Publications

February 2003
Case

Dubai Ports Authority (A)

The Dubai Ports Authority (DPA) wishes to digitize many of the documents it shares with its external partners, including shipping lines and agents, merchants, and the country's customs authority. DPA also wishes to automate the many document transmissions related to... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Information Technology; Cooperation; Globalized Markets and Industries; Shipping Industry; Dubai

Educators

Research Summary

Delegation of Authority in Oligopoly

This paper studies the consequences of product-market competition on firms' decisions to delegate more or fewer decision-making responsibilities to managers. By simultaneously addressing the choice of both competitive actions and organizational design, the paper... View Details

Jul 2003 - 2003
Conference Presentation

The Politics of Technological Change: How Firms Act to Influence the Decisions of Public Authorities Regarding Technological Change

By: Julie Battilana

Keywords: Technology; Change; Decision Making

2016
Other Teaching and Training Material

Organizational Behavior Reading: Decision Making

By: Francesca Gino, Max Bazerman and Katherine Shonk

This Reading argues that decision making is systematically flawed and introduces methods to improve decision-making effectiveness. The Essential Reading section covers the rational decision-making model and three important ideas that challenge it: Herbert Simon's... View Details

Keywords: Game Theory; Decision Making

2016
Working Paper

Controlling Versus Enabling

By: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright

Revenue sharing between principals and agents is commonly used to balance double-sided moral hazard. We provide a theory of how, when such revenue-sharing is optimal, a principal allocates control rights over decisions that either party could make. We show that the... View Details

Keywords: Control Rights; Decision Authority; Employment; Independent Contractors; Organizational Theory; Digital Platforms; Governance Controls; Ethics; Vertical Integration

SSRN

January 2003
Case

Exchange Rate Policy at the Monetary Authority of Singapore

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is responsible for the country's monetary policy, and its decisions are intended to support the country's overall strategy for sustainable economic growth with price stability. MAS has been very successful in managing exchange... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Policy; Money; Singapore

Educators

2021
Working Paper

CRM and AI in Time of Crisis

By: Michelle Y. Lu and Navid Mojir

A crisis can affect the incentives of various players within a firm’s multi-layered sales and marketing organization (e.g., headquarters and branches of a bank). Such shifts can result in sales decisions against the firm’s best interests. Motivated by the backlash to... View Details

Keywords: CRM; Artificial Intelligence; AI; B2B Marketing; Decision Authority; Crisis Marketing; Intra-organizational Conflict; COVID-19 Pandemic; Customer Relationship Management; Technological Innovation; Decision Making; Strategy; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; AI and Machine Learning

SSRN

2014
Book

Managerial Accounting: Making Decisions and Motivating Performance

By: Srikant M. Datar and Madhav Rajan

Managerial Accounting: Making Decisions and Motivating Performance enables future managers and business owners to attain the core skills they need to become integral members of their company’s decision-making teams. This new program from established authors... View Details

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August 2010 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Paul Bremer at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

By: Robert Steven Kaplan and Nicholas Henri Taranto

Since becoming the President's envoy responsible for post-war Iraq, Paul Bremer endured many sleepless nights, struggling with the decision of how to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Despite daily assassination attempts, tribal warfare, growing violence, and... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; International Relations; National Security; Leadership; Crisis Management; Iraq; District of Columbia

Educators

08 Jul 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Delegation in Multi-Establishment Firms: Adaptation vs. Coordination in I.T. Purchasing Authority

Keywords: by Kristina McElheran

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

How a company decides who is authorized to make what types of decisions can have a profound effect on its business, both in terms of everyday effectiveness and the bottom line. Consider the experience of one... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Is Government Just Stupid? How Bad Decisions Are Made

In "You Can't Enlarge the Pie," the authors argue that barriers to effective government decision making result in poor decisions about critical issues like the... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman, Jonathan Baron & Katherine Shonk

Article

How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

The toughest calls managers have to make come in situations when they have worked hard to gather the facts and have done the best analysis they can, but they still don’t know what to do. Then judgment—a fusion of thinking, feelings, experience, imagination, and... View Details

Keywords: Management; Judgments

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Register to Read

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

readily be reclaimed by investors in the firm who lost money." In a new research paper, coauthored with World Bank economists Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper, Cole explores how various performance incentives affect lending decisions... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

Summer 2014
Article

Delegation in Multi‐Establishment Firms: Adaptation vs. Coordination in I.T. Purchasing Authority

By: Kristina Steffenson McElheran

This paper conducts one of the first large-scale, establishment-level empirical studies of delegation within firms. Recent contributions to a rapidly growing theory literature have focused on the tradeoff between adaptation and coordination in determining... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Adaptation

Find at Harvard

28 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)

challenge of serving customers with different preferences and behaviors when that model is stretched across multiple markets." As a starting point in their research, the authors focused on the organizational View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

What determines whether decisions happen on the bottom, middle, or top rung of the corporate ladder? New research offers a surprising conclusion: The answer often lies in the technology that a company uses. Information-based systems, such... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

June 2011
Teaching Note

Paul Bremer at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (TN)

By: Robert Steven Kaplan

Teaching Note for 411010. View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Power and Influence; Civil Society or Community; War; Decisions; Iraq; District of Columbia

2009
Chapter

Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making

By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow

Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Strategy; Balance and Stability