Publications

December 1998
Supplement

An Interview with Zhang Ruimin, CEO, Haier Group, Video

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jennifer Benqing

Zhang Ruimin, founder and CEO of China's Haier Group, must decide whether to acquire Red Star Electric Appliance Co., an insolvent local manufacturer of washing machines. Although Haier, slated to become one of China's first global brand names, has successfully turned... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Acquisition; Business or Company Management; Consumer Products Industry; China

May 2005
Supplement

Otis Elevator: An Interview with Ari Bousbib (video)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Brian DeLacey

CEO Ari Bousbib talks about how IT is transforming Otis and the practical challenges they are overcoming. Visibly demonstrates what appropriate CEO involvement is in an IT-enabled business transformation. View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Construction Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry

2000
Chapter

Environmental Destruction: Individual, Organizational, and Institutional Explanations

By: M. H. Bazerman and A. J. Hoffman

Keywords: Situation or Environment; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Behavior

January 2017 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Sesame Workshop: Bringing Big Bird Back to Health

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Technology; Education; Education Industry

March 2017
Case

Swagbucks

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a competitor to Swagbucks, after the company’s... View Details

1988
Chapter

Encouraging Innovation and Entrepreneurs in Bureaucratic Companies

By: R. M. Kanter

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design

January 2025
Case

Ontra: Embracing GenAI in the Legal Technology Industry

By: Christopher Stanton and George Gonzalez

Ontra built a network of legal professionals to enable financial institutions to outsource contract negotiations. The rise of generative AI inspired the company to build software solutions to streamline its processes through automation. Now company leadership must... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Technology Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

Student-Faculty-Profile

Lauren Taylor & Rebecca Henderson

Rebecca and Lauren are working on a book about innovation and change, exploring how to drive innovation in large organizations and uncovering what it is about organizational culture that makes change so... View Details

March 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Background Note

Physical Climate Risk

By: Michael W. Toffel, Spencer Glendon and Alison Smart

This note describes how managers can identify and manage their company’s physical climate risks, which can increase their operations and supply chain costs and risks, and affect demand for their goods and services. Can be paired with the video “Preparing business... View Details

Keywords: Resilience; Maps; Climate Risk; Climate Impact; Modeling And Analysis; Climate Change; Risk Management; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption

22 Nov 2022
News

Merlin Entertainments Taps Scott O’Neil as CEO

episode of the HBS Alumni podcast Skydeck, O’Neil spoke about how he set and scaled his organizational values of mind, body, and soul while leading HBSE. “I don't think there's one thing that creates the mind, body, and soul, but I can... View Details

9 AM – 10 AM EDT, 20 Mar 2019
HBS Online

HBS Online Management Essentials

Maximize your managerial effectiveness by shaping and influencing processes in the critically-important treetop level between 50,000 feet (strategy) and ground level (daily tasks and activities). Program Dates: March 20, 2019 - May 15, 2019 View Details

August 2000
Case

Manila Water Company (A)

By: Michael Beer and Elizabeth Weldon

On February 3, 1997, the east zone of the Manila Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS) was taken over by the Manila Water Co. (MWC), a newly created joint venture between the Ayala Corp., a large Filipino conglomerate; Bechtel Enterprises, Inc., an American... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Horizontal Integration; Privatization; Problems and Challenges; Utilities Industry

April 2014
Supplement

Interview: Man Jit Singh at Sony Entertainment Television

By: Linda A. Hill and Allison J. Wigen

Contains excerpts from an interview with Man Jit Singh. Singh discusses the results of events covered in the case "Man Jit Singh at Sony Entertainment Television," including his decision to begin evaluating employees on values as well as performance.
This short... View Details

Keywords: Performance Appraisals; Leading Change; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Change Management; Media and Broadcasting Industry; India

January 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

GE...We bring good things to life. (A)

By: James L. Heskett

Jack Welch and the Corporate Executive Council of General Electric are faced with a decision about whether and how to implement a six-sigma quality-improvement effort in the context of many other initiatives already undertaken at GE in recent years. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Leadership Style; Six Sigma; Quality; Organizational Change and Adaptation

1999
Chapter

The Knowledge-Based Organization: A Managerial Revolution

By: C. A. Bartlett

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Competitive Advantage; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

25 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

For Migrant Workers, Homesickness Can Reduce Productivity

Freedom to use vacation time to attend celebrations with family and friends helps improve performance for employees who work far away from their hometowns, new research by Prithwiraj Choudhury suggests. When employees move away from their hometowns for work, they... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Winter 2022
Article

Courageous Leadership: Paul Polman’s Insights for the Next Generation of Business Managers

By: John Pontillo, Celia Bravard and Andrew J. Hoffman

In 2021, John Pontillo, Celia Bravard, and Andrew Hoffman conducted a series of interviews with Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever. They discussed how business managers and leaders can build a new model of capitalism that serves the needs of society. Here’s what they... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Issues

Read Now

June 2, 2020
Article

How to 'Re-engineer' Your Business for Safety

By: Hubert Joly

Process reengineering was a massive trend in the 1990s. By focusing on improving either cost, quality, or service, a company could gain benefits in all three categories. Today, the principles that underpin process reengineering can be applied anew, with safety as a... View Details

Keywords: Re-engineering; COVID; Safety; Performance Improvement; Organizational Change and Adaptation