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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,408)
- People (8)
- News (367)
- Research (636)
- Events (7)
- Multimedia (11)
- Faculty Publications (338)
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Financial Flexibility and Corporate Employment
By: Rebecca Lester, Ethan Rouen and Braden Williams
We study the role of financial flexibility on COVID-19 employment actions. Using daily data from March through May 2020 for 354 of the largest U.S. employers, we find that firms facing a negative demand shock were 28.8 percentage points more likely to reduce their... View Details
Keywords: Financial Flexibility; COVID-19; Pandemic; Employment; Health Pandemics; System Shocks; Finance
Lester, Rebecca, Ethan Rouen, and Braden Williams. "Financial Flexibility and Corporate Employment." Harvard Business School Series in Accounting and Control, No. 21-119, April 2021.
- 2021
- Working Paper
Being the Boss: Gig Workers' Value of Flexible Work
By: Laura Katsnelson and Felix Oberholzer-Gee
Workers who join the gig economy face a challenging trade-off. Gig work provides worktime flexibility and a sense of being one’s own boss, but gig workers forgo certain protections that employees enjoy. In this paper, we study the work patterns of a large sample of... View Details
Keywords: Gig Workers; Flexible Work Arrangements; Worker Welfare; Labor; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms
Katsnelson, Laura, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Being the Boss: Gig Workers' Value of Flexible Work." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-124, May 2021.
- April 2021
- Article
Work-From-Anywhere: The Productivity Effects of Geographical Flexibility
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Cirrus Foroughi and Barbara Larson
An emerging form of remote work allows employees to work-from-anywhere, so that the worker can choose to live in a preferred geographic location. While traditional work-from-home (WFH) programs offer the worker temporal flexibility, work-from-anywhere (WFA) programs... View Details
Keywords: Geographic Flexibility; Work-from-anywhere; Remote Work; Telecommuting; Geographic Mobility; USPTO; Employees; Geographic Location; Performance Productivity
Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Cirrus Foroughi, and Barbara Larson. "Work-From-Anywhere: The Productivity Effects of Geographical Flexibility." Strategic Management Journal 42, no. 4 (April 2021): 655–683.
- Research Summary
Flexibility in Manufacturing Systems
David M. Upton has examined the management of flexibility in manufacturing systems. Although flexibility has become an issue of critical competitive importance in a growing number of industries, it remains an ill-understood concept. The broad use of the term and its... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architectures: A Flexibility Analysis
By: Robert Lagerstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack and David Dreyfus
In this paper, we test a method for visualizing and measuring software portfolio architectures and use our measures to predict the costs of architectural change. Our data is drawn from a biopharmaceutical company, comprising 407 architectural components with 1,157... View Details
Keywords: Design Structure Matrices; Software Architecture; Flexibility; Software Application Portfolio; Complexity; Applications and Software; Forecasting and Prediction
Lagerstrom, Robert, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, and David Dreyfus. "Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architectures: A Flexibility Analysis." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 14-083, March 2014.
- October 2000 (Revised March 2004)
- Background Note
Variance Analysis and Flexible Budgeting
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Facilitates the teaching of cases on variance analysis and flexible budgeting. Uses algebra, diagrams, and numerical examples to illustrate the calculation of price, quantity, and mix variances for revenues and costs, and a flexible budget for analyzing indirect and... View Details
Kaplan, Robert S. "Variance Analysis and Flexible Budgeting." Harvard Business School Background Note 101-039, October 2000. (Revised March 2004.)
- March 1994 (Revised June 1999)
- Background Note
Real Options: Valuing Managerial Flexibility
Provides a basic understanding of real options in corporate finance. Traditional discounted cash flow techniques (NPV) do not deal well with managerial flexibility or future response to uncertainty. The value of this flexibility can be significant and is handled well... View Details
Edleson, Michael E. "Real Options: Valuing Managerial Flexibility." Harvard Business School Background Note 294-109, March 1994. (Revised June 1999.)
- 01 May 1997
- Conference Presentation
Product Development Flexibility
By: Alan David MacCormack and M. Iansiti
Keywords: Product Development
- February 1997 (Revised June 1999)
- Background Note
Committed and Flexible Resources
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Stresses the difference between costs committed in advance of knowing actual demand (committed costs) and cost incurred proportional to demand. Committed costs appear fixed since their supply is independent of the amount actually used. Flexible resources are supplied... View Details
Keywords: Cost
Kaplan, Robert S. "Committed and Flexible Resources." Harvard Business School Background Note 197-078, February 1997. (Revised June 1999.)
- 1999
- Chapter
Flexible Product Development
By: S. Thomke and Don Reinertsen
Keywords: Product Development
- June 2017
- Article
Is Operating Flexibility Harmful under Debt?
By: Nikolaos Trichakis, Dan A. Iancu and Gerry Tsoukalas
We study the inefficiencies stemming from a firm's operating flexibility under debt. We find that flexibility in replenishing or liquidating inventory, by providing risk-shifting incentives, could lead to borrowing costs that erase more than a third of the firm's... View Details
Keywords: Covenants; Risk-shifting; Inventory; Agency Costs; Debt Financing; Risk Management; Borrowing and Debt
Trichakis, Nikolaos, Dan A. Iancu, and Gerry Tsoukalas. "Is Operating Flexibility Harmful under Debt?" Management Science 63, no. 6 (June 2017): 1730–1761.
- 2016
- Chapter
How Moral Flexibility Constrains Our Moral Compass
By: F. Gino
Cheating, fraud, deception, uncooperative actions, and many other forms of unethical behavior are among the greatest personal and societal challenges of our time. While the media commonly focuses on the most sensational scams (e.g., Enron, Bernard Madoff), less... View Details
Gino, F. "How Moral Flexibility Constrains Our Moral Compass." In Cheating, Corruption, and Concealment: The Roots of Dishonesty, edited by Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Paul A.M. van Lange. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
- May 2017
- Article
Stable and Strategy-Proof Matching with Flexible Allotments
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Alexander Westkamp
We introduce a framework of matching with flexible allotments that can be used to model firms with cross-division hiring restrictions. Our framework also allows us to nest some prior models of matching with distributional constraints. Building upon our recent work on... View Details
Hatfield, John William, Scott Duke Kominers, and Alexander Westkamp. "Stable and Strategy-Proof Matching with Flexible Allotments." American Economic Review 107, no. 5 (May 2017): 214–219.
- 1 Mar 2013 - 2 Mar 2013
- Conference Presentation
The Value of Flexibility in Baseball Roster Construction
By: Timothy Chan and Douglas S. Fearing
Drawing inspiration from the theory of production flexibility in manufacturing networks, we provide the first optimization-based analysis of the value of positional flexibility (the ability of a player to play multiple positions) for a major league baseball team in the... View Details
Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Design; Production; Resource Allocation; Groups and Teams; Adaptation; Sports
- August 1, 2015
- Article
New Product Development Flexibility in a Competitive Environment
By: Janne Kettunen, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Zeger Degraeve and Bert De Reyck
Managerial flexibility can have a significant impact on the value of new product development projects. We investigate how the market environment in which a firm operates influences the value and use of development flexibility. We characterize the market environment... View Details
Keywords: Product Development; Projects; Management Style; Situation or Environment; Innovation and Invention; Competition
Kettunen, Janne, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Zeger Degraeve, and Bert De Reyck. "New Product Development Flexibility in a Competitive Environment." European Journal of Operational Research 244, no. 3 (August 1, 2015): 892–904.
- March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
ING Türkiye: Flexible Work in a Competitive Banking Environment
By: Ashley Whillans and Nico Schaefer
This case explores ING Türkiye’s journey toward workplace flexibility within the traditionally conservative Turkish banking sector. Beginning with early remote work experiments in 2015 and culminating in the FlexING model, by 2024 ING Türkiye had positioned itself as a... View Details
- March 1994 (Revised April 1994)
- Case
Eli Lilly and Co.: The Flexible Facility Decision--1993
By: Gary P. Pisano
In 1993, Eli Lilly is preparing to build manufacturing capacity for three new pharmaceutical products that it expects to launch in 1996. Management wrestles with a decision of whether to add specialized manufacturing capacity or flexible capacity. This question touches... View Details
Keywords: Debates; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Investment; Goals and Objectives; Product Launch; Production; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry
Pisano, Gary P. "Eli Lilly and Co.: The Flexible Facility Decision--1993." Harvard Business School Case 694-074, March 1994. (Revised April 1994.)
- July 2021
- Article
Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization
By: John Beshears, Hae Nim Lee, Katherine L. Milkman, Robert Mislavsky and Jessica Wisdom
Habits involve regular, cue-triggered routines. In a field experiment, we tested whether incentivizing exercise routines—paying participants each time they visit the gym within a planned, daily two-hour window—leads to more persistent exercise than offering flexible... View Details
Keywords: Behavior And Behavioral Decision Making; Healthcare; Exercise; Habit; Routine; Health; Behavior; Decision Making
Beshears, John, Hae Nim Lee, Katherine L. Milkman, Robert Mislavsky, and Jessica Wisdom. "Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization." Management Science 67, no. 7 (July 2021): 4139–4171.