business strategy - Publications - Faculty & Research

February 2003 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Asociacion Colombiana de Industrias Plasticas (Acoplasticos)

By: Michael E. Porter and Willis M. Emmons III

Acoplasticos was established in 1961 as a lobbying group for Colombia's major plastics manufacturing companies. In the early 1980s, the organization shifted its focus toward improving the productivity of the Colombian plastics and rubber cluster, which also included... View Details

Keywords: Cooperation; Information Technology; Alliances; Research and Development; Business and Government Relations; Performance Productivity; Developing Countries and Economies; Manufacturing Industry; Chemical Industry; Colombia

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April 2000
Article

The Fable of Fisher Body

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F. Spulber

General Motors' (GM) acquisition of Fisher Body is the classic example of market failure in the literature on contracts and the theory of the firm. According to the standard account, GM merged vertically with Fisher Body in 1926, a maker of auto bodies, because of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Failure; Contracts; Vertical Integration; Market Transactions; Investment; Trust; Production; Assets; Supply Chain; Opportunities; Technology; Auto Industry

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04 Sep 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Getting Back on Course

When Harvard Business School dean Kim B. Clark returned from a road tour a couple of years ago, he had some important issues he wanted to discuss with Professor Myra M. Hart. Evidence—granted, most of it anecdotal—was mounting to show... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

5 Principles for Scaling Change from IBM’s High School Innovation

tech-oriented, two-year college degree. “P-TECH is a great example of what I call ‘thinking outside the building,’” says Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

March 2011
Supplement

Countrywide plc (CW)

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

One of the world's leading investors in distressed companies, Oaktree Capital Management is contemplating a "loan to own" investment in the debt f Countrywide plc, a financially troubled residential real estate agent based in the U.K. Only sixteen months earlier,... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Assets; Borrowing and Debt; Private Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment Portfolio; Crisis Management; Strategy; Valuation; Real Estate Industry; United Kingdom

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September 2010 (Revised October 2014)
Teaching Note

Enterprise Risk Management at Hydro One - Multimedia

By: Anette Mikes

Teaching Note for 110-707 View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Climate Change; Adoption; Perspective; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Goals and Objectives; Strategic Planning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Renewable Energy; Capital Budgeting; Managerial Roles; Problems and Challenges; Energy Industry

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11 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

A Smarter Way to Reduce Customer Defections

individuals identified as likely to defect. The tricky part comes in figuring out exactly who should be targeted. “You have to look at the net profitability of the retention campaign” Sunil Gupta, the Edward W. Carter Professor of View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Service

03 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 3, 2008

association, fair pay practices) and whether these codes have affected their business outcomes (e.g., staff turnover and absenteeism, product defect rates, sales growth). In this paper, we review the existing evaluations of other private... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer

behavioral science, specifically, behavioral economics, tries to understand consumers as they actually behave and promote changes in their decision making around those biases. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Leslie John... View Details

Keywords: by Amelia Kunhardt

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

case: http://hbr.org/search/413127-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Exercise 713-804 Competition Simulator Exercise In the "Competition Simulator Exercise," students explore through trial and error some important economic... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

April 2002
Teaching Note

Anagene, Inc. TN

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Teaching Note for (9-102-030). View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Public Ownership; Sales; Production; Forecasting and Prediction; Volume; Governing and Advisory Boards; Cost Accounting; Business or Company Management; Financial Reporting; Strategy; Performance Capacity; Biotechnology Industry

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21 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Loyalty: Don’t Give Away the Store

25 percent of your sales, you have a big problem. By using rewards programs, retailers give away things for free that their best customers would have bought anyway. With such a large volume of customers purchasing off the card, you have to worry about having a... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Consumer Products; Retail

February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy

By: Rebecca Henderson and James Weber

In 2005, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, launched a sustainability initiative aimed at reducing waste and making the company more environmentally and socially conscious. By 2015, the company had made progress on multiple dimensions: energy efficiency in its... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business or Company Management; Motivation and Incentives; Reputation; Environmental Sustainability; Retail Industry; United States

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June 2010 (Revised October 2014)
Teaching Note

Enterprise Risk Management at Hydro One (A)

By: Anette Mikes

Teaching Note for 109-001 View Details

Keywords: SWOT Analysis; Risk Management; Climate Change; Renewable Energy; Technology Adoption; Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Perspective; Goals and Objectives; Capital Budgeting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry

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October 1988
Case

Harris Seafoods Leveraged Buyout

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes set of issues confronting Alison Lassiter, who is trying to help Charlie Harris arrange a leveraged buyout of the shrimp company he runs, a division of a publicly traded company, Katy Industries. Lassiter has prepared a memorandum discussing and analyzing the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Equity; Cost vs Benefits; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Preparation; Financial Management; Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Planning; Food and Beverage Industry; Industrial Products Industry

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01 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

What it Takes to Lead Through Turmoil

When managers need help leading through turbulent times, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggests taking wisdom from the sayings of that expert on confusion, Yogi Berra. "When you come to a fork in the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 May 2013
Research & Ideas

How Local Events Shake Up Corporate Philanthropy

thought was that globalization was making the world so similar that [location] didn't matter," says Christopher Marquis, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, who coauthored the paper with András Tilcsik (HBS PhDOB '12),... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

31 Oct 2004
What Do You Think?

Should the Wisdom of Crowds Influence Our Thinking About Leadership?

priorities—things for which leaders are required ... And I certainly would not want large groups involved in developing vision, innovation, or strategy ...." Joe Violette added, " ... getting those ideas and solutions to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

The Knowledge Coach

"Deep smarts," as Harvard Business School professor emerita Dorothy Leonard and collaborator Walter Swap see the term, is the intuition, judgement, and knowledge, both explicit and tacit, that is stored in the heads and hands of... View Details

Keywords: by Dorothy Leonard & Walter Swap

June 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Exchange-Traded Funds at Vanguard (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Steven Vickers

Vanguard Group management, led by CEO John Brennan, was considering whether to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in early 2000. ETFs, first created in the early 1990s, combined aspects of traditional mutual funds and closed-end funds. The US ETF industry had reached... View Details