Publications

December 2022
Case

To Feed the Planet: Juan Luciano at ADM

By: Joshua D. Margolis, David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Stacy Straaberg and James Weber

In December 2022, Juan Luciano, Chairman and CEO of agribusiness and nutrition giant ADM, considered the next phase of the historic company’s future. Beginning in 2011 when he joined as COO and moving into his tenure as CEO in 2015, Luciano led a transformation of ADM... View Details

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

Culture ; Organizational Structure ; Performance Efficiency ; Sports Industry ; Entertainment and Recreation Industry ; United States Citation Educators Related Hill, Linda A., James I. Cash, and Lydia Begag. "Joe Mazzulla and the Boston... View Details

July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed

This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details

Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East

12 May 2021
Book

The Hard Truth About Being a CEO

Fubini, a senior lecturer in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School, poured that knowledge, along with a list of lessons learned from researching leaders past and present into the book... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

27 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

workforce is, says a recent paper by Harvard Business School researchers. Even when a company’s numbers aren’t ideal, their transparency sends the message that they’re trying to change, the HBS authors write. “There’s definitely a... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

16 Nov 2021
HBS Case

How a Company Made Employees So Miserable, They Killed Themselves

Markets Unit at HBS. The cases hold a crucial lesson for business leaders: Tormenting workers can result in dire consequences. While the cases describe an extreme example, Montgomery wonders if the improper... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

10 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Perspectives on Anti-Racism in the HKS Curriculum

In fall 2020, the Harvard Kennedy School incorporated a two-week module on Race and Racism in the Making of the United States as a Global Super power into the MPP core curriculum. The school created this module in response to calls by the... View Details

November 2009 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Crisis and Reform in Japan's Banking System (A)

By: Thierry Porte, Rawi E. Abdelal, Laura Alfaro and Jonathan Schlefer

In 1997, amidst Japan's ongoing financial problems, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto sought to restructure the financial sector to make it more transparent and globally competitive. He hoped that this effort, dubbed the "Big Bang" after the British financial... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; Banks and Banking; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; Japan

Web

Technology & Innovation - Faculty & Research

and Data Are Revolutionizing Business By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani When Google bought Nest, a maker of digital thermostats, for $3.2 billion just a few months ago, it was a clear indication that digital transformation and... View Details

August 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Jones Lang LaSalle: Reorganizing around the Customer (2005)

By: Ranjay Gulati and Lucia Menzer Marshall

Peter Roberts, CEO of Jones, Lang, LaSalle (JLL) Americas division, has been charged with expanding the company's presence in its core geographic markets while simultaneously growing its corporate account business. Roberts and his task force have narrowed their options... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Real Estate Industry

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

high employee turnover for many years. What’s wrong with a low-retention HR strategy? What do you think? To read more: Wayne F. Cascio, The High Cost of Low Wages, Harvard Business Review, December 2006, pp. 23-33. See also Cascio’s... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Retail; Apparel & Accessories; Consumer Products; Fashion

June 2018
Article

Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

By: John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning

Racial segregation between American workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase has happened alongside the declines in within-establishment occupational segregation on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of... View Details

Keywords: Firm Entry; Stratification; Segregration; Entrepreneurship; Business Ventures; Employees; Diversity; Race; Segmentation; United States

2020
Working Paper

An Executive Order Worth $100 Billion: The Impact of an Immigration Ban's Announcement on Fortune 500 Firms' Valuation

By: Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Britta Glennon

On June 22, 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) that suspended new work visas, barring nearly 200,000 foreign workers and their dependents from entering the United States and preventing American companies from hiring skilled immigrants using H-1B or L1... View Details

Keywords: Visa; Foreign Workers; Fortune 500; Immigration; Policy; System Shocks; Business Ventures; Valuation

SSRN

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June 2016
Case

Big Spaceship: The Evolving Agency

By: Boris Groysberg and Matthew G. Preble

This case discusses the evolution of Big Spaceship, an advertising and marketing agency, from a product-focused business to a relationship-oriented one as clients seek deeper and more meaningful long-term partnerships. The 15-year-old company had already evolved... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Social Media; Advertising Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Integrating Beam Suntory (A)

By: David G. Fubini, Rawi Abdelal and David Lane

The spring 2014 acquisition of U.S. alcoholic spirits maker Beam Inc. by Japan’s Suntory Holdings vaulted Suntory from 15th to third-largest international spirits company in the world. Yet Suntory had borrowed nearly the entire $16 billion purchase price, and relied on... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Communication; Borrowing and Debt; Globalization; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Retention; Leadership; Supply Chain; Organizational Structure; Ownership; Relationships; Conflict and Resolution; Integration; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; United States; Chicago

07 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Dividends from Schumpeter’s Noble Failure

chapters in seminars. That so enormous an achievement was the product of lonely research tells what a great scholar Schumpeter was."4 The design of Business Cycles—a three-country study of the United... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

December 2022 (Revised May 2024)
Background Note

Brief Note on Staggered Boards

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

This background note discusses the evolution, use, and prevalence of staggered boards. By comparison with unitary boards whose members are all elected annually for one-year terms, staggered boards are divided into subsets of directors, with one subset up for election... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business History; Trends; Decision Choices and Conditions; United States