Publications

September 1999 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Charles Schwab Corporation (A)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Nicole Tempest

A look at the industrial restructuring in the brokerage industry made possible by e-commerce. Focuses the student's attention on the decision alternatives facing Charles Schwab, one of the industry leaders in January 1998. In a word, the challenge is "Do they slash... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Internet and the Web; Price; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry

15 Mar 2024
News

Let's Talk: Why It's Time to Stop Avoiding Taboo Topics at Work

2023
Working Paper

Leadership and the Value of Persistence

By: James J. Anton, Alan Jaske and Dennis Yao

Consider a leader’s decision whether to persist with an unsuccessful R&D project or to terminate the project in favor of a new project with an uncertain value. How does that decision affect the effort exerted by the manager assigned to the project? To study this... View Details

Keywords: Persistence; Project Evaluation; R＆D Project Management; Projects; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership

21 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Are We Thinking Too Little, or Too Much?

you've done something the same way for 10 years, it might be time to reconsider.” "Academics traditionally have taken two different approaches to decision-making," says Norton, who teaches in the Marketing Unit. "One view is that people often View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

20 Jan 2016
Cold Call Podcast

The Power of Presence at the Podium

April 2019 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)

By: Ryan Raffaelli, David G. Fubini and Aldo Sesia

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Innovation Leadership; History; Technological Innovation; Investment; Decision Making

May 1980
Case

Kendall-Vetmat

Discusses the role of market research in a product manager's decision process. Traces the development of market research information for the introduction of a new product, and presents a manager's dilemma of receiving market data that are inconsistent with expectations... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Product Launch; Product Development

January 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Background Note

Strengths Become Weaknesses: Cognitive Biases in Founder Decision-Making

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Kyle Anderson

This note combines vignettes and scholarly research to outline the cognitive biases and decision-making strategies that influence key decisions in the founding process. It is argued that the same biases which provide early benefits can later prove to be a weakness for... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking

September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy

By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the... View Details

2015
Article

Approach, Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work

By: C. Moore and F. Gino

Many of the scandalous organizational practices that have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Ethics; Decision Making

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30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14302 The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality Author:Zeynep Ton Abstract Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the costs of increasing labor are... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Jun 2003
What Do You Think?

What Can Aspiring Leaders Be Taught?

(and law schools, medical schools, etc.) should attempt to teach students ways to reconcile their actions when ethics seemingly compete with profit or another targeted outcome." As Ken Coleman pointed out, "business students need to understand that View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

March 2013
Article

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This article draws on historical material to examine the co-evolution of economic science and business education over the course of the twentieth century, showing that fields evolve not only through internal struggles but also through struggles taking place in adjacent... View Details

Keywords: Professions; Disciplines; Neo-Liberalism; Education; Economics; Finance; Society; United States

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The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by denying decision-makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was... View Details

October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

The 2001 Crisis in Argentina: An IMF-Sponsored Default? (A)

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

At the end of 2001, Argentina's economy and society both appeared on the verge of collapse. Furious about controls imposed on the convertibility of their bank deposits into cash (the "corralito") and huge proposed government spending cuts amidst high unemployment and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Banks and Banking; Problems and Challenges; Decision Choices and Conditions; Currency Exchange Rate; Economy; Government Administration; Crime and Corruption; Argentina

27 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

New Cluster Mapping Project Helps Companies Locate Facilities

influenced not just by the decisions it makes and the assets inside the company, but also by the surrounding business environment in the locations at which the company operates. The business environment... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Profile

Kayode Ogunro

employer. How has HBS prepared you for your new job? My job will require a substantial amount of travel to Europe and Africa and more hands on management of deals and projects than I would face with a typical investment firm. My HBS experience has definitely helped me... View Details

Keywords: Investment Management / Hedge Fund; Venture Capital / Private Equity; Financial Services; Energy / Extractive Minerals; Manufacturing

March 2008 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals: Living Healthier, Longer

Describes a set of key strategic decisions facing the scientific founder and CEO of a promising, early stage bio-pharmaceuticals company. Should the company establish a proposed alliance with a pharmaceutical firm? Should it create a nutraceuticals business in parallel... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Pharmaceutical Industry