Publications

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Birth of the American Salesman

Electric, and Carnegie Steel were all founded in the 1880s; in the following decade came Wrigley's Chewing Gum, General Electric, Burroughs, and Pepsico. These companies... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

30 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

How Technology Adoption Affects Global Economies

adoption, testing the model on 15 technologies in 166 countries from 1820 to 2003. They covered major technologies related to transportation (from steamships to airplanes), telecommunication (from the telegraph to the cell phone), IT (the PC View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

03 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Transforming Manufacturing Waste into Profit

It's been said that "one man's trash is another man's treasure." HBS Assistant Professor Deishin Lee, however, has taken that old adage a step further in her recent working paper Turning Waste into By-Product by showing how it's possible for companies to turn... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing

07 Jul 2011
What Do You Think?

So We Adapt. What’s the Downside?

Steel put it, "if something's worth doing, it's worth doing wrong Get on with it and see if it works." We are often admonished to "try a lot of things and keep... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

as if to steel himself, before continuing. It was very unlike Bernie, that pause, and it communicated the gravity of the circumstances more than the words that followed it. A bolt of panic stirred the eggs... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Oct 2006
What Do You Think?

How Do We Respond to the “Dependency Ratio” Dilemma?

And consumers are becoming less willing to pay for it in the price of GM's products. When dependency ratios become too burdensome, as in the case of Bethlehem Steel in 2001, where each worker was supporting... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

October 2002 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Union Corrugating Company (A)

By: Paul W. Marshall and Julia Stevens

Lauri Union graduates from Harvard Business School and takes over her family's steel-corrugated roofing and siding manufacturing firm, which her mother has most recently run. The industry is mature, entry barriers to competitors are low, and the company is over 50... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Gender; Steel Industry; Steel Industry; Steel Industry

February 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

The Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike

By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew Preble

For roughly six weeks between late December 1936 and February 1937, a major strike at several critical General Motors (GM) plants in Flint, Michigan, essentially halted the corporation’s U.S. production and resulted in significant gains for the nascent United... View Details

August 1986 (Revised May 1989)
Case

Timken Co.

Describes the efforts of the Timken Co., a major international producer of bearings and steel, to develop an effective employee communication program. The case examines the intense international competitive atmosphere, the recent record of job losses in related... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Communication Strategy; Steel Industry; Steel Industry