Publications
Publications
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(2,681)
- Faculty Publications (289)
- December 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Levenger Company
By: Myra M. Hart, Kristin Lieb and Victoria Winston
The Leveens started a high-end catalog business as a small home-based venture in 1987. It grew into a nationally recognized, $60 million company, offering products that ranged from unique pens and pencils to leather briefcases and fully furnished offices. In 1999, it... View Details
- July 2004 (Revised October 2018)
- Case
Opium and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century
By: Geoffrey Jones, Elisabeth Koll and Alexis Gendron
This case examines the role of Jardine Matheson, a trading company founded by two Scottish merchants, in the opium trade between India and China during the nineteenth century. The two Opium Wars fought between Western powers and China, which sought to stop opium... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)
By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Indra Reinbergs
Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details
- October 2003 (Revised January 2009)
- Case
Transforming Matsui Securities
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Masako Egawa, Jamie Ladge and Haruki Umezawa
Michio Matsui, president and CEO of Matsui Securities, transformed a small regional securities company into a leading player in the online broking industry in Japan. Discusses how he transformed the business model and culture of the company and took advantage of the... View Details
- June 2003 (Revised December 2004)
- Case
Molded Dimensions, Inc.
By: H. Kent Bowen, Virginia Fuller and Doren Spinner
Mike Katz, an MBA with several years of manufacturing management experience, talks about purchasing Molded Dimensions, Inc. (MDI), a Wisconsin-based plastics manufacturer, with his wife Linda, who also has a manufacturing background. The case describes at length... View Details
- 2003
- Book
When You Say Yes But Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies
By: Leslie Perlow
“Saying yes when you really mean no” is a problem that haunts organizations from start-ups to multi-nationals. It exists across industries, levels, and functions. And it’s exacerbated by a down economy, when the fear of losing one’s job is on everybody’s mind and the... View Details
- March 2003 (Revised January 2006)
- Case
Threshold Sports
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Todd H Thedinga
Describes the sales, marketing, and operating issues facing Threshold Sports, a small cycling event management company that produces the Pro Cycling Tour. Examines the issues facing the company as it approaches breakeven and attempts to grow the business substantially.... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised December 2005)
- Case
Susan Griffin: Formulation of a Long-Term Investment Strategy
By: Dwight B. Crane and Julia Stevens
Susan Griffin, owner and cofounder of a small manufacturing company, is formulating a long-term investment strategy. Griffin plans to sell her $10 million company and invest the revenue. She must decide how to allocate her investment so that she can rely entirely on... View Details
- December 2002 (Revised November 2003)
- Case
Tympani Board, The
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
Mike Tarkington, a partner at Reality Venture Partners, must recommend a course of action to his colleague, Steve Bonhomme. Bonhomme is trying to decide whom he should put on the board of a company that is acquiring one of Reality's portfolio companies. Reality will... View Details
- October 2002 (Revised May 2004)
- Case
Starbucks and Conservation International
By: James E. Austin and Cate Reavis
Starbucks, the world's leading specialty coffee company, developed a strategic alliance with Conservation International, a major international environmental nonprofit organization. The purpose of the alliance was to promote coffee-growing practices of small farms that... View Details
- September 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2002
Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) is an investment management firm that prides itself on basing its investment strategies on sound academic research. Many of the best-known finance research papers of the past two decades (especially those by Eugene Fama and Kenneth... View Details
- September 2002 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
Environmental Power Corporation: Changing Manure Into Gold?
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Laure Mougeot Stroock
In 2002, Environmental Power Corp. (EPC), a small company developing renewable energy projects, was attempting to commercialize its "digester," a facility that extracted methane from manure, reduced manure's environmental impact, and generated electricity. The company... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Kendall Square Research Corporation (A) (Abridged)
By: William J. Bruns Jr. and F. Warren McFarlan
Kendall Square Research was a small competitor in the supercomputer industry. Sales grew rapidly in 1992 and early 1993, and the company sold stock to the public for the first time. Analysts forecasted higher earnings for 1993, then the company's revenue recognition... View Details
- January 2002 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Space Data Corporation
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Jay Wynn
Space Data Corp. plans to partner with the U.S. National Weather Service to place transceivers on weather balloons and thereby create a national mobile communications network. The company is in the late development stages and is planning to launch a regional test that... View Details
- December 2001
- Case
Sarah Vickers-Willis: Career Decisions (A)
By: Myra M. Hart, Lynda M. Applegate, Sarah Harden and Susan Saltrick
Sarah Vickers-Willis, HBS MBA 1999, faces a critical career decision: Does she redirect the Internet start-up she helped found or join in shaping a for-profit firm with a social mission? Sarah, a young Australian business executive, has always strived to "find space"... View Details
- December 2001 (Revised June 2002)
- Case
Monsanto: Technology Cooperation and Small Holder Farmer Projects
By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and Stephanie Oestreich
As the leading plant technology company in the global food system, how can Monsanto share this technology with small-sale producers and not-for-profit researchers and institutions? View Details
- December 2001
- Case
Qwest Communications International Inc.
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Christopher Hackett
Describes the evolution of Qwest from a small fiber-optic construction firm in 1996 to a global telecommunications giant in 2001. Focuses on Qwest's pivotal acquisition of "Baby Bell" US West, a regional Bell operating company many times Qwest's size. Discusses the... View Details
- August 2001 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Surface Logix
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael J. Roberts and Kim Slack
Describes a start-up in the field of nano technology--very small physical structures measured in the billionths of a meter. The company, Surface Logix, has assembled a portfolio of intellectual property and completed some of the R&D work required to develop actual... View Details
- August 2001 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
Operations at the Donner Company
By: H. Kent Bowen
A small manufacturer of circuit boards faces product and operations-management problems. This case analyzes the production capacity at various stages and examines bottlenecks and product flow decisions. A detailed look at the problems and a discussion of the tools and... View Details