Publications

January 2022
Case

Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen

By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details

Keywords: Green Hydrogen; Energy; Climate Change; Supply Chain; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology; Projects; Alliances; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

2008
Working Paper

Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?

By: James E. Austin and Herman B. Leonard

What happens when small iconic socially-oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but also pose unusually difficult challenges because... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Management Style; Agreements and Arrangements; Social Enterprise; Social Issues

Read Now

11 Mar 2009
HBS Case

The Energy Politics of Russia vs. Ukraine

domestic and internecine dynamics affect the management of a state-controlled company. "Reinserting itself in the energy sector, the Russian state has installed a... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Energy; Utilities

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

bankruptcy poses several questions. How did the board and management of a great company ever allow this extraordinary situation to develop? It is... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

May 2016 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Olivia Lum: Wanting to Save the World

By: Geoffrey Jones and Essie Alamsyah

This case considers the entrepreneurial career of Olivia Lum, who founded the Singaporean water company Hyflux in 1989. An orphan born in Malaysia, Lum provides a rare case of an entrepreneurial success in a country whose economic success has primarily rested on... View Details

May 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Coats: Supply Chain Challenges

By: Willy C. Shih and Adina Wong

Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Supply Chains; Digital; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia

Web

Strategy - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Strategy Strategy Strategy Explained Business Strategy Creating a Successful Strategy Corporate Strategy The Role of Leaders Related Topics Strategy Some companies perform better than others, View Details

31 May 2023
News

Alumni Achievement Awards 2023

out of a chemistry lab to hear John Kenneth Galbraith, and I fell in love with economics.” HBS takeaways: “Whether you’re a manager or a prime minister, I learned the... View Details

Keywords: leadership; management; work-life balance

May 2019
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

09 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time to Reset Decision-Making in Your Organization

unforeseen problems or opportunities. In doing so, they need to balance flexibility and speedy reaction times with long-term strategic focus. It is difficult to get this balance right! When surveyed on execution challenges, 29 percent... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

01 Dec 2000
News

The Rites of Autumn

Once again, the weather cooperated for fall reunions with clear skies and mild temperatures welcoming alumni back to campus. On September 21-24, some fourteen hundred graduates and guests from the MBA... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

04 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

The Real Cost of Bribery

understanding of the benefits of bribery—facilitating entry into a market, for starters," says Serafeim, an assistant professor in the Accounting and View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Benetton Group S.p.A., 2000

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2000, Benetton was one of the leading mass fashion competitors in the world with approximately $1.9 billion in sales across 5,500 stores in 120 countries. But the company's fortunes seemed to be on the wane. Operating profits had fallen 9% from the prior year to... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Strategic Change; Strategic Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Performance Consistency; Management Teams; Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Italy

02 Nov 2016
What Do You Think?

Are Employees Becoming Job 'Renters' Instead of 'Owners'?

“It may not be possible for every employee (to) value the company as if it were his own. The next best thing is to make the customer the focus of everyone’s work. When customer service is enculturated... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Dec 2022
News

December 2022 Alumni and Faculty Books and Podcasts

world’s largest and most trusted investing institutions, Vanguard serves over 30 million clients, manages more than eight trillion dollars, and is an influential industry... View Details

February 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Merck: Global Health and Access to Medicines

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

The case describes the effort of Merck, a global leader in pharmaceuticals, in making available its medicines to the poor. The challenge for the company (or for that matter, any pharmaceutical company) is how to integrate its business strategy with its corporate social... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Poverty; Business Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

10 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 10, 2017

relevant leading indicators and coach/develop selling behaviors. Thus managing sales performance and not only reviewing quotas and after-the-fact... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2012 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Milwaukee (A): Making of a World Water Hub

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

Starting in 2007 Milwaukee leaders from different areas (large established companies, civic organizations, public sector, academia, and entrepreneurs) negotiated a path for converting the region into a global water hub to address economic and environmental concerns.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Growth Management; Business or Company Management; Leading Change; Wisconsin

2012
Case

Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang

With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details

Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Management Controls; China; China