General Management

- September–October 2022
- Article
Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to help brands determine whether the benefits exceed those costs. Companies can evaluate themselves on such topics as ease of shipping their products, degree of customization needed, distribution issues, and counterfeiting concerns. Companies that choose to sell on the platform will need to make smart decisions about assortment offerings, page design, and fulfillment options so that they can take advantage of Amazon’s scale while protecting the long-term value of their brands.
- September–October 2022
- Article
Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to help brands determine whether the benefits exceed those costs. Companies can evaluate...
- September 29, 2022
- Article
How to Build a Life: Technology Can Make Your Relationships Shallower

By: Arthur C. Brooks
- September 29, 2022
- Article
How to Build a Life: Technology Can Make Your Relationships Shallower

By: Arthur C. Brooks
- September 2022
- Case
HPP: Tapping the Netherlands’ Potential

By: Brian Trelstad and Idelès Kaandorp

Stichting Het Potentieel Pakken (HPP) was launched to solve a systemic probkem in the Dutch Labor Market: gender inequity that was leading to a large number of women to work part-time in fields that were in desperately short supply of labor, like health care, child care and education. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dutch Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark announced that it would provide a large grant to HPP, a non-profit that aimed to help organizations—like hospitals—tap into the full potential of the Dutch labor market by helping them better manage their part-time workforce. HPP's President and Founder Wieteken Graven wondered how HPP could grow from an annual budget of 450,000 to more than four times that within months. Could her team scale this quickly and what would happen when the government funding ended?
- September 2022
- Case
HPP: Tapping the Netherlands’ Potential

By: Brian Trelstad and Idelès Kaandorp

Stichting Het Potentieel Pakken (HPP) was launched to solve a systemic probkem in the Dutch Labor Market: gender inequity that was leading to a large number of women to work part-time in fields that were in desperately short supply of labor, like health care, child care and education. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dutch Medical Care...

About the Unit

The General Management Unit is concerned with the leadership and management of the enterprise as a whole. This concern encompasses:

the personal values and qualities of effective general managers and enterprise leaders;
the philosophies, values, and strategies that inform successful enterprises; and
the relation of enterprise to the broader community and other external constituencies.

The Unit's work is conceived and carried out principally in four interest groups, each of which has its own leadership, research agenda, and teaching programs:

Management Policy and Process
Management Information Systems
Society and Enterprise
Leadership, Values, and Corporate Responsibility

Recent Publications

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

September–October 2022 |
Article |
Harvard Business Review

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to help brands determine whether the benefits exceed those costs. Companies can evaluate themselves on such topics as ease of shipping their products, degree of customization needed, distribution issues, and counterfeiting concerns. Companies that choose to sell on the platform will need to make smart decisions about assortment offerings, page design, and fulfillment options so that they can take advantage of Amazon’s scale while protecting the long-term value of their brands.

Citation

Find at Harvard

How to Build a Life: Technology Can Make Your Relationships Shallower

By: Arthur C. Brooks

September 29, 2022 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

Read Now

How to Build a Life: Don’t Objectify Yourself

By: Arthur C. Brooks

September 22, 2022 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

HPP: Tapping the Netherlands’ Potential

By: Brian Trelstad and Idelès Kaandorp

September 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Stichting Het Potentieel Pakken (HPP) was launched to solve a systemic probkem in the Dutch Labor Market: gender inequity that was leading to a large number of women to work part-time in fields that were in desperately short supply of labor, like health care, child care and education. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dutch Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark announced that it would provide a large grant to HPP, a non-profit that aimed to help organizations—like hospitals—tap into the full potential of the Dutch labor market by helping them better manage their part-time workforce. HPP's President and Founder Wieteken Graven wondered how HPP could grow from an annual budget of 450,000 to more than four times that within months. Could her team scale this quickly and what would happen when the government funding ended?

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Opportunities; Gender; Income; Employment; Health Care and Treatment; Human Capital; Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Health Industry; Education Industry; Consulting Industry; Europe; Netherlands

Citation

Educators

How to Build a Life: 11 Ancient Solutions for Modern Malaise

By: Arthur C. Brooks

September 15, 2022 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

How to Build a Life: What’s Missing from Empathy

By: Arthur C. Brooks

September 8, 2022 |
Article |
The Atlantic

Citation

BancoSol: Financial Inclusion in the Perfect Storm

By: Michael Chu and Carla Larangeira

September 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In the pandemic, financial inclusion icon BancoSol faces a government-mandated year-long deferral of all loan payments, followed by the sudden Covid death of its CEO. In a Bolivia mired in political turmoil following a failed presidential election, with clients not obligated to pay either interest or principal from March to the end of 2020, the bank faces a severe cash deficit. This is exacerbated by the regulatory determination that, as the deferrals are mandated, loans must be deemed current and performing and resulting profits continue subject to income taxes that must be paid. BancoSol management must decide how to respond to this crisis. When the mandated deferrals come to an end, the bank regulators issue instructions as to how the restructuring must take place. As the total deferred amounts add up to 85% of its loan portfolio, this is a critical matter for BancoSol. Prior to the regulatory instructions, management had painstakingly designed its own restructuring program. Convinced that it is the optimal way to proceed, management strongly recommends its implementation regardless of contradicting the regulatory instructions. The deteriorating financial condition of the bank adds urgency to the decision. In the midst of these issues, in February 2021, Covid suddenly claims the life of the bank’s longtime CEO, Kurt Koenigsfest, the architect of the modern BancoSol. With the bank’s very existence at stake, Esteban Altschul, the chair of the board of directors, must come to grips with how the restructuring of the deferred loans will take place and how the various management gaps exposed by Koenigsfest’s death will be filled. At the same time, convinced that the future leadership of BancoSol is linked to its adaptation to the digital age, Altschul must assess the efforts of the bank to-date in this area and how it should proceed in the future.

Keywords: Decision Making; Crisis Management; Management Succession; Business Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; Latin America; Bolivia

Citation

Educators

Giving a Buck or Making a Buck? Donations by Pharmaceutical Manufacturers to Independent Patient Assistance Charities

By: Leemore Dafny, Christopher Ody and Teresa Rokos

September 2022 |
Article |
Health Affairs

The federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits biopharmaceutical manufacturers from directly covering Medicare enrollees’ out-of-pocket spending for the drugs they manufacture, but manufacturers may donate to independent patient assistance charities and earmark donations for a condition treated by their drugs. To assess whether this law and its associated regulations prevent manufacturers from profiting from their donations, we analyzed drug spending of more than three million Medicare Advantage enrollees in 2010 and 2017, together with data on conditions and drugs covered by these charities. We found that donations by the leading manufacturer of drugs for each condition were often likely to be profitable, even if relatively few patients were induced to use the manufacturer’s drugs as a result. This was particularly true among the ten costliest conditions, where the leading manufacturer accounted for 67 percent of sales in 2010 and 89 percent in 2017, on average, indicating that manufacturers could effectively assist in the purchase of their own medications by contributing to condition-specific charities. We conclude that the current regulations or enforcement permit donations that violate the spirit of Medicare’s Anti-Kickback Statute.

Keywords: Cost Sharing; Prescription Drugs; Drug Spending; Medicare; Dual Eligibility; Cost; Health Care and Treatment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Pharmaceutical Industry

Citation

Find at Harvard

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