Publications

April 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Amazon in China and India

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Kairavi Dey

Amazon has been unsuccessful in its efforts to develop a business in China. Even though Amazon was an early entrant into China’s e-commerce space, its domestic rivals, especially Alibaba, created innovative business models uniquely suited for the conditions in China. ... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Emerging Markets; Business Strategy; Expansion; Business Model; Retail Industry; China; India; United States

July 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Mary Kay Inc.: Enriching Women's Lives while Embracing Change

By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Julia Kelley

In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at... View Details

24 Jan 2024
Op-Ed

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

older airplane models at the expense of all-new aircraft. Secondly, in 2001 Condit moved Boeing’s headquarters from its original home in Seattle to Chicago—all to gain $60 million in state and local tax credits over 20 years. With none of its View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Air Transportation; Transportation; Aerospace

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Veeva Systems: The Next Frontier

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

Born out of a desire to bring technological advances in enterprise software into the healthcare vertical, Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach founded Veeva to bring life sciences companies into the digital age for data management in both the commercial and R&D sectors. Over... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Governance Compliance; Applications and Software; Growth Management; Expansion; Technology Industry

August 2022 (Revised March 2023)
Technical Note

Real Estate iBuying

By: Michael Luca, Jesse M. Shapiro and Julia Kelley

This note provides an overview of real estate iBuying, or instant buying, a business model that involves buying homes and then reselling them at a profit. Introduced in the mid-2010s, iBuying streamlined the process of selling a home by offering instant, all-cash... View Details

Keywords: iBuying; Profit; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Real Estate Industry

March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
Technical Note

ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?

By: George Serafeim

In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems

October 2001 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Herman Miller (A): Innovation by Design

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

Gary Van Spronsen, president of Miller SQA, has been asked to leave the thriving subsidiary he helped to reinvent to join Herman Miller's corporate initiative on innovation. Miller SQA has pioneered processes new to the Herman Miller organization, such as... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Business Model; Organizations; Values and Beliefs; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

June 2016
Teaching Note

Filene's Basement: Inside a Fired Customer's Relationship

By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier

How, in a business climate in which building relationships with customers has dominated both managerial thought and marketing budgets, could Filene's Basement have fired a loyal customer, one who was formally and informally recognized as a best customer? This case... View Details

Keywords: CRM; Customer Profitability Analysis; Customer Lifetime Value; Consumer Behavior; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Retail Industry; United States

05 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

How Hormones Foretell Whether People Will Cheat

play a role in regulating hormone levels in employees. The bad news is that far too many business situations actually fuel the very hormones that trigger unethical behavior. The findings are detailed in the paper Hormones and Ethics:... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Research Summary

The Role of the Media in Corporate Governance and Finance

Dyck studies the role played by media in financial markets: in transmitting information about a company, in shaping the market response to the information they communicate, in exposing mis-governance problems, and in forcing companies to behave in "politically correct"... View Details

April 2014
Supplement

Managing Change at Axis Bank (B)

By: Paul Healy and Rachna Tahilyani

Axis Bank is India's third largest private sector bank. In April 2009, Shikha Sharma, an outsider was appointed as its CEO. She took over from a person who had overseen ten years of rapid growth at the bank. The selection of an outsider as the new CEO surprised many... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Valuation; Finance; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; India

2012
Teaching Note

Beyondsoft Co., Ltd. (B) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li and Hong Zhang

The case "Beyondsoft Co., Ltd. (A)" completed in early 2010 described the strategic path of Beyondsoft over its history of more than 10 years since its foundation in 1995, containing its major business lines and the relations with the major customers at that time, the... View Details

Keywords: Computer Software; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Outsourcing; Strategy; China; Applications and Software; China

August 2013 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Amazon in 2024

By: Sunil Gupta and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it... View Details

Keywords: Platforms; Complements; Showrooming; Ecosystem; Growth Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Retail Industry; Publishing Industry

June–July 2013
Article

Firm Rivalry, Knowledge Accumulation, and MNE Location Choices

By: Juan Alcacer, Cristian Deszo and Minyuan Zhao

The international business (IB) literature has mostly emphasized the impact of location and firm characteristics on location choices. However, industries with a significant presence of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are oligopolistic in nature, which suggests that... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Game Theory; Global Strategy

Find at Harvard

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Cisco Systems (2001): Building and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture

By: Ranjay Gulati

Customer centricity has been an important part of the culture at Cisco Systems since its inception. While part of this is attributable to values put in place by the founders and retained by subsequent management, it is also closely interwoven with its organizational... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Research and Development; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employees; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Business Units

10 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

New Medical Devices Get To Patients Too Slowly

working paper by Ariel Dora Stern, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. “There is a huge delay associated with being the first product to enter a new device market” She found that first movers in a particular category spent... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Technology

April 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Oriental Land Co., Ltd.—Tokyo Disney Resort

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Kanno

This case describes the history of Oriental Land Co. Ltd.’s (OLC's) Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), its operations, the extent of vertical integration, and the challenges it faced in 2018 as OLC's chairman and CEO, Toshio Kagami, contemplated how best to deal with... View Details

Keywords: Strategy For Multi-business Firm; Business Models; Growth; Theme Parks; Disney; Disney Parks; Licensing; Royalties; Two-part Tariffs; Oriental Land Co.; Tokyo Disneyland; Tokyo DisneySea; Tokyo Disney Resort; Tokyo Disney; Growth Strategy; Hotels; Hotel Industry; Partnership; Development; Attractions; Rides; Urayasu; Kagami; Congestion; Pricing; Amusement Parks; Amusement Park Industry; Brand; Branding; History; OLC; Corporate Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business History; Price; Retention; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Agreements and Arrangements; Contracts; Operations; Vertical Integration; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Expansion; Rail Transportation; Transportation Networks; Accommodations Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Tourism Industry; Asia; Japan; Tokyo; United States