Publications

February 1993 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Bidwell Training Center, Inc. and Manchester Craftsmen's Guild: Preparation in Pittsburgh

By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell

Bill Strickland, executive director of both Bidwell Training Center and Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, has built a highly successful training organization to enable underprivileged minorities in Pittsburgh to escape the cycle of poverty. His success has led to questions... View Details

Keywords: Training; Non-Governmental Organizations; Leadership; Society; Competency and Skills; Pittsburgh

12 Jul 2020
News

Banker Pay Theory Upended by Harvard Expert in Swedish Study

04 Oct 2023
Blog Post

HBS Career Journeys | Stéphanie Joseph

HBS Career & Professional Development sat down with students to talk about their career journeys. Stéphanie Joseph (MBA 2023) talks about the experiences that led her to pursue a career in fintech in emerging markets, and how she used... View Details

March 2024
Article

When Are Social Protests Effective?

By: Eric Shuman, Amit Goldenberg, Tamar Saguy, Eran Halperin and Martijn van Zomeren

Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness... View Details

Keywords: Protests; Social Issues; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics; Power and Influence; Motivation and Incentives

Read Now

30 Jun 2015
News

Special Presentation: Karen Gordon Mills

11 Jan 2020
News

Harvard Study: Kids of Working Moms Grow up Just as Happy as Stay-At-Home Moms

April 2019 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Sears: The Demise of an American Icon

By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2019, ESL Investments’ $5.2 billion offer to purchase Sears Holdings out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was accepted, despite opposition from the company's unsecured creditors and other parties. ESL, which was led by Eddie Lampert, had acquired a stake in Sears following... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Reorganization; Bonds; Restructuring; Business Divisions; Transformation; Fairness; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Motivation and Incentives; Retail Industry; United States

26 Sep 2017
Blog Post

A Summer Internship with the International Rescue Committee

elicited one of the most powerful feelings of gratitude I had ever experienced. It was on that afternoon I decided that I wanted to help others complete their own journeys to citizenship in any way that I could, which set me off on a pathway of discovery that... View Details

April 1996 (Revised June 1999)
Case

NYPD New

By: James L. Heskett

Police Commissioner Bratten and his staff have led a process designed to create a results-oriented police department from one that previously emphasized and measured effort. With increasing budgeting pressures, the next phase of effort calls for increasing emphasis on... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Performance Productivity; Leadership Style; Budgets and Budgeting; Public Administration Industry

11 Mar 2014
News

Your Startup Is More Likely To Get Funding If You're A Man

22 Mar 2022
Cold Call Podcast

How Etsy Found Its Purpose and Crafted a Turnaround

Keywords: Re: Ranjay Gulati; Technology; Retail

25 Dec 2014
News

Management in a Digital Economy

25 Jul 2017
News

Money is the Secret to Happiness, Science Says

June 1995 (Revised September 1996)
Case

Union Carbide's Bhopal Plant (A)

By: Debora L. Spar

In December 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, sprung a leak, releasing thousands of gallons of highly toxic gas into the atmosphere. By the time the leak was sealed, over 2,000 people had died. In a series of three excerpts from published accounts, the case... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Chemicals; Foreign Direct Investment; Chemical Industry; United States; India

May 2017
Article

The Reference Wars: Encyclopædia Britannica's Decline and Encarta's Emergence

By: Shane Greenstein

The experience of Encyclopædia Britannica provides the canonical example of the decline of an established firm at the outset of the digital age. Competition from Microsoft’s Encarta in 1993 led to sharp declines in the sales of books, which led to the distressed sale... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Britannica; Diseconomies; Encyclopedias; Applications and Software; Books; Competition; Publishing Industry

01 Jan 2020
News

Changes in Quality of Care after Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions

29 Oct 2019
Video

Leonor Melo de Velasco

Leonor Melo, who founded the Mundo Mujer Foundation (Women’s World Foundation) in Colombia in 1985, describes how a devastating earthquake in the city of Popayán led her to leave her career as a dentist, and... View Details

May 2013 (Revised August 2013)
Case

McKinsey & Company

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kathleen Durante

In early 2013 the leaders of McKinsey & Co., were reflecting, as they did periodically, on the path forward for their firm. Founded in Chicago in 1926 by James O. McKinsey (Mac), with only a small staff in one office, the firm had grown to be a global company with more... View Details

Keywords: CONSULTING Firms; McKinsey; Professional Service Firm; Marvin Bower; Strategy; Governance; Consulting Industry