Relationship Portfolio Management - Publications - Faculty & Research

February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang

In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details

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January 1996 (Revised March 2000)
Case

R.R. Donnelley & Sons: The Digital Division

By: David A. Garvin and Artemis March

In June 1995, Barbara Schetter, VP and general manager of R.R. Donnelley's Digital Division, is struggling to gain acceptance from other groups and divisions at the printing giant. The Digital Division employs radically new technology--digital printing presses and... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Business Model; Business Plan; Leading Change; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Technology Adoption; Value Creation

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July 1982 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Esmark, Inc. (B)

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Esmark's management sells its most valuable business and its most unattractive business in an effort to reposition itself and maximize shareholder value. View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Product Positioning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Reputation; Value

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January 2002 (Revised June 2002)
Background Note

A Note on Building and Leading Your Senior Team

By: Linda A. Hill and Maria Farkas

As performance demands intensify in fast-moving global markets, more executives are coming to rely on senior teams for strategic and operational assistance. Team building with powerful senior executives presents special challenges, including competition for their boss'... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Management Teams; Operations; Organizational Culture; Rank and Position; Strategy

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Web

Klarman Hall | About

the Name Beth & Seth Klarman Seth Klarman (MBA 1982) is the CEO and portfolio manager of the Boston-based Baupost Group, one of the most successful investment partnerships in the world. Beth Klarman is... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Determinants of Top-Down Sabotage

By: Hashim Zaman and Karim R. Lakhani

We investigate the conditions that motivate managers to impede the growth of talented subordinates due to fears of future competition for their own positions. Our research expands on existing tournament and contest theory literature that considers peer-to-peer sabotage... View Details

Keywords: Succession Planning; Organizational Hierarchy; Compensation; Promotions; Tournaments; Talent and Talent Management; Organizational Structure; Employee Relationship Management; Performance Evaluation; Organizational Culture; Management Skills

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19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

J. DeLong, and Jevan SooHarvard Business School Case 411-031 Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a medical device company owned by a parent corporation. Raises issues of corporate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

must decide whether to extend this relationship through some formal contractual arrangement. Humana's two divisions transacted extensively with one another before its spin-off, and abruptly cutting these ties risked doing long-term harm... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

Web

Courses - Private Capital Project

models such as venture capital, growth equity, and buyouts. Participants will study investment criteria, management strategies, and decision-making processes essential in the field. Private Equity and Venture Capital The Investment View Details

August 1997 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Harassment at Work?

By: Lynn S. Paine and Dale Coxe

Presents three scenarios involving behavior that could arguably be called sexual harassment. The first scenario is set in a medical supply company in an unnamed emerging market region. The second is set in a New York-based securities firm. The third is set in a U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Groups and Teams; Crime and Corruption; Attitudes; Behavior; Labor and Management Relations; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Financial Services Industry; New York (city, NY); United States

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14 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

The New Measures for Improving Nonprofit Performance

expertise to improve the lives of children and youth of low-income families in the Washington, D.C., region. Morino is the author of Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity. Alnoor S. Ebrahim is an associate professor... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

PayPal: The Next Chapter

By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb

Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Finance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Entrepreneurship; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry

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Career Coach

Rich Schneider

Rich (HBS’74) has been a Career Coach since 2009 and works with both students and alumni. He retired from a 35 year career in management consulting that year and is presently active in several capacities: Partner in Sage Partners, a... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consumer Products; Health Care; Manufacturing; Sports

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

Workers test the NASA-engineered capsule used to lift trapped miners to the surface. Hugo Infante/Government of Chile via Wikimedia Commons (Editor's Note: Amy Edmondson advises managers to think of teams as a verb, "teaming," which means... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

July 2021
Teaching Note

Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos

By: Tsedal Neeley

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 421-024. Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of multinational IT giant Atos to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Leading Change; Mergers and Acquisitions; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Transformation; Information Technology Industry

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04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Governing the Family-Run Business

of family enterprise generates a mixture of business, family and ownership concerns that can make these systems emotionally charged environments for planning and problem solving. In these systems individuals must manage issues within and... View Details

March 2019
Case

Mahindra Finance

By: V.G. Narayanan and Tanvi Deshpande

Mahindra Finance is a non-banking lender operating mainly in the rural and semi-urban areas of India. Set up in 1991, the company had grown to become a market leader with assets of $8.5 billion and a presence in 3,30,000 villages across India. Since most of Mahindra's... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Model; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Credit; Financing and Loans; Service Delivery; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; India

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July 1998 (Revised August 1998)
Case

Community Wealth Ventures, Inc.

By: James E. Austin and Meredith D. Pearson

Share Our Strength, a successful anti-hunger nonprofit organization, created a for-profit subsidiary--Community Wealth Ventures (CWV)--to provide advisory services to companies and nonprofits on collaboration. Management is reviewing CWV's start-up experience. View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; For-Profit Firms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations; Consulting Industry

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Find at Harvard

13 Jun 2022
Research & Ideas

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

chance to speak, remember what you had said the next time you see them, and be focused on things other than the conversation at hand.’” Responses revealed a significant, negative relationship between an individual’s self-reported... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

November 1992
Case

Process Control at Polaroid (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright

The plant manager of a film production operation wants to create and implement a new approach to quality within the next 12 months. Issues of personnel (and their roles), production processes (and their control), and quality standards must be addressed. View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Job Design and Levels; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Quality; Mathematical Methods

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