Publications

May 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Going to the Oracle: Goldman Sachs, September 2008

By: Clayton S. Rose and David Lane

On September 23, 2008, in the midst of an historic crisis in the U.S. financial markets, Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Goldman CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, said: "We are pleased that given our longstanding relationship, Warren... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Investment; Performance Capacity; Financial Services Industry; United States

August 1988 (Revised April 1998)
Case

IBM 360: Giant as Entrepreneur

By: Joseph L. Bower

Presents the ingredients that went into a major entrepreneurial shift by IBM--investing $5 billion into a new product line that would obsolete any existing computer product line offered by the competition, or by IBM itself. The economic and technical challenges of this... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Investment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

October 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Gene Research, the Mapping of Life and the Global Economy

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Juan Enriquez-Cabot

A new firm is being created to speed up the process of mapping humans, animals, and plants by combining gene technology with rapid gene identification to improve the health and well being of the human population and the productivity of crops and animals. How does one... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Technological Innovation; Business Processes; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Productivity; Welfare; Agribusiness; Genetics; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry; Biotechnology Industry

01 Mar 2021
Blog Post

Best Practices for Creating a Successful Virtual Internship

situation. Students with particularly positive experiences often remark that they felt integrated into the work of the team and that people in the organization cared about what they were working on.” To replicate this integration, consider how you can create an online... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

02 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 2

investments in green building expertise by local suppliers. These findings suggest that government procurement policies can accelerate the diffusion of new environmental standards, which require coordinated complementary investments by... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 17, 2009

care services are internationally renowned for quality. In 2008, The Clinic is restructuring the organization into teams defined around patient needs, rather than traditional medical specialties. "Patients First!" takes shape as the teams measure and report... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2007 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Offering the Right Service in the Right Place: Growing Orthopedics at the Brigham and Women's/Faulkner (BW/F) Hospitals

By: V.G. Narayanan, Michael G. Wilson and Rachel Gordon

After the merger of two local hospitals, hospital leaders much decide how to reorganize services to take advantage of newly created efficiencies. Focuses on the Orthopedics department at one of the hospitals. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost vs Benefits; Service Operations; Organizational Structure; Performance Efficiency; Competitive Advantage; Health Industry

14 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 14, 2009

structures. SWFs seem to engage in a form of trend chasing, since they are more likely to invest at home when domestic equity prices are higher, and invest abroad when foreign prices are higher. Funds see the industry P/E ratios of their... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Business History around the World

structures of large manufacturing corporations remains important, but a new generation of researchers has explored business networks, the family firm, knowledge creation and transfer, public policy and business, and a host of other... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

March 2010
Case

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007

By: Jan W. Rivkin, Michael Roberto and Ranjay Gulati

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Robert Mueller, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sought to transform the storied Bureau. The FBI had long served as both the chief law enforcement agency and the main domestic intelligence wing of the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Government Administration; National Security; Corporate Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Law Enforcement; Public Administration Industry; United States

January 2002
Case

Lycos (A): The Tripod Decision

By: Giovanni M. Gavetti, Jan W. Rivkin and Elizabeth Johnson

The Internet portal Lycos has acquired Tripod, a provider of home-page-building tools, and now must decide how to integrate the acquisition. View Details

Keywords: Integration; Organizational Structure; Situation or Environment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Internet and the Web; Decision Choices and Conditions; Web Services Industry

17 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 17, 2017

rewards) as these uncertain transition parameters jointly vary within a given uncertainty set. We show that these problems are computationally tractable if the uncertainty set has a row-wise structure. Conversely, we prove that the row-wise View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2012
Case

Growing Pains at Stroz Friedberg (Abridged)

By: David A. Garvin and Michael Norris

In late spring 2009, Stroz Friedberg co-presidents Edward Stroz and Eric Friedberg had to set growth targets for 2010. The leading global consulting firm they had built specialized in managing digital risk and uncovering digital evidence and had grown very rapidly.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Transition; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Consulting Industry

01 Jun 2023
News

Alumni and Faculty Books

every business and nonprofit segment. Conventional approaches to strategy development and problem solving no longer work―there is no stable industry or market equilibrium structure that we will return to... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

29 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist'

the ability to understand industry structure and equilibrium behavior by firms. Working in a real-world setting with interdisciplinary teams on complex problems is part of the lure of the tech sector, says... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Technology; Education

01 Jun 2007
News

Power Trip

of business. The first had to do with relocation. In the early 20th century, if you were Catholic, Jewish, or from the South, which didn’t have much of an industrial base, you would probably look for opportunities out west, where social... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

16 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

The Times Captures History of American Business

destruction to describe the never-ending dynamism of capitalism. He went on to define this process as one that "revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News

February 2011 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Countrywide plc

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

One of the world's leading investors in distressed companies, Oaktree Capital Management, is contemplating a "loan to own" investment in the debt of Countrywide plc, a financially troubled residential real estate agent based in the U.K. Only sixteen months earlier,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Management; Investment; Real Estate Industry; United Kingdom

January 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Ford Motor Company's Value Enhancement Plan

By: Andre F. Perold

In April 2000, Ford Motor Co. announced a shareholder Value Enhancement Plan (VEP) to significantly recapitalize the firm's ownership structure. Ford had accumulated $23 billion in cash reserves and under the VEP would return as much as $10 billion of this cash to... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Structure; Cash; Financial Liquidity; Policy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value; Auto Industry