Publications

April 2005
Case

Handleman Company

By: Janice H. Hammond and Kevin Dolan

Describes the organization and operations of the Handleman Co., an intermediary in the music industry that buys recorded music and resells it to mass retailers such as Wal-Mart. The company provides distribution, inventory management, retail merchandising, and category... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Music Entertainment; Cost Management; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Distribution Channels; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Online Technology; Value Creation; Music Industry

26 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 26, 2006

Working PapersScale Without Mass: Business Process Replication and Industry Dynamics Authors:Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, Michael Sorell, and Feng Zhu Abstract Since the mid-1990s, productivity growth has accelerated in the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Career Coach

Veni Arora

Veni worked in private equity and management consulting before HBS and spent her summer at eBay working with the Product team. While looking for her summer internship, she spent time evaluating multiple... View Details

Research Summary

Delegation of Authority in Oligopoly

This paper studies the consequences of product-market competition on firms' decisions to delegate more or fewer decision-making responsibilities to managers. By simultaneously addressing the choice of both competitive actions and organizational design, the paper... View Details

September 2017 (Revised July 2018)
Case

CyberArk: Protecting the Keys to the IT Kingdom

By: Raffaella Sadun, David Yoffie and Margot Eiran

CyberArk was the recognized leader in the Privileged Account Management (PAM) space, a cybersecurity subsegment it had essentially created to secure organizations’ IT systems and sensitive data. Over 17 years, the Israeli company had grown to a market capitalization of... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology; Cybersecurity; Information Technology Industry; Israel; United States

24 Apr 2022
News

Artificial Intelligence Is Stuck In A Narrow Rut

March 1995 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Co-operative Bank, The

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Srikant M. Datar

A British bank with strong roots in the cooperative movement encounters declining profitability in an increasingly competitive and deregulated financial services industry. It attempts to grow by broadening its customer base and increasing the range of products and... View Details

Keywords: Product; Competition; Expansion; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

August 2001
Background Note

Work Methods Design: Note on Time Standards

By: H. Kent Bowen

Looks at production design. Helps students observe and work with procedures and consider cost reduction ideas using a view of methods improvement. View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Management Practices and Processes; Standards; Production; Performance Improvement; Perspective

Program

High Potentials Leadership Program

cons of diverse leadership styles and strategies, you will expand your ability to build productive teams, champion change, lead in a crisis, and create a culture of high performance. This high potentials leadership program is presented... View Details

Article

Turning Waste into By-Product

By: Deishin Lee

This paper studies how a firm can create and capture value by converting a waste stream into a useful and saleable by-product (i.e., implementing by-product synergy [BPS]). We show that BPS creates an operational synergy between two products that are jointly produced.... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Innovation and Invention; Cost Management; Opportunities; Market Participation; Framework; Profit; Competition; Wastes and Waste Processing; Product; Business Processes

Find at Harvard

February 2010 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Tennant Company

By: Toby E. Stuart, Lynda M. Applegate and James Weber

Tennant, a leading producer of floor cleaning equipment, must determine how to create, finance, structure, staff, govern, measure, and manage a new venture for developing a fundamentally new product line. In 2005, Tennant Company had developed an innovative,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Product Development; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Research and Development

September 2015
Case

Eco7: Launching a New Motor Oil

By: John Quelch and Sunru Yong

Aaron Jonnerson, vice president of marketing at the automotive division of Avellin, must make marketing mix decisions for the launch of Eco7, a new environmentally-friendly motor oil. The company's performance has been mediocre, shareholder pressure is increasing, and... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Environmental Sustainability; Product Launch; Transportation; Energy Sources; Auto Industry

December 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Zespri

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Mary Louise Shelman

Grower-owned Zespri is the sole exporter of New Zealand-grown kiwifruit outside of Australia and New Zealand. Facing growing international competition, Zespri invested in consumer branding and innovation, which has led to new types of kiwifruit that taste better and... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Globalized Firms and Management; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Brands and Branding; Cooperative Ownership; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; New Zealand

2022
Chapter

Capitalism and the Environment

By: Geoffrey Jones

Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians... View Details

Keywords: History; Environment; Sustainability; Capitalism; Ethics; Business History; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Pollution; Climate Change

19 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Wrapping Your Alliances In a World Wide Web

widespread; in a survey of fifty global manufacturing companies, 62 percent reported that they used primarily manual methods to share production schedules with their partners, with one respondent stating, "Our biggest coordination... View Details

Keywords: by Andrew McAfee

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 9 Organizing to Rationalize

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to explain what the technologies of flow production with stochastic bottlenecks require and reward in organizations. I argue that organizations successfully implementing these technologies are likely to have unified governance and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Design; Management Teams; Business History

Read Now

December 1999 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Agrochemicals at Ciba-Geigy AG (B)

By: Michael L. Tushman, Wendy Smith and Daniel Radov

Focuses on Pierre Urech's efforts to change the division structure at Ciba-Geigy to facilitate the marketing of the new product. Details the relationships Urech cultivates and the strategy he pursues as "product champion." Also describes the restructuring of the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation Strategy; Innovation and Management; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Research and Development; Marketing Strategy; Goods and Commodities; Product Development; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland

December 2023
Case

Raízen: Helping to Decarbonize the World?

By: Gunnar Trumbull, Pedro Levindo, Daniel Tong and Rafaella Mazza

Raízen, the world’s largest sugar and ethanol producer, strived to find ways to expand the second-generation ethanol (E2G) market, which it pioneered. The company planned to invest R$24 billion (around $4.6 billion) in 20 production plants, with a total capacity to... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Renewable Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Production; Expansion; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Energy Industry; Brazil; Europe; North America; United States; Argentina; Paraguay

Winter 2016
Article

Improving Store Liquidation

By: Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman

This paper introduces methods for increasing the efficiency of retail store liquidation, which we define as the time-constrained divestment of retail outlets through an in-store sale of inventory. The retail industry depends extensively on liquidation, not only as a... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Operations; Investment; Retail Industry