Publications

May 2022
Case

Deborah Quazzo at GSV Ventures

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael D. Smith and Nicole Tempest Keller

As COVID-19 swept across the globe in 2020, the education sector faced unprecedented disruption. Schools and colleges worldwide shut down, forcing over a billion students and teachers to move to online learning. Investor interest in the EdTech space exploded as... View Details

Keywords: Edtech; Technology; Online Learning; COVID-19 Pandemic; Education; Information Technology; Venture Capital; Change Management; Strategy; Education Industry; Financial Services Industry; Chicago; California

24 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 24

adequacy, actuarial standards, accounting standards, and auditing practice. In these areas, corporate managers and financial experts such as auditors and bankers possess the technical expertise necessary for informed regulation, enjoy... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2024 (Revised July 2025)
Case

Polish Agro: Where Do We Grow From Here?

By: Willy C. Shih, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer

By July 2024, Polish Agro had grown into one of Poland’s fastest-growing agribusinesses, with €230 million in revenue, 82 employees, and operations across Northern Poland. The company supported farmers with essential agricultural inputs like fertilizers and seeds,... View Details

08 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

A Manager’s Guide to International Strategy

In the new book International Strategy: Context, Concepts, and Implications, Harvard Business School Adjunct Professor David J. Collis presents a comprehensive guide to a topic of ever-increasing relevance for managers across all sectors... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

16 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Advancing Black Talent: From the Flight Ramp to 'Family-Sustaining' Careers at Delta

Keyra Lynn Johnson. “The frontline perspective can give management important insight into the employee experience and what customers really want from the airline.” Delta has reclassified most jobs that had previously required a degree and... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Air Transportation

March 1991 (Revised April 1995)
Case

IBP and the U.S. Meat Industry

By: David J. Collis and Nancy Donohue

IBP, the largest U.S. beef and pork processor, is facing deteriorating earnings and undertakes a fundamental strategic review in 1990. Having grown from its founding in 1961 to its current position as a low cost, innovative producer of boxed beef, and more recently... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Product; Competition; Business Earnings; Geography; Vertical Integration; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

staggering scope of the findings could help put a value on the work, so senior leaders and non-tech managers at firms understand just how important hiring open source expertise is to success. The results mark among the first comprehensive... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

27 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

more important than previously thought, says Ariel D. Stern, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, where she is the Hellman Faculty Fellow in the Technology and Operations Management Unit. “Product... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Auto; Medical Devices & Supplies

04 Apr 2011
HBS Case

Reinventing the National Geographic Society

emerging. Various units operated as independent fiefdoms. In 1998, Fahey was named CEO, and the task was clear: build an organization to thrive for the next 100 years. To do so, he "assembled a management team of diverse backgrounds... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Publishing

November 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Collibra

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2008 at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Collibra was a data intelligence company that found product-market fit in the years after the global financial crisis when many companies were under pressure from consumers and governments to improve their data management... View Details

21 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 21, 2007

innovating managers will instead segment their markets by the different jobs that customers might use their products for, their probability of success will be much higher. Understanding the job is much more... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2011
Article

The New M&A Playbook

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising and Andrew Waldeck

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, yet the M&A failure rate is between 70% and 90%. Executives can dramatically increase their odds of success, the authors argue, if they understand how to select targets, how much to pay for them, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Integration

Find at Harvard

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

inside The future of the restaurant industry is especially of concern to us. We collectively share 35 years of restaurant and food industry experience, navigating our way through as waitstaff and bartenders, as managers and senior leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

15 Sep 2015
First Look

September 15, 2015

Operations Management Analytics for an Online Retailer: Demand Forecasting and Price Optimization By: Ferreira, Kris J., Bin Hong Alex Lee, and David Simchi-Levi Abstract—We present our work with an online retailer, Rue La La, as an... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Could Clean Hydrogen Become Affordable at Scale by 2030?

Hydrogen is poised to move from the sidelines of global clean energy as the industry learns to produce it more efficiently and at lower cost, according to newly published research led by Gunther Glenk, a climate fellow with Harvard Business School's Institute for the... View Details

Keywords: by Desmond Dodd; Energy; Green Technology

January 2025
Case

Hebbia: Redefining Productivity for Knowledge Workers Using AI

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Minoshka Narayan

In early 2025, George Sivulka, founder and CEO of Hebbia, reflected on the company’s rapid ascent as a pioneer in GenAI-powered productivity tools for knowledge workers. With its proprietary technology, Hebbia had redefined information retrieval and analysis and earned... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Service Delivery; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)