Publications

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Research Summary

Management Control Systems in Multiunit Companies

By: Tatiana Sandino

Professor Sandino conducts research on early-stage multiunit companies that introduce management control systems to help maintain operations, as well as company culture, as they grow, but also to enable adaptation to the different markets that they serve. Building... View Details

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Balancing the Future Against Today’s Needs

It is a classic leadership challenge of the early twenty-first century: How do you steer your business and motivate your people to pursue breakthrough growth while giving proper attention to executing the here and now with the utmost care... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

July–August 2018
Article

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

By: Tarun Khanna

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don’t yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Society; Situation or Environment; Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation

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February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Indesit Company: Does Global Matter?

By: Joseph L. Bower

In 2007, the leadership of the Indesit Company is focused on long-term corporate strategy. After 3 decades, the company has emerged as the number 2 home appliance producer in Europe. Should they invest further to be number 1, or should they focus on the global market,... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Brands and Branding; Markets; Problems and Challenges; Corporate Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

May 2007 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Biocon Limited

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ananth Chepuri

Biocon Limited was facing significant pricing pressure in their cash cow business, that primarily consisted of manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). To combat this commoditization, Biocon's leadership had chosen an innovation-led strategy. This new... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Biotechnology Industry; India

December 2018
Case

Good Energy Group PLC

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Founded at the end of 1999 by Juliet Davenport and Martin Edwards, Good Energy was the number-two renewable-energy seller in the United Kingdom at the end of 2016, supplying over 71,000 of the country’s 27 million households and small businesses with 100% renewable... View Details

Keywords: Power/Energy; Green Energy; Renewables; Wind Power; Electricity; Power; Strategy Development; Electric Vehicles; Customer Service; Energy Policy; Barriers To Entry; Renewable Energy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Energy Industry; United Kingdom

19 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

How Mercadona Fixes Retail’s ’Last 10 Yards’ Problem

margins. Yet in the new case study "Mercadona," HBS assistant professor Zeynep Ton and research assistant Simon Harrow describe a Spanish supermarket chain that has done all this while achieving steady profits and double-digit View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Food & Beverage

2016
Working Paper

Diversified Business Groups in the West: History and Theory

By: Asli M. Colpan and Takashi Hikino

This working paper examines the historical origins, evolutionary paths, and long-term resilience of diversified business groups in contemporary developed economies of Western Europe, North America, and Oceania. It aims to come up with a new theoretical understanding of... View Details

Keywords: History; Diversification; Business Divisions; Theory; Oceania; North America; Europe

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08 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 8

PublicationsThe New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance Authors:Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman Publication:Harvard Business School Press, 2010 Abstract Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

similar behavior following periods of poor financial performance. In addition to offering promotions more frequently, we find that firms offer deeper price discounts to manage earnings during these periods. Furthermore, our results confirm managers' stated willingness... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

AdMob (A)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Samuel Cohen and Nithya Vaduganathan

AdMob's CEO is deciding between international expansion and increasing the number of publishers to strengthen the company's advantage in the mobile advertising industry. AdMob displayed advertising on global devices, powered 6,000 websites and 1,000 applications, and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Advertising Industry

Forthcoming
Article

The Evolution of Banking in the 21st Century: Evidence and Regulatory Implications

By: Samuel Gregory Hanson, Victoria Ivashina, Laura Nicolae, Jeremy C. Stein, Adi Sunderam and Daniel K. Tarullo

As revealed by the failures of three regional banks in the spring of 2023, bank runs are not a thing of the past. To inform the ongoing discussion of the appropriate regulatory response, we examine trends in the banking industry over the last twenty-five years. On the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Financial Crisis; Assets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Condition; Banking Industry

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September 1998 (Revised November 1998)
Case

STRIVE

STRIVE provides employment training and placement to chronically unemployed inner-city minority youth and young adults. This case describes STRIVE's creation as a community-based, single-site nonprofit in Harlem in 1984; the development of its service model (short,... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Growth Management; Employment; Training; Employment Industry

03 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The State of Customer Service Leadership

employees, and suppliers, providing them with 24/7 access. The ability to capture all the data and information generated by customer activities is another advantage high tech provides. Beyond all this, connectivity and big data are the essential ingredients driving the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Retail

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation

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February 2017
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details

June 2013 (Revised June 2016)
Case

Ensina!

By: John J-H Kim, Alejandra Meraz Velasco and Christine An

In 2011, a group of passionate social entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro, with the support and encouragement of several prominent philanthropists and members of government, launch Ensina!, seizing Brazil's unprecedented economic growth and national commitment to... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Business and Government Relations; Education Industry; Brazil

June 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

The Vanguard Group, Inc. in 2006 and Target Retirement Funds

By: Luis M. Viceira

The Vanguard Group is one of the largest asset managers in the U.S., with over $1 trillion in assets, ninety percent of which are mutual fund assets, and more than 12,000 employees at year-end 2006. Vanguard has built a strong reputation as the manager of reference for... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment Funds; Personal Finance; Brands and Branding; Retirement; Trust; Financial Services Industry; United States