Publications

June 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Background Note

Process Improvement Template

Managers are often confronted with the challenge of improving critical business processes so that their efforts are not merely ad hoc. This note provides a template by which improvement efforts are converted from unstructured efforts to bona fide, hypothesis-testing... View Details

Keywords: Performance Improvement; Business Processes

December 2022
Article

Social Skills Improve Business Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial with Entrepreneurs in Togo

By: Stefan Dimitriadis and Rembrand Koning

Recent field experiments demonstrate that advice, mentorship, and feedback from randomly assigned peers improve entrepreneurial performance. These results raise a natural question: what is preventing entrepreneurs and managers from forming these peer connections... View Details

Keywords: Social Skills; Business Performance; Entrepreneurs; Peer Relationships; Field Experiment; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Relationships; Interpersonal Communication; Togo

27 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

How Following Best Business Practices Can Improve Health Care

Harvard Business School spends a significant amount of research funds each year on the health care industry, answering questions such as: How can the business of health care be made more efficient? What can... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

April 2008
Module Note

Improvement with Customer-Operators

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Customer Focus and Relationships; Framework; Employees; Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design

15 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Five Imperatives for Improving Health Care

conference and survey from Harvard's business and medical schools may prove particularly timely. Delivered by the Forum on Healthcare Innovation, which was formed last year with encouragement from the respective deans of the two... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

2013
Working Paper

Improving Store Liquidation

By: Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman

Store liquidation is the time-constrained divestment of retail outlets through an in-store sale of inventory. The retail industry depends extensively on store liquidation, not only as a means for investors to recover capital from failed ventures, but also to allow... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Financial Condition; Operations; Retail Industry

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05 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Reflecting on Work Improves Job Performance

Professor of Business Administration at HBS; Giada Di Stefano, an assistant professor at HEC Paris; and Bradley Staats, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 1999
Background Note

Improving from Inferior Performance

Introduces a module in the advanced course Strategy and Business Performance. View Details

February 2013
Article

Does Shareholder Proxy Access Improve Firm Value? Evidence from the Business Roundtable Challenge

By: Bo Becker, Guhan Subramanian and Daniel B. Bergstresser

We use the Business Roundtable's challenge to the SEC's 2010 proxy access rule as a natural experiment to measure the value of shareholder proxy access. We find that firms that would have been most vulnerable to proxy access, as measured by institutional ownership and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations

November 1998 (Revised July 1999)
Background Note

Business as Stakeholder in Public Education: A History of Business Efforts to Improve Public Schools in the United States

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Explores seven roles businesses and business leaders have played with respect to U.S. public education reform historically and today: "owners" helping set the agenda; "investors" donating funds; "customers" hiring graduates; "experts" contributing management know-how;... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Education; Performance Improvement; Business and Community Relations; United States

December 2005 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Pharmacy Service Improvement at CVS (A)

CVS's retail pharmacy operations are functioning poorly and dissatisfying customers. Many customers are defecting as a result. A pharmacy service improvement team has documented the current prescription fulfillment process, its exception rates, and the problems... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Retail Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

April 1984 (Revised November 1988)
Background Note

Statistical Quality Control for Process Improvement

Describes systematic methods for process debugging and improvement, based on statistical quality control. Examples are from manufacturing settings, but techniques are also useful for services and sales, and to quantity improvement as well as quality improvement. View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Business Processes

2021
Chapter

Taking Leadership to a New Place: Outside-the-Building Thinking to Improve the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

BOOK ABSTRACT: Twenty-nine leading scholars and executives provide a visionary look at the future of business, propelling past damaging industrial-age values to uncover the key ingredients of humanistic, ecologically sustainable, and intergenerational prosperity. View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Leadership; Innovation Leadership

November 2020
Supplement

Improving Access at VA (Update)

By: Ryan W. Buell

In November 2020, Chief Veterans Experience Officer, Lynda Davis, and Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer, Barbara C. Morton reflect on a busy four years leading the Veterans Experience Office at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The case provides an update... View Details

Keywords: Government; Service Management; Leading Change; Transformation; Service Operations; Management; Health Care and Treatment; Government Administration; Performance Improvement; Public Administration Industry; United States

May 2003
Module Note

Product Development Process Design and Improvement

By: Stefan H. Thomke

Describes the conceptual foundations and pedagogy for a module on the design and improvement of processes for the development of products and services. Can also be used as part of a more general course on Managing Technology and Innovation. Central to Managing Product... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Design; Performance Improvement; Innovation and Management; Information Technology; Customers; Information Management; Business Processes; Learning; Transformation; Service Operations

Article

Improving the Rhythm of Your Collaboration

By: Ethan S. Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer

In this article, we summarize our research on the value of intermittency for complex problem solving at work and give practical advice on how organizations can improve the rhythm of their people's collaboration. Executives have been counseled to be collaborative... View Details

Keywords: Problem Solving; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Internet and the Web; Leadership

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11 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Does Shareholder Proxy Access Improve Firm Value? Evidence from the Business Roundtable Challenge

Keywords: by Bo Becker, Daniel B. Bergstresser & Guhan Subramanian; Financial Services

January 2010 (Revised February 2010)
Case

IBM Retail Business Assessment at Dillard's, Inc.: Managing Staffing Levels to Improve Conversion

This case illustrates the challenges associated with matching staffing levels with variable workload in retail stores and highlights how decisions related to staffing and scheduling affect operational performance and the quality of labor at the stores. The case... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Employees; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Retail Industry

December 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Improving Melanoma Screening: MELA Sciences

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Kevin Schulman and Frédéric Dijols

MELA is a start-up medical device company looking to develop a novel technology to help physicians diagnose a deadly skin cancer, melanoma. The case reviews the FDA medical device development process, the development path pursued by MELA, and the regulatory and... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Industry; Health Care; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Health Industry; United States