Publications

February 2018 (Revised October 2020)
Case

The Marriott-Starwood Merger: Navigating Brand Portfolio Strategy and Brand Architecture

By: Jill Avery, Chekitan S. Dev and Laure Mougeot Stroock

In September 2016, Marriott completed its $13.3 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which added 11 brands to its already robust 19 hotel brand portfolio. Tina Edmundson, Marriott's global brand officer, was charged with making sense of the brand portfolio... View Details

Profile

Kayode Ogunro

employer. How has HBS prepared you for your new job? My job will require a substantial amount of travel to Europe and Africa and more hands on management of deals and projects than I would face with a typical investment firm. My HBS experience has definitely helped me... View Details

Keywords: Investment Management / Hedge Fund; Venture Capital / Private Equity; Financial Services; Energy / Extractive Minerals; Manufacturing

March 2008 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals: Living Healthier, Longer

Describes a set of key strategic decisions facing the scientific founder and CEO of a promising, early stage bio-pharmaceuticals company. Should the company establish a proposed alliance with a pharmaceutical firm? Should it create a nutraceuticals business in parallel... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Pharmaceutical Industry

11 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Employers Favor Men

likely to advance to the top of their fields. Women make up just 4.2 percent of CEOs at S&P 500 firms and 19.2 percent of board members. "This discrimination does not appear to be driven by gender-specific stereotypes or animus" The... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of doing things; (4) Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge; and (5)... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Sep 2016
First Look

September 27, 2016

Abstract—We survey 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms to learn how they make decisions across eight areas: deal sourcing, investment selection, valuation, deal structure,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2022
Case

Blake Sports: Evolution of the CEO and the Executive Team

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

Cameron (Cam) Barker, CEO and Founder of Blake Sports Apparel, sat in his office at his company’s headquarters in Birmingham, England, feeling stunned and disappointed. Only a few minutes prior, he had wrapped up a meeting with CFO James Ryan, a highly-respected star... View Details

Keywords: Leadership And Managing People; Leadership Skills; Team Dynamics; Team Effectiveness; Team Leadership; Team Management; Leadership Style; Leadership; Management; Management Skills; Management Style; Talent and Talent Management; Groups and Teams; United Kingdom

October 1984
Case

NIKE (D): Leisure Shoes

Focusing on middle manager Harry Leidboldt, this case presents a clear-cut strategic issue--should Nike move into the leisure shoe business? The teaching objective is to first view the decision as a business problem--can Nike succeed in this business? and secondly, to... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Management Teams; Product Development; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

Web

Program Requirements - Doctoral

required to complete the following: Consumer Behavior (HBS 4630) Marketing Models (HBS 4660) Micro Topics in Organizational Behavior (HBS 4882) Behavioral Approaches to View Details

Program

Authentic Leader Development

Summary Companies need to be developing leaders who exhibit high standards of integrity, take responsibility for their actions, and make decisions based on enduring principles rather than short-term... View Details

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Challenge of the Multi-site Nonprofit

constructive co-existence of unit autonomy and organizational affiliation, organizations must have in place a clear process for making decisions as to who will perform the functions necessary for the system,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

July 2006 (Revised July 2007)
Case

C.K. Coolidge, Inc. (Abridged)

Coolidge (CKC), a chemical manufacturer, is being sued for patent infringement. The plaintiffs are the patent holder and its sole licensee, who is also a CKC competitor. An analyst at CKC has done a breakeven decision analysis from CKC's perspective, balancing going to... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Courts and Trials; Patents; Analysis; Decision Choices and Conditions; Lawsuits and Litigation; Chemical Industry

July 1989 (Revised December 1990)
Case

CIBA-GEIGY Pharmaceuticals: Pharma International

By: John A. Quelch

Examines the decision by Pharma International on whether to launch an antimalarial product in Nigeria and, if so, how that should be implemented. Involves commercial, ethical, and policy considerations. Rich in situation assessment data, the case refers to criticism of... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Product Launch; Policy; Developing Countries and Economies; Pharmaceutical Industry; Nigeria

15 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Policy Bundling to Overcome Loss Aversion: A Method for Improving Legislative Outcomes

Keywords: by Katherine L. Milkman, Mary Carol Mazza, Lisa L. Shu, Chia-Jung Tsay & Max H. Bazerman

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In May, Hall convened what he hopes will be a yearly conference of scholars now working in the burgeoning field of incentive design, which draws lessons from both microeconomics and View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

July 2025
Module Note

Supply and Demand for Strategists

By: Quan Le, Quan Le and Quan Le

This module note introduces students to the foundational microeconomic principles of supply and demand. It uses the example of an aluminum plant (specifically, production quantity and shutdown decisions) to discuss short-run vs. long-run decisions, marginal costs, sunk... View Details

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Transportation; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Aerospace Industry