Publications

March 2018
Teaching Note

The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A), (B), (C), and (D)

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps students... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Working Conditions; Supply Chain; Safety; Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Bangladesh

October 2014 (Revised June 2015)
Case

Quiet Logistics (A)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details

Educators

14 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

The Business Case for Becoming a Jack-of-All-Trades

stuff, then having some generalists to bring new ideas into the organization and say, ‘Here’s a thing that’s going on in aeronautics that might be interesting to what you are doing in biotech,’ might be... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2008 (Revised January 2009)
Case

Londolozi: Towards a Sustainable Business Model and Ecological Integrity in Southern Africa

By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Thomas Koelble

The Londolozi game viewing reserve in South Africa became a defining icon of ecotourism during the 1990s and early 2000s-that is, a tourist business promoting ecological land management and, at the same time, local economic development. The reserve was in a region in... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Tourism Industry; South Africa

Educators

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

of society depends on trust. So the zone of sustainable action for a business should be the overlap between ethics and economics. The role of the organization is to ensure that all activity occurs View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

2016
Book

Finding Purpose: Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking, Finding Purpose aims to challenge our understanding of how humanity interacts with planet Earth, and our role within this. This book is an invitation: would you like to participate in one of the most important projects of... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Ethics; Society; Mission and Purpose; Natural Environment

December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
Exercise

Janet Ames (B)

By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad

The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; Board; Non-profit Management; Career Changes And Transitions; Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Opportunities; Decision Choices and Conditions; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Management; United States

2016
Article

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence, and Exceptions

By: Lyra J. Colfer and Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that organizational ties within a project, firm, or group of firms (e.g., communication, collocation, employment) will correspond to the technical dependencies in the work being performed. This article presents a unified picture of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Mirroring Hypothesis; Organization Design; Conway's Law; Knowledge Boundaries; Relational Contracts; Open Source Software; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Boundaries; Knowledge Management; Applications and Software

Read Now

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

All of the most valuable firms in the world today are platforms, starting with Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon. But platforms do not evolve in predictable ways, and there is a lot that managers and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

30 Sep 2019
Book

6 Steps to Building a Better Workplace for Black Employees

hoped,” says Mayo, the Thomas S. Murphy Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. “We’ve made some progress in the workplace, but we still have such a long way to go. It’s more important than ever to discuss what View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

How Foundations Think: The Ford Foundation as a Dominating Institution in the Field of American Business Schools

Keywords: by Rakesh Khurana, Kenneth Kimura & Marion Fourcad; Education

23 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

The Gulf: It’s a Family Affair

family companies in the Gulf Region was written for a conference organized by the Kennedy School in Doha, Qatar in 1997. The frameworks and approaches I used in this article really helped me get some... View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild & Andrea Schulman

08 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How to Fix a Broken Marketplace

many students as possible, with priority given to students whose siblings already attended the school or who lived within its "walk zone." For each school with slots still available, the city would assign View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

management," says Cespedes, a senior lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School. "But far fewer confront a basic fact: Companies... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 1997
Case

Information at the World Bank: In Search of a Technology Solution (A)

By: W. Earl Sasser, Josep Valor and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Information Technology Services Director Mohamed Muhsin planned to restructure the World Bank's information technology in response to President Jim Wolfensohn's call to build a knowledge bank. Several reorganization efforts taken by the bank in the 1980s led to a... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Information; Knowledge Management; Mission and Purpose; Technology; Public Administration Industry

2020
Case

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Accelerating a Circular Economy for Plastic Packaging

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Plastic has become essential to global day-to-day activities, yet it is also causing extreme environmental degradation. Many leaders in the plastics industry are starting to question its sustainability. This case presents insights into the future of the plastic... View Details

Keywords: Plastic Waste; Environmental Sustainability; Cooperation; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Consumer Products Industry

17 Feb 2022
Book

When Employees Feel a Sense of Purpose, Companies Succeed

employees to discover their purpose in life but to then find a connection between our personal life purpose with the purpose of the organization where we work. The great resignation under way over the past... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

October 2014
Supplement

Quiet Logistics (B)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details