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• Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2015 (Revised December 2018)

  The German Export Engine

  Gunnar Trumbull and Jonathan Schlefer

  In fall of 2018, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel had logged significant successes. Germany was the largest exporter in the world, had maintained low unemployment through the 2008 financial crisis, and was gradually reforming its welfare state to meet future pension liabilities. Yet it still faced considerable challenges. Within Europe, the Eurozone financial crisis continued to hold down economic growth, and the burden of leadership to find a solution seemed to fall on Merkel’s shoulders. The refugee inflows of 2015-2016 had been slowed, but they had ignited a rise in political support for the far right in Germany and other European countries. And Britain was in the middle of a negotiated exit from the European Union. Could Germany sustain its recent economic success? Was Germany’s success compatible with a stable and prosperous Europe?

  Keywords: Economy; Economic Growth; Success; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Germany;

  Citation:

  Trumbull, Gunnar, and Jonathan Schlefer. "The German Export Engine." Harvard Business School Case 715-045, April 2015. (Revised December 2018.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2018

  Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age

  Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes

  Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European networks, a failure in Swissgrid’s network could interrupt the supply of electricity in Switzerland and much of Europe. Meyer describes the periodic interactive risk workshops conducted at each business unit to identify, assess, and mitigate risks. Executive Risk Workshops of the CEO and the company’s leadership team discuss the business units’ risk profiles and risks that cut across the units, such as safety, weather, and regulatory changes. New and emerging risks are discussed at Extraordinary Risk Workshops. Meyer recently deployed an app on employees’ smartphones for them to easily report anomalies or concerns. Reports from the app are embedded in a new real-time crisis management platform used by several Swiss companies, federal authorities, and the Swiss Army. Despite a full array of risk management tools and processes, Meyer remains concerned about risks yet to be identified.

  Keywords: enterprise risk management; energy transmission; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Energy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Switzerland;

  Citation:

  Kaplan, Robert S., and Anette Mikes. "Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age." Harvard Business School Case 119-045, November 2018.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

  Reverse the Curse of the Top-5

  Robert S. Kaplan

  The past 40 years has seen a large increase in the number of articles submitted to journals ranked in the top-5 of their discipline. This increase is the rational response, by faculty, to the overweighting of publications in these journals by university promotions and tenure committees. The ranking factors for academic journals, however, arose for a completely different purpose, to guide the journal acquisition decisions by budget-constrained university librarians. Using journal impact factors to infer the quality of an faculty members’ publications incurs a high incidence of both Type 1 errors, when we conclude incorrectly that a paper published in a top-5 journal is a high-impact paper, and Type 2 errors, when we conclude that papers (and books) not published in top-5 journals have low impact. In addition, a third type of error gets introduced as faculty pursue the research they perceive is favored by editors of top-5 journals, at the potential expense of more innovative and relevant research, perceived to be unpublishable in a top-tier journal. Accounting scholarship, in particular, has underinvested in research about innovative practices or the emerging accounting issues faced by contemporary organizations (Kaplan, 2011), likely because such research is viewed as unpublishable in top-5 journals. This gap persists despite recent scholarship that has documented how important, fundamental ideas can emerge from “use-inspired” research (see Pasteur’s Quadrant (Stokes, 1997)). The paper concludes by suggesting reforms to overcome the dysfunctional fixation on publication in top-5 journals.

  Keywords: Information Publishing; Journals and Magazines; Power and Influence; Research;

  Citation:

  Kaplan, Robert S. "Reverse the Curse of the Top-5." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-052, October 2018.  View Details

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