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An Economy Doing Half Its Job

Re: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin, with contributions from Joseph B. Fuller, Allen S. Grossman, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and Kevin W. Sharer
This report presents the findings of HBS' 2013–14 survey on U.S. competitiveness. It highlights a troubling divergence in the U.S. economy: large and midsize firms are prospering, but middle- and working-class citizens and small businesses are struggling.
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A Long, Bumpy and Unfinished Road: Education Reform in Memphis, Tennessee

By: Allen S. Grossman, J. Puckett, and Nithya Vaduganathan
Pitt Hyde, a Memphis business leader and the founder of the Hyde Family Foundation, works to ensure the success of the merger between the Memphis City School district and the Shelby County School system.
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StriveTogether: Reinventing the Local Education Ecosystem

By: Allen S. Grossman, Ann Lombard, and Noah Fisher
StriveTogether is building a network of communities that use Collective Impact as a way for the business community and other stakeholders to collaborate to improve public education in a locale.
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Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul: Building on a Diversified Base (Abridged)

By: William W. George
Starting in 2003, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region lagged the rest of the U.S. in job creation. Alarmed business and civic leaders coalesced around the Itasca Project, which set in motion a series of actions by groups of CEOs and politicians aimed at reversing these trends by creating jobs in all sectors of the economy.
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The Big 3 Roar Back

By: William W. George
By 2008, Detroit's "Big 3"—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler—were teetering, and two required federal government assistance to stay afloat. Within three years, remarkably, the Big 3 had turned around by improving competitiveness in quality, design, and cost, as well as through strong, decisive leadership on multiple fronts and improved union relations.
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Envision Charlotte: Building an Energy Cluster (Abridged)

By: William W. George
In 2006, Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, began to lay the groundwork to establish Charlotte as the "new energy hub of America." The Envision Charlotte initiative builds on the Charlotte region's economic development "energy capital USA" initiative.