Publications
Publications
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(5,653)
- Faculty Publications (2,031)
- January 2024
- Case
Net Zero Insurance Alliance: An Alliance in Crisis
By: Peter Tufano and Karina Val
The Net Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), a UN-convened alliance of major global insurers, was formed in 2021, but by 2023 had lost over 60% of its members. While NZIA had enjoyed a rapid and productive start by setting standards for the industry and sharing best... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Change Management; Transformation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Curriculum and Courses; Teaching; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Franchise Ownership; Performance Expectations; Performance Improvement; Strategic Planning; Attitudes; Conflict Management; Corporate Strategy; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Education Industry; Music Industry; Massachusetts; United States
- January 2024
- Case
Huawei: Resilience amid Autarky and Adversity
By: William C. Kirby and Daniel Fu
In September 2023, Huawei made a dramatic return to the global smartphone space with the launch of its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, equipped with an indigenously designed, 7nm chip. This came despite a myriad of export controls and restrictions imposed against the company... View Details
Keywords: International Strategy; Semiconductors; Smartphone; Government And Politics; Government And Business; Digital Infrastructure; 5G; Political Risk; Business and Government Relations; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; AI and Machine Learning; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Leadership; Retirement; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry; China; United States; Europe; Asia; Middle East
- 2024
- Working Paper
Contributing to Growth? The Role of Open Source Software for Global Startups
By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein
How does participating in open source software (OSS) communities spur entrepreneurial growth?
To address this question, we analyze novel data matching accounts from GitHub—the largest OSS
hosting platform—to the universe of global software venture-backed firms... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Course Overview Note
Managing Customers for Growth: Course Overview for Students
By: Eva Ascarza
Managing Customers for Growth (MCG) is a 14-session elective course for second-year MBA students at Harvard Business School. It is designed for business professionals engaged in roles centered on customer-driven growth activities. The course explores the dynamics of... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Pioneer Natural Resources: Enhancing the Capital Return Strategy with Variable Dividends
In February 2021, Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (an independent oil and gas company based in Texas), was considering the possibility of enhancing the firm’s capital return strategy by introducing a variable dividend tied to cash flows in... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Exercise
Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys
By: Eva Ascarza, Nicolas Padilla and Oded Netzer
In late May 2023, Sarah Merino, the newly appointed manager of the Customer Insights group at Travelogo—an online travel booking platform—initiates a comprehensive analysis of clickstream data to understand the varied behaviors and needs of their users. In preparation... View Details
- January 2024
- Case
BWX Technologies
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Yuan Zou and Aldo Sesia
Rex Geveden and Robb LeMasters, CEO and CFO of BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), were concerned that investors and analysts did not fully appreciate the company's transformation from a nuclear reactor provider to the US Navy and Canadian utilities to a multi-product line... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Uncle Nearest: Creating a Legacy
By: Hise Gibson, Archie L. Jones, Nicole Gilmore and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Fawn Weaver, as a Black woman and industry outsider in a capital-intensive, highly regulated, competitive and male-dominated spirits industry, successfully overcame numerous obstacles to launch a premium American whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest in 2017, which became the... View Details
Keywords: Advertising; Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Entrepreneurship; Working Capital; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Intellectual Property; Trademarks; Leadership Style; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Private Ownership; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Entrepreneurial Finance; Food and Beverage Industry; Tourism Industry; United States; Tennessee; France
- December 2023
- Case
Robert McNamara: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun
This case traces the life of Robert McNamara from Harvard Business School to Ford Motor Company to the U.S. Department of Defense. McNamara excelled in every job along the way: becoming the youngest-ever professor at Harvard Business School, the first non-family... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Building Resiliency in McDonald's Supply Chain
By: David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin and David Lane
Considers McDonald’s efforts to build resilience into its global supply chain so that the company and its suppliers can better navigate the increasing pressures and pace of climate change and regulatory change, including a focus on supplying sustainable beef, while the... View Details
- December 2023
- Case
TikTok: The Algorithm Will See You Now
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
In a world where attention is a scarce commodity, this case explores the meteoric rise of TikTok—an app that transformed from a niche platform for teens into the most visited domain by 2021—surpassing even Google. Its algorithm was a sophisticated mechanism for... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Boortmalt: The Master Maltster
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B Alvarez, Damien McLoughlin, Lena Duchene and Emer Moloney
By May 2023, Boortmalt was the world’s leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of... View Details
Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Values and Beliefs; Financing and Loans; Employee Relationship Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Resource Allocation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategic Planning; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Culture; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Belgium; Europe
- December 2023 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Yellow Corporation: On the Verge of Bankruptcy
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer
Yellow Corporation, one of the country’s oldest and largest less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, was nearing its 100th anniversary in 2024. Whether it would reach that milestone, however, was uncertain as the company was attempting to restructure its operations to... View Details
- December 2023
- Case
Gabriela Santana Goldstein
By: Leslie Perlow and Hannah Weisman
Gabriela Santana Goldstein was pursuing her passion, working as the Head of Business for a telehealth startup, when her father went into sudden cardiac arrest and family duty called. The case discusses Goldstein’s difficult decision to leave her dream job, and her path... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Gabon Special Economic Zone
By: John Macomber and Wale Lawal
Tropical rain forest covers about 80% of the West African nation of Gabon, part of the Congo Basin and the "lungs of the world." Gabon is one of the first nations to earn revenue from carbon sequestration...as long as the rain forest remains intact. There are... View Details
- November 29, 2023
- Article
To Earn Trust, Climate Alliances Need to Improve Transparency
By: Peter Tufano, Chris Thomas, Knut Haanaes, Matteo Gasparini, Robert Eyres and Christopher Chapman
Businesses are increasingly joining together as part of climate alliances to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. But these alliances raise antitrust issues: When competitors collaborate, it can come at the expense of customers or workers. To mitigate... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Coordinated R&D Programs and the Creation of New Industries
By: Daniel P. Gross and Maria P. Roche
Government R&D programs have a long history in supporting industry development, yet their impacts are often overlooked in strategy research. We examine how a large, coordinated, government-funded effort to develop radar in World War II spawned a new high-tech industry.... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Technical Note
Customer Data Privacy
By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang
This note provides an overview of the evolving landscape of customer data privacy in 2023. It highlights two pivotal aspects that make privacy a central concern for businesses: building and maintaining customer trust and navigating the intricate regulatory... View Details