Publications

April 2024
Case

Dr. Tom Mihaljevic and Cleveland Clinic

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

In December 2022, Dr. Tomislav (“Tom”) Mihaljevic, CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic, was reflecting on the last few years at the hospital, marked both by unprecedented challenges and remarkable achievements. Cleveland Clinic had recently been ranked the world’s... View Details

14 Jul 2023
Blog Post

A Pathway to Pursue Aspirations

While Mizuho Kanai (MBA 2018) was fulfilling her summer internship at NPR, her manager recommended that she read an HBS case study about how the Sesame Workshop CEO, Jeff Dunn (MBA 1981), was changing the institution. “I was blown away,” she says, “by how Jeff and his... View Details

08 May 2019
Blog Post

In the Business of Flexibility

As founder of Prokanga, the innovative recruiting firm that connects companies with experienced, flexible marketing and finance expertise, Jamie Cheney (MBA 2007) understands the value of a fluid workforce. Together with Annie Davis (MBA 2007) and partner Lesley Finer,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit / Government

Career Coach

Ellen Harris

Ellen (HGSE ’86) is the Director of Outward Bound Professional/Facilitator at Thompson Island Outward Bound Professional where she is responsible for business development and corporate team and leadership development. Ellen enjoys working... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consumer Products; Education; Hospitality; Manufacturing; Retail; Social Enterprise

December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Akooda: Charging Toward Operational Intelligence

By: Christopher T. Stanton and Mel Martin

The Akooda case describes the challenges confronting founder and CEO Yuval Gonczarowski (MBA ‘17) in 2022 as he attempts to boost sales. Launched in November 2020, Akooda was an AI company that mined 20 different sources of digital data, from tools like Slack, Google... View Details

Keywords: Data Mining; Productivity; Monitoring; Data Analysis; AI and Machine Learning; Knowledge Management; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Employee Relationship Management; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Information Industry; Boston; Israel

27 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 27

spatial spillovers fundamentally depend on the presence of existing relationships. Using multidimensional network formation data from the random placement of teams at a startup boot camp, we show that spatial spillovers decline if View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
Supplement

edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (B)

By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen and Ciwu Lin

Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China’s edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers,... View Details

Keywords: Laundry; O2O; Online-to-offline; Service Operations; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Transformation; Service Industry; China

April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
Case

edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen and Ciwu Lin

Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China’s edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers,... View Details

Keywords: Laundry; O2O; Online-to-offline; Business Model; Service Operations; Ownership Type; Digital Platforms; Transformation; China

February 2014
Case

Arcos Dorados: How to Lead and From Where

By: Krishna Palepu and Gustavo Herrero

Acros Dorados, an Argentina-based multinational, is facing new organizational challenges as it seeks to build on its recent turnaround, and grow in Brazil and Mexico. Woods Staton and his management team have to make some hard decisions on how to structure and lead the... View Details

Keywords: Execution; Restaurant; Consumer; Emerging Markets; Strategy; Latin America

April 2019
Case

Barber Cardiosystems

By: Ranjay Gulati and Paul S. Myers

Barber Cardiosystems, based in Melbourne, Australia, designs and manufactures therapeutic devices used for treatment of coronary conditions. Over four decades, it has grown to be among the top 200 medical device companies in the world. It competes against much larger... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Strategic Alignment; Cost Management; Performance Productivity; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Strategy; Leadership; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Australia

Suraj Srinivasan is the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration, a member of the Accounting and Management faculty unit, and chair of the View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; financial services

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons in Decision-Making: Confident People Aren't Always Correct (Except When They Are)

of individual decisions. “In teams, and organizations more broadly, self-selection often plays a critical role: Individual team members decide whether to speak up and volunteer their opinion on a topic, whether they ask for someone else’s... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

July 2024
Case

Living Up to Purpose and Performance at Parker Hannifin

By: Hubert Joly, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

In 2019, Parker Hannifin, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of motion and control technologies, did something unusual for an industrial company: it created a purpose statement. Even though it already had a clear business strategy and longstanding culture of... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Manufacturing Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Cleveland; Ohio; United States

February 2020
Case

Highfields Capital and McDonald's

By: Mark Egan and Robin Greenwood

McDonald’s reported its fifth consecutive quarter of declining same-store sales growth in early 2015. Despite McDonald’s recent poor performance, Jonathon S. Jacobson, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Boston-based Highfields Capital Management, had initiated... View Details

Keywords: McDonald's; Stocks; Performance Improvement; Operations; Finance; Restructuring; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry

December 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Ribbit Capital and the Gauntlet Investment Opportunity

By: Shai Bernstein and Allison M. Ciechanover

Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022,... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Cryptocurrency; Business Startups; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Deal; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; California

September 2019
Case

JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership

By: Ethan Bernstein and Daniela Beyersdorfer

Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of Jersey-based financial services firm JTC, firmly believed that "shared ownership" was at the heart of his company’s successful track record. The firm had seen its revenues, profits, and number of clients and staff grow steadily throughout its... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Employee Ownership; Leadership Style; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Going Public; Mission and Purpose; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Financial Services Industry; Channel Islands; Europe; United States

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code

Keywords: by Alan D. MacCormack, John Rusnak & Carliss Y. Baldwin; Video Game; Web Services

September 2020
Supplement

Commonwealth Joe: January 2020 Update from CEO Robert Peck

By: Alexander J. MacKay

At the end of 2016, the leadership team of Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters—Robert Peck, Chase Damiano, and Jeremy Martin—had begun an ambitious retail expansion strategy in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for their specialty coffee business. That October, they... View Details

Keywords: Cold Brew Coffee; Specialty Coffee; On-premise Coffee Market; Retail Expansion Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Strategy; Decision Making; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

February 1994
Case

Project Ghost Busters (A)

Describes a field study project undertaken by four students, attacking a specific quality problem in an auto assembly plant. How should they approach this problem to reduce its frequency by 50%? How should they manage this team project to get the most out of all... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Production; Performance Improvement; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry