NY); United States

2014
Article

Corporate Governance and the Financial Crisis in Italy

By: Dante Roscini

The financial crisis hit Italy harder than many other Eurozone countries. In part this was due to the fact that the crisis came upon a system that was weakened by years of sub-par economic growth. One of the several endogenous factors that explain the stagnation of the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Corporate Governance; Italy; European Union

2015
Working Paper

The U.S. Experiment with Fair Trade Laws: State Police Powers, Federal Antitrust, and the Politics of 'Fairness,' 1890-1938

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

Prior to the Great Depression and President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs, considerable pressure for antitrust revision came from trade associations of independent proprietors. A perhaps unlikely leader, Edna Gleason, organized California's retail pharmacists... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Fairness; Laws and Statutes; Supply and Industry; Business and Government Relations

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2004
Working Paper

Thinking About Technology: Applying a Cognitive Lens to Technical Change

We apply a cognitive lens to understanding technology trajectories across the life cycle by developing a coevolutionary model of technological frames and technology. Applying that model to each stage of the technology life cycle, we identify conditions under which a... View Details

Keywords: Design; Fluctuation; Technology; Perception