Publications

May 1994 (Revised October 1994)
Case

Motorola: Institutionalizing Corporate Initiatives

By: Shoshana Zuboff and Janis Lee Gogan

Motorola became a recognized quality leader in large part by becoming a leader in employee education and by encouraging "participative management." Through the Motorola Training and Education Center, later Motorola University, the company invested substantial resources... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Customer Satisfaction; Training; Human Resources; Leadership; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Corporate Strategy; Education Industry

March 24, 2015
Article

Starbucks' 'Race Together' Campaign and the Upside of CEO Activism

By: Aaron Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz asked his baristas to engage customers in a discussion about race in America, it was a clear case of the growing trend of "CEO activism." Despite the criticism of that particular initiative, CEO activism—from Shultz to Chick-Fil-A's... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Communication Strategy; Race

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To be competitive, companies must grow innovative new businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship, however, isn't easy. New ventures face innumerable barriers and seldom mesh smoothly with well-established systems, processes, and cultures. Nonetheless, success requires a... View Details

February 2011
Case

Chegg: Textbook Rental Takes Flight

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, William A. Sahlman and Evan W. Richardson

In late 2010, Silicon Valley-based Chegg, the leading online college textbook rental company, is scaling rapidly. The case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Books; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Service Operations; Renting or Rental; Online Technology; Education Industry; Service Industry; California

Michael I. Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and English from Williams College and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University. Prior to joining HBS, Professor... View Details

Keywords: advertising; consumer products; e-commerce industry; marketing industry; nonprofit industry

August 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Kemps LLC: Introducing Time-Driven ABC

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Kemps is making a strategy shift: from being focused on fulfilling customer requests to becoming the best cost dairy producer in the industry. Its existing manufacturing cost system, however, fails to capture the costs associated with handling special flavors, small... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Cost Accounting; Managerial Roles; Cost Management; Earnings Management; Business Strategy; Time Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Decisions; Food and Beverage Industry

April 2013
Article

Who Is Governing Whom? Executives, Governance, and the Structure of Generosity in Large U.S. Firms

By: Christopher Marquis and Matthew Lee

We examine how organizational structure influences strategies over which corporate leaders have significant discretion. Corporate philanthropy is our setting to study how a differentiated structural element—the corporate foundation—constrains the influence of... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Leadership; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; United States

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05 Jul 2023
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How Are Middle Managers Falling Down Most Often on Employee Inclusion?

diversity aren’t occupying jobs in human resources. Instead, they are department managers and team leaders on the front line who are responsible for inclusion. But how much attention is being given to the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

September 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A)

By: Boris Groysberg, Christopher Marquis and Ayesha Kanji

Tracks of the first 6 months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Projects; Situation or Environment; Strategy

August 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Chateau Winery (A): Unsupervised Learning

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

This case follows Bill Booth, marketing manager of a regional wine distributor, as he applies unsupervised learning on data about his customers’ purchases to better understand their preferences. Specifically, he uses the K-means clustering technique to identify groups... View Details

Keywords: Clustering; Data Science; Analytics and Data Science; Customers; Marketing; Analysis

September 1991 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Dore-Dore

By: Janice H. Hammond and Audris Wong

Dore-Dore, a French manufacturer of socks and children's knitwear, has just converted a portion of its knitwear operations to a flexible modular system to allow faster response and greater flexibility. The case provides an opportunity to assess the changes in knitwear... View Details

Keywords: Order Taking and Fulfillment; Logistics; Production; Performance Productivity; Apparel and Accessories Industry; France

19 Dec 2018
News

Beware the Big Tech Backlash

10 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Perspectives on Anti-Racism in the HKS Curriculum

In fall 2020, the Harvard Kennedy School incorporated a two-week module on Race and Racism in the Making of the United States as a Global Super power into the MPP core curriculum. The school created this module in response View Details

07 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Profits of Power: Commercial Realpolitik in Eurasia

Keywords: by Rawi E. Abdelal; Energy; Utilities

January 1992
Case

Johnson & Johnson: Hospital Services

The main issue has to do with the lack of fit or incompatibility between the early environmental requirements for strategy and the cultural constraints on the organization. Describes the internal resistance to the proposed changes and top management's efforts to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Environmental Sustainability; Conflict and Resolution

21 May 2020
News

Primary Care Is Hurting: Why Aren’t Private Insurers Pitching In?

Andy Zelleke

Andy Zelleke is the MBA Class of 1962 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. A member of the General Management unit, he is the Faculty Chair of HBS’ Middle East & North Africa Research Center.

Since Spring 2021, Dr. Zelleke has taught “Unpacking... View Details

Keywords: federal government; professional services; defense; financial services

December 2008 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Special Economic Zones in India: Public Purpose and Private Property (A)

By: Laura Alfaro and Lakshmi Iyer

In 2005, the government of India enacted the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Act in order to attract investment, generate export revenues, and create manufacturing jobs. However, several planned projects faced difficulties in acquiring land for setting up the SEZ. In... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Development Economics; Economic Growth; Policy; Government Legislation; Property; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; India

June 2000
Case

Lifeline Systems, Inc. (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Marilyn Matis

Lifeline Systems provides emergency response equipment to the elderly who live at home. The company uses local hospitals to market, sell, and install these units in homes, while the hospital monitors and calls for aid to respond to emergency calls from the elderly... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Marketing; Sales; Problems and Challenges; Growth and Development Strategy; Managerial Roles; Service Operations; Information Infrastructure; Age; Service Delivery; Restructuring; Crisis Management; Health Industry; Service Industry