Publications

January 1994 (Revised July 1994)
Case

Dell Computer Corporation

By: Peter Tufano

Tina Chen, chief investment officer of a large insurance company, hears accusations by a Kidder Peabody equity research analyst that Dell Computer Corp. might be improperly accounting for what he suspects are large foreign exchange losses resulting from speculation.... View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Financial Instruments; Ethics; Financial Statements; Computer Industry; United States

January 2023
Case

Year Up: Measuring and Scaling Impact

By: Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth, Brian Trelstad and Sarah Mehta

Year Up, a non-profit that provides training and practical work experience to low-income young people, has for years prioritized impact measurement. By 2022, it had built a robust body of evidence demonstrating that its program yields higher earnings for participants.... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Education; Jobs and Positions; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Research; Social Enterprise; Growth Management; Education Industry; United States; Massachusetts; Boston

December 2021
Case

Green Monday

By: José B. Alvarez, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau

This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of David Yeung, from campaigning for plant-based diets to building Green Monday, a purpose-driven business and an ecosystem based in Hong Kong comprising a retail platform, an alternative meat brand (“OmniPork”), a... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Hong Kong; China; Asia

March 1994 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Eli Lilly and Co.: The Flexible Facility Decision--1993

By: Gary P. Pisano

In 1993, Eli Lilly is preparing to build manufacturing capacity for three new pharmaceutical products that it expects to launch in 1996. Management wrestles with a decision of whether to add specialized manufacturing capacity or flexible capacity. This question touches... View Details

Keywords: Debates; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Investment; Goals and Objectives; Product Launch; Production; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

02 Sep 2014
News

What’s Your Language Strategy?

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

What does it take to put a price tag on open source software (OSS), a resource so critical to the global economy that some 96 percent of commercial programs include some code created, tinkered with, or distributed for free by... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

2018
Book

Varieties of Green Business: Industries, Nations and Time

By: Geoffrey Jones

Published at a time of ever-increasing warnings that the pace of climate change and other environmental changes risk making the Earth unsustainable within our own lifetimes, this book looks at the past of green business to identify lessons for the future. It provides... View Details

January–February 2022
Article

Operational Disruptions, Firm Risk, and Control Systems

By: William Schmidt and Ananth Raman

Operational disruptions can impact a firm's risk, which manifests in a host of operational issues, including a higher holding cost for inventory, a higher financing cost for capacity expansion, and a higher perception of the firm's risk among its supply chain partners.... View Details

Keywords: Operational Risk; Operational Disruptions; Information Asymmetry; Control Systems; Operations; Disruption; Risk Management

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2018
Book

Driving Digital Strategy: A Guide to Reimagining Your Business

By: Sunil Gupta

Disruption and transformation get a lot of hype and for good reason. Digital technologies have disrupted entire industries and incumbents have often struggled in this new world. Typical approaches used by legacy players such as using technology to improve efficiency,... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Information Technology; Transformation; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Organizational Structure; Digital Strategy

October 2015 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Trouble at Tessei

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details

Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan

Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management and co-leads the school’s initiative, Managing the Future of Work. He currently teaches the Becoming a General Manager course in the second year of the MBA program and formerly headed The... View Details

Ashish Nanda

Ashish Nanda is Senior Lecturer and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator at Harvard Business School. From 2018 to 2021, he was course head for the MBA Required Curriculum course in Strategy. Beginning in 2022, he is teaching an MBA Elective... View Details

16 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Christina Lubinski; Beauty & Cosmetics

November 2003 (Revised July 2006)
Case

STAR 2003

By: Thomas R. Piper

A shift in strategy from broadcasting standardized programs throughout its footprint to localized programming necessitates a review of STAR's organizational structure. Growing complexity and a need for local responsiveness point toward adoption of a country-based... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Organizational Structure; Management Teams; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Design; Complexity; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Service Industry

October 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Lockheed Martin IMS: Making a Contribution and a Profit

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Courtney Purrington

Examines Lockheed Martin's attempt to move from its traditional reliance on defense/aerospace contracts into providing outsourced government services in the social sector. The protagonist reflects on the past 24 years of rapid growth in the company and the myriad... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Partners and Partnerships; Diversification; Performance Effectiveness; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Welfare; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Privatization; Strategic Planning; United States

September 2014
Teaching Plan

Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

In early 2009, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life was... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry

November 2017
Case

BeiGene

By: Willy Shih and Jimmy Zhang

BeiGene was a biopharmaceutical company founded on exploiting a temporal regulatory policy discontinuity. Because of regulatory challenges in China, most innovative new drugs launched there four to six years after their initial U.S. launches. This gave BeiGene a window... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Pharmaceutical Company; Pharmaceuticals; China; Regulatory Environment; Business Strategy; Business Startups; Innovation Strategy; Situation or Environment; Pharmaceutical Industry; China

January 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Background Note

Strengths Become Weaknesses: Cognitive Biases in Founder Decision-Making

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Kyle Anderson

This note combines vignettes and scholarly research to outline the cognitive biases and decision-making strategies that influence key decisions in the founding process. It is argued that the same biases which provide early benefits can later prove to be a weakness for... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking