Publications

November 1998 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Mike Winsor: A Career in Marketing

By: Robert J. Dolan

An MBA student has received an offer to join Kraft Foods, a leading consumer packaged goods firm. This unit is a wholly owned subsidiary of a holding company whose other major subsidiary is a leading cigarette manufacturer. The case raises ethical issues of marketing. View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Ethics

November 2018
Case

Cepuros Foods Malaysia: Finding the Secret Sauce for Growth (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine B. Hartman

Shelby Diaz, country manager for Cepuros Foods International—Malaysia (CFI-M), must decide a growth strategy for the expansion of CFI-M's line of salsas, particularly regarding whom to target and how to allocate marketing investments. CFI-M could expand aggressively by... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Product Positioning

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Benjamin C. Esty

I created and teach a course called Strategies for Value Creation (SVC). It is designed to be a capstone course in the Elective Curriculum (EC or second year of the MBA program) that integrates and further develops concepts developed in several Required Curriculum (RC... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Finance; Value Creation; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Financial Management

September 2019
Supplement

pymetrics (B)

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In March 2013, pymetrics CEO Frida Polli visited Harvard Business School to listen to a section of MBA students from the class of 2013 discuss her business plan and provide feedback on the tests they had taken to identify career opportunities. Polli had developed a... View Details

Keywords: BrainTech; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Personality; Personality Traits; Startup; Start-up; Startups; Start-ups; Employment; Strategic Evolution; Psychodynamics; Psychology; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Business Startups; Strategy; Personal Characteristics

December 1981 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Mike Miller (A)

Mike Miller, Harvard MBA '78, resigned his first job out of HBS within six months because he believed his personal values and learning objectives could not be accommodated. Students may discuss the problems of anticipating corporate culture, learning the ropes,... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Values and Beliefs; Jobs and Positions; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics

January 2011 (Revised February 2011)
Case

GLOBIS

By: Mukti Khaire, Akiko Kanno and Nobuo Sato

Yoshito Hori, dean of the Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University, was planning to launch a full-time English MBA program in September 2012. GLOBIS University was already offering successful part-time MBA programs in English and Japanese. The full-time English... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Education; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Adaptation; Expansion; Education Industry; Japan

January 1994 (Revised March 1995)
Background Note

Power Dynamics in Organizations

By: Linda A. Hill

Designed to introduce the concepts of power and power dynamics to students in the MBA second-year elective course Power and Influence. Defines "power" and "influence," and explores the role of power dynamics in managerial work and in the life of organizations. Combats... View Details

Keywords: Power and Influence; Organizations; Conflict and Resolution

Teaching Interest

Data Science for Managers

By: Chiara Farronato

This new course is taught as a required course in the first year MBA curriculum as of a.y. 2023-2024. It provides students with the foundations of data science to become effective data-driven managers. The course covers the basics of visualization, statistical and... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Data Science And Analytics Management; Data Analytics; Data Analysis

January 1992
Case

Metreke Cards

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Used to introduce the assembly line process to first-year MBA students. Three different variations of an assembly line process for packing greeting cards are presented for analysis. To choose among the three, the students must address issues of time standards,... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Operations; Production; Product; Publishing Industry

Teaching Interest

Technology and Operations Management

By: Allison H. Mnookin

This course is taught in the MBA required curriculum. It provides students with the foundations necessary to be effective operating managers. During the course students learn to analyze decisions that drive the design, planning, and execution of the activities that... View Details

November 1997 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Martin Smith: January 2002

By: Josh Lerner

An MBA student must choose between offers from three private equity organizations. Each organization has distinct strengths and weaknesses, and different implications for the student's career development. The case presents compensation and employment data about the... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Compensation and Benefits; Analytics and Data Science; Job Offer; Personal Development and Career

September 2003 (Revised September 2018)
Exercise

RetailMax: Role for Regan Kessel

By: Kathleen McGinn and Dina Witter

This exercise requires students to enact an internal salary negotiation, taking on the roles of Cam Archer, a star employee, and Regan Kessel, a VP trying to attract the MBA into his department. The exercise presents a one-issue, distributive negotiation that... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Compensation and Benefits; Management Practices and Processes; Retail Industry

September 2003 (Revised October 2020)
Exercise

RetailMax: Role for Cam Archer

By: Kathleen McGinn and Dina Witter

This exercise requires students to enact an internal salary negotiation, taking on the roles of Cam Archer, a star employee, and Regan Kessel, a VP trying to attract the MBA into his department. The exercise presents a one-issue, distributive negotiation that... View Details

Keywords: BATNA; Decision Trees; Negotiation; Compensation and Benefits; Personal Development and Career; Retail Industry

January 2005
Case

Building Career Foundations: Humphrey Chen (A)

Follows the career decision making of a second-year MBA student who is engaged and must negotiate both cross-cultural and dual-career issues. Humphrey Chen must decide between a consulting firm and running his own start-up company (pre-Internet boom). He confronts... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Family and Family Relationships; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

April 2020
Case

Promoting Land and Nature Jerky

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine B. Hartman

Kathy Ayers, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Land and Nature (L&N) Jerky Company, needs to make a recommendation about L&N's 2020 promotional spending. L&N's CEO, Tim Ryan, wants her to calculate different scenarios using historical data to determine... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Spending; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Food and Beverage Industry

Teaching Interest

Creating Value in Business and Government

By: W. Carl Kester

This full-credit course is open only to students in the HBS-HKS Joint Degree Program, and is a required course for all joint degree students in the fall semester of their third year. Its purpose is to integrate on the one hand, the perspectives and analytic tools... View Details

Teaching Interest

Field Global Immerson

By: Martin A. Sinozich

The FIELD Global Immersion (FGI) is a semester-long first-year (RC) MBA course. The course is a capstone of sorts, and it requires students to build on learnings from their first-year courses and apply them to real-world business problems. At the beginning of the... View Details

07 Feb 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Creating the Founders’ Dilemmas Course

If Noam Wasserman's entrepreneurship elective were a start-up company, investors would be delighted with its growth. When the Harvard Business School professor first offered his Founders' Dilemmas course in 2009, a mere 42 second-year MBA... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Lyons Document Storage Corporation: Bond Math

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

In 2009 a recent MBA must analyze the possible refunding of bonds issued in 2000 when interest rates were much higher. She must consider the possible consequences of repurchasing company bonds outstanding using cash that might be obtained by issuing new bonds at a... View Details

Keywords: Financial Accounting; Quantitative Analysis; Securities; Debt Securities; Bonds; Cash Flow; Mathematical Methods; Accounting; Interest Rates