Publications

January 1998
Case

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Competency and Skills; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Customer Relationship Management; Quality; Training; Performance Efficiency; Cost Management; Sales; System

27 Apr 2020
News

How Indie Bookstores Fought Their Way Back

Web

Student Research - Doctoral

Contagion By: Emma Frank, Kai Krautter , Wen Wu and Jon M. Jachimowicz Prior research suggests that employees benefit from highly passionate teammates because passion spreads easily from one employee to the... View Details

March 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Designing the Future of Work: Atlassian's Distributed Work Practices

By: Ashley Whillans and Gabriel Rondón Ichikawa

In early 2020, the software company Atlassian made a bold commitment: employees could work from anywhere—forever. While many tech peers reversed course on remote work, Atlassian worked to optimize their fully distributed model across 13 countries. This case follows... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Working Conditions; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Employees; Technology Industry

31 Jul 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

Keywords: by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart & Michael L. Tushman

2021
Case

Starbucks: Opposing a Local Tax to Address Homelessness while Promoting Social Justice

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

In 2018, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted 9-0 for a tax that would require companies whose annual revenue surpassed $20 million to pay the city $275 per employee per year. The tax money would then be used to combat homelessness in Seattle. In response,... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; City; Welfare; Wealth and Poverty; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Seattle

2024
Working Paper

Second- versus Third-party Audit Quality: Evidence from Global Supply Chain Monitoring

By: Maria R. Ibanez, Ashley Palmarozzo, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Capitalizing on the superior credibility and flexibility and potential lower cost of external assessments, many global buyers are relying less on their own employee (“second-party”) auditors and more on third-party auditors to monitor and prevent environmental and... View Details

Keywords: Auditing; Audit Quality; Working Conditions; Sustainability; Empirical Operations; Empirical Service Operations; Sustainability Management; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Supply Chain Management

SSRN

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December 2018
Case

The Global-Local Tension: Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao Leading with 'International Values and Local Roots' (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley

Vittorio Colao, CEO of telecommunication giant Vodafone, must respond to reports of disturbing accounting practices at two of Vodafone’s operating companies. In one case, €60 million have been misreported due to a series of failures to check manual accounting... View Details

Keywords: GLOBAL-LOCAL; Organization Culture; Global Identity; Local Identity; Accounting Discrepency; Globalization; Leadership; Trust; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizations; Identity; Local Range; Global Range; Values and Beliefs; Accounting Audits

April 2018
Case

Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. Recruit was built on the principle that the company should add value to society. To do this, it hired young and talented employees and created a... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Crime and Corruption; Transition; Globalization; Japan

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

Article

Is Saving Lives Your Task or God's?: Religiosity, Belief in God, and Moral Judgment

By: Netta Barak-Corren and Max Bazerman

Should a Catholic hospital abort a life-threatening pregnancy or let a pregnant woman die? Should a religious employer allow his employees access to contraceptives or break with healthcare legislation? People and organizations of faith often face moral decisions that... View Details

Keywords: Normative Conflict; Inaction; Indirectness; Deontology; Utilitarianism; Sunday Effect; Religion; Moral Sensibility; Decisions; Judgments

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December 2011 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Brasil Foods

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In mid-2011, the management of Brasil Foods, a leading Brazilian branded foods producer and protein exporter, is evaluating strategies for international and domestic growth. The team has just received approval from Brazil's antitrust authorities to complete the merger... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Brazil

January 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Rubbish Boys

By: Noam Wasserman and Rachel Galper

It looked like founder-CEO Brian Scudamore might not be able to pursue franchising as a growth option for his junk-removal business after all. Over the years, he had overcome many hurdles, including buying out his "too-fiery" co-founder, firing all of his employees so... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Problems and Challenges; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Franchise Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Canada; North America

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

recognize and try to stay ahead of these changes brought by scale. Here is advice for the CEO/founders of early-stage companies, but it also applies to leaders of any scaling organization, even inside a large corporate entity. Leadership changes at around 100 View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

07 Jul 2021
Book

Good News for Disgraced Companies: You Can Regain Trust

because the goals conflict,” Sucher says. Means: A company’s means are not merely its business methods, but whether it takes “the fair path to get there,” Sucher says, in creating equitable practices for employees and communicating with... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

17 Jan 2020
In Practice

6 Traits That Set Top Business Leaders Apart

unite employees around a mission "Effective leaders communicate the organization’s objective function—what are we trying to accomplish, what’s the definition of victory, how should we measure our success—constantly and broadly within... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Profile

Pam Chan

eventually landed at Facebook, becoming the first employee in its Philippine office. "It was nothing like a comfy tech campus," she says. "It was more like a little startup within a massive company. I began with an empty... View Details

Keywords: CPG; Tech

28 Mar 2024
News

Rooms with a View

Alexander Mirza (MBA 1997) has spent two decades in the hospitality industry, opening and growing major hotel brands, including Hilton, Starwood, and Caesars, with locations around the world. And with each new project, Mirza faced the same primary challenge. “It didn’t... View Details

Keywords: April White; photos by Christina Gandolfo; Hospitality

2025
Working Paper

How Do Nonprofits Use Cash Windfalls? Evidence from $5B in Unrestricted Donations

By: Jennifer Walsh

How do nonprofits use unrestricted gifts? Donations to 501(c)(3)'s are increasingly given unrestricted due to concerns that restrictions on use unduly constrain nonprofits. I study the effect of such funding on recipients using a $5B sample of MacKenzie Scott's gifts... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Budgets and Budgeting; Compensation and Benefits