Publications

August 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Kemps LLC: Introducing Time-Driven ABC

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Kemps is making a strategy shift: from being focused on fulfilling customer requests to becoming the best cost dairy producer in the industry. Its existing manufacturing cost system, however, fails to capture the costs associated with handling special flavors, small... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Cost Accounting; Managerial Roles; Cost Management; Earnings Management; Business Strategy; Time Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Decisions; Food and Beverage Industry

June 2018
Case

Forta Furniture: International Expansion

By: John A. Quelch and Karthik Easwar

The Forta Furniture case highlights the need to consider new market expansion to grow a firm. It demonstrates that simply doing what has always been done is not sustainable when other competitors enter the market with differentiated or potentially superior offerings.... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Global Range; Decision Making; Analysis; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Expansion

Teaching Interest

Short Intensive Program (SIP): Agile at Scale: From OKR's and Agile to Execution Excellence

What do you want to get out of your remaining time at HBS, your career and life-plan to make an impact, starting from Day 1 post-HBS? By developing tools to drive your personal success and strategy at HBS, in this interactive immersion, we will dive into how the... View Details

26 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way to Go to Market

discuss the three disciplines of channel management and why they are important? A: The three disciplines are mapping; building and editing; and aligning and influencing. The first discipline, mapping, is undertaken at an industry level to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2017
Working Paper

International Business and Emerging Markets: A Long-Run Perspective

By: Geoffrey Jones

This working paper explores long-run patterns in the strategies of international business in developing countries. There was a massive wave of Western multinational investment in the developing world during the first wave of globalization before the 1920s. The... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Developing Countries and Economies; History; Emerging Markets; Problems and Challenges

SSRN

Read Now

September 1994 (Revised May 1995)
Case

Time Life, Inc. (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Jonathan West

Time Life has historically been a continuity book publisher, selling 20-volume book series via direct mail. Now, however, music and video/TV divisions have been added, and the CEO is trying to craft a strategy that will align the divisions so they can produce... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Business Divisions; Horizontal Integration; Production; Creativity; Alignment; Advertising; Publishing Industry

2011
Chapter

Developing an Effective Organization: Intervention Method, Empirical Evidence, and Theory

By: Michael Beer

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)-a platform... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Governance; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Research; Alignment; Theory; Value

23 May 2011
News

Winning in Emerging Markets: Spotting and Responding to Institutional Voids

07 Sep 2021
News

Focus on Health and Equity to Meet 2026 Climate Goal, Advises Sustainability Committee

20 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com

line of research “technology reemergence.” It began with his study of the Swiss watch industry, which collectively reinvented itself (and thus survived) in the wake of digital watches. Five years ago, he set out to discover how independent bookstores View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel (with video by Amelia Kunhardt); Retail

James I. Cash

Professor Cash received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Texas Christian University; a Master of Science in Computer Science from Purdue University's Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Management Information... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; computer; e-commerce industry; financial services; health care; information technology industry; software

November 2002 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Circles: Series D Financing

By: Paul W. Marshall and Kristin Lieb

Circles, a corporate concierge company on the verge of profitability, must make a decision whether to take a D-round venture capital despite ever-changing and ever-worsening terms. A four-year-old company with several major clients, it has met its business plan... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Financing and Loans; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Negotiation Process; Venture Capital; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

Guhan Subramanian is the Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and the Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School. He is the first person in the history of Harvard... View Details

2016
Chapter

Nudging as a Tool for Leaders

By: Max Bazerman

BOOK ABSTRACT: Jewish organizational life is inundated with publications on organizational change and effective leadership, but from mutually exclusive sources: business and organizational studies, on the one hand, and Jewish studies, on the other. One addresses... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Leadership; Civil Society or Community; Religion; Business and Community Relations

Find at Harvard

March 2007 (Revised December 2008)
Case

Green Dot Public Schools: To Collaborate or Compete?

In order to execute a strategy to transform the entire 768-school Los Angeles public school district, Green Dot Public Schools, a nonprofit charter school management organization with 10 high-performing high schools around Los Angeles, is faced with a crucial choice... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Competition; Cooperation; Los Angeles

June 2007 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Thomas J. Watson, IBM and Nazi Germany

By: Geoffrey Jones, Grace Ballor and Adrian Brown

Considers the strategy of U.S.-owned IBM, then a manufacturer of punch cards, in Nazi Germany before 1937. Opens with IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson meeting Adolf Hitler in his capacity as President of the International Chamber of Commerce. IBM had acquired a German company... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Values and Beliefs; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Germany; United States

07 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

Improving Brand Recognition in TV Ads

diminishing audiences. Theories abound as to the most effective strategy for crafting a TV commercial—where and how often to place a brand in the ad frame. Some suggest using small, nonintrusive instances, while others recommend the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Media & Broadcasting; Entertainment & Recreation

June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble

What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details

April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Infrastructure; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms