Publications

September 2021 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Bühler: Mobilizing Industry around a Common Purpose

By: Ranjay Gulati, Franz Wohlgezogen and Malini Sen

Bühler Group, a Swiss multinational processing technology provider, started by selling machines for processing grains and later transitioned into selling food processing solutions. A family-owned business in the fifth generation, Bühler’s high-end milling, grinding,... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Customer Focus and Relationships; Machinery and Machining; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Innovation Leadership; Switzerland

November 2017
Case

Outrageous Ambition: Duke University

By: William C. Kirby and Yuanzhuo Wang

Duke University had grown from a one room schoolhouse in rural North Carolina in 1859 to one of the leading research universities in the U.S. and the world. Since the late 1950s, Duke’s leaders had consciously used the process of strategic planning to guide the... View Details

July 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes

By: Geoffrey Jones and Veronica Tong

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 323-007. This case examines the career of Vicky Tsai, the creator of San Francisco-based TATCHA, a Japanese-themed luxury beauty brand launched in 2009. It explores how Tsai developed the concept, assembled management, and successfully... View Details

Keywords: Cosmetics Industry; Japan; Startup; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Product Development; Product Marketing; Acquisition; Identity; Brands and Branding; Ethnicity; Gender; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

05 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

The Accidental Innovator

Companies spend many hundreds of billions of dollars on R&D each year, but the microwave oven was conceived from a melted candy bar, saccharin from an accidental chemical spill, and the Daguerre photo process via a shattered... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

15 Feb 2024
Blog Post

How I Spent My 2+2 Deferral: Carol Wright

The HBS 2+2 program is a deferred admission process for current students in their final year of study, either in college or a full-time master’s degree program. If you are admitted through 2+2, you work for two to four years in a field of... View Details

February 2010
Case

Amyris Biotechnologies: Commercializing Biofuel

By: Gary P. Pisano and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

In 2009, Amyris Biotechnologies was building a plant in Brazil that used synthetic biology to convert sugarcane into both renewable fuels and renewable chemicals. The Amyris' marketing team was investigating the commercial interest for both types of products, while the... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Chemicals; Risk Management; Product Marketing; Product Development; Production; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Biotechnology Industry; Brazil

December 1994 (Revised July 1996)
Case

USSR 1988, The: The Search for Growth

For decades after the revolution of 1917, Communist Party leaders claimed that the socialist economic system was superior to the capitalist system on both moral and economic grounds. By 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Economic Growth; Government and Politics; Soviet Union

August 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Turnaround at Norsk Gjenvinning (A)

By: George Serafeim

Erik Osmundsen, CEO of Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), had initiated a program to strenghten corporate governance, eliminate corruption and improve compliance, and as a result the company had experienced a turnover of almost half of its top 70 line managers and strained... View Details

June 1991 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling

By: Michael Beer

Describes a strategic human resource management process applied at the business unit and corporate level. The purpose of the process is to provide a means for aligning human resource management policies and practices with strategy and to hold managers accountable for... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Human Resources; Business or Company Management; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Health Industry

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Into the Raging Sea: Final Voyage of the SS El Faro

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Mel Martin

Captain Michael Davidson of the container ship SS El Faro was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers must plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of... View Details

Keywords: Power Dynamics; Management; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Failure; Groups and Teams; Rank and Position; Decision Choices and Conditions; Shipping Industry; United States

September 2002
Case

Align Technology, Inc.: Matching Manufacturing Capacity to Sales Demand

By: H. Kent Bowen and Jonathan P Groberg

Align Technology is a four-year-old medical products company that has invented a new product requiring new manufacturing processes. Demand for the new product has grown more slowly than initial forecasts predicted, and the cost structure is preventing the company from... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Production; Health Industry

31 Jul 2015
Blog Post

Transitioning From the Military to Business School

in with David to see what it’s been like to make the transition to civilian life, learn more about his HBS experience, and find out how business school fits into his plans for the future. How did the military prepare you for HBS? The... View Details

March 2010 (Revised April 2013)
Module Note

Competing with Social Networks: Designing Social Strategy

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

This note outlines the process of designing a social strategy. View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Strategy; Planning

February 2004
Case

New HP, The: The Clean Room and Beyond

By: Leslie A. Perlow and Elizabeth Kind

When the $19 billion merger of Silicon Valley legend Hewlett-Packard and Houston-based PC giant Compaq Computer Corp. legally closed on May 3, 2002, both companies had already devoted an immense amount of time preparing for the challenges that lay ahead. Chief among... View Details

Keywords: Horizontal Integration; Management Teams; Management Style; Problems and Challenges; Employees; Organizational Culture; Computer Industry; San Francisco

February 2012
Case

Kent Chemical: Organizing for International Growth

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Laura Winig

In July 2008, Luis Morales, president of Kent Chemical International, is proposing a third reorganization effort after two failed attempts to better align his business with its U.S.-based parent company. With a global expansion strategy placing increasing demands on... View Details

Keywords: International Business; Organizational Change; Multinational Corporations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Global Strategy; Chemical Industry; United States

31 Mar 2008
HBS Case

JetBlue’s Valentine’s Day Crisis

good reputation and simply apologized without creating such a specific document. Flight Plan For The Future Finally, students discuss the longer-term changes they would recommend for JetBlue's operating strategy while analyzing new... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Air Transportation

08 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Building Effective R&D Capabilities Abroad

essential that managers from the highest levels of the company be involved in the decision-making process from the start. Senior scientists met with high-level managers and entered into a long series of discussions. Their first decision:... View Details

Keywords: by Walter Kuemmerle

October 2013
Case

Decision Making at the Top: The All-Star Sports eBusiness Division

By: David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto

Describes a senior management team's strategic decision-making process. The division president faces three options for redesigning the process to address several key concerns. The president has extensive quantitative and qualitative data about the process to guide him... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Teams; Performance Improvement; Planning; Mathematical Methods; Strategy