Publications

29 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Finding professional purpose: Building an impactful career that reflects your values with Lisa Tanzer (MBA 1993)

started my marketing career in Gillette’s brand management training program. I was excited to combine analytical rigor with creative strategy and felt well-prepared for the challenge. The program helped me realize that while I loved... View Details

February 2008 (Revised February 2008)
Case

University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

By: Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin and James Weber

The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business offered a discipline-based, flexible MBA program to full time, evening, weekend, and executive MBA students. At a time when other MBA programs were introducing significant changes to their curricula, Chicago felt... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Higher Education; Training; Management Style; Problems and Challenges; Education Industry

2022
Article

Pills in a World of Activism and ESG

By: Guhan Subramanian and Caley Petrucci

Easterbrook and Fischel’s The Economic Structure of Corporate Law advances their now famous passivity thesis, which posits that managers should remain passive in the face of an unsolicited tender offer for the company’s shares. Consistent with the broader... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Governance Controls; Business and Shareholder Relations

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March 2002 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Note on Regulatory Choices

For many firms, government interaction is expansive, influencing the conduct of firms and industry structure. The visible hand of government, in the form of a regulatory scheme, plays a role in firm affairs along with the invisible hand of market forces. Deregulation... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governance Compliance

October 1996 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Cantuga Farmworkers Clinic (A)

By: James E. Austin and Catherine Overholt

The board of directors of a rural health clinic fires its executive director. The case elaborates the evolution and progress of the clinic under this director during a period of growth and a changing health care environment. Factors contributing to and questioning the... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Resignation and Termination; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Problems and Challenges; Rank and Position; Social Enterprise; Health Industry

March 2010
Case

Sonoco Products Company (A): Building a World-Class HR Organization (Abridged)

By: David A. Thomas and Boris Groysberg

Describes the steps the vice-president of human resources takes in revamping an HR function that was noncooperative and, at times, competitive and introducing the company to the notion of HR as a strategic business partner. Explores changes made to the company's... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Organizations; Restructuring; Partners and Partnerships; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Performance

May 2017
Article

Experimental Evidence of Pooling Outcomes Under Information Asymmetry

By: William Schmidt and Ryan W. Buell

Operational decisions under information asymmetry can signal a firm's prospects to less-informed parties, such as investors, customers, competitors, and regulators. Consequently, managers in these settings often face a tradeoff between making an optimal decision and... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Decision Research; Information Asymmetry; Signaling; Decision Choices and Conditions; Alignment

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Jerry R. Green

David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy

John Leverett Professor in the University

Harvard University

Jerry Green is the John Leverett Professor in the University and the David A. Wells... View Details

Keywords: aerospace; education industry; insurance industry; professional services

February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Buddy Valastro: Cake Boss

By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden

Buddy Valastro, celebrity baker and business owner, inherited his father’s bakery—Carlo’s Bake Shop of Hoboken, New Jersey—at the age of seventeen. He had willed the shop to survive and gone on to fame through his television show, “Cake Boss”—the name most people now... View Details

Web

Race, Gender & Equity

Built For Change Advancing knowledge, educating leaders, and bridging research & practice Race, Gender & Equity Initiative The Race, Gender & Equity Initiative catalyzes and translates cutting-edge research to transform practice, enable... View Details

July 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Teaching Note

Hilti (A): Fleet Management?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jan Rivkin

This Teaching Note accompanies the case HBS No. 718-419, “Hilti (A): Fleet Management.” It provides guidelines for class discussion, as well as a board plan and transcripts of the associated videos, Hilti Fleet Management Video Supplements.
The associated case... View Details

March 2004 (Revised November 2012)
Teaching Note

P&G Japan: The SK-II Globalization Project (TN)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Traces changes in P&G's international strategy and structure, culminating in Organization 2005, a reorganization that places strategic emphasis on product innovation rather than geographic expansion and shifts power from local subsidiary to global business management.... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Trade; Globalization; Global Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Business or Company Management; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Hong Kong; Japan; Taiwan; Europe

09 Jan 2024
In Practice

Harnessing AI: What Businesses Need to Know in ChatGPT’s Second Year

This partnership offers a reimagined competitive edge, where the embrace of human-AI collaboration becomes a strategic imperative for forward-thinking firms. Jacqueline Ng Lane is an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology

Web

Initiatives & Projects - Faculty & Research

leadership development, both within HBS and through collaborations with other organizations. Managing the Future of Work The Project on Managing the Future of Work pursues research that business and policy... View Details

August 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

PalmSource 2005

By: David B. Yoffie and Barbara Mack

PalmSource is facing stiff competition from handheld, wireless handheld, and smart phone vendors in 2005. In addition, changes in leadership and corporate structure have altered its relationship with its leading customer--PalmOne. Although Palm renews its license with... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy; Alliances; Software; Market Participation; Wireless Technology; Trends; Working Conditions; Change Management; Information Technology Industry; United States

September 2013 (Revised February 2016)
Case

GlaxoSmithKline: Sourcing Complex Professional Services

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Silvia Hodges Silverstein

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) uses an innovative new approach to procuring outside legal counsel: it replaces relationship-based selection and law firms' traditional time-based billing with data-driven decision making and an online reverse auction. In... View Details

Keywords: Legal Industry; Procurement; Professional Service Firms; Pricing; Competition; Change Management; Supply Chain Management; Legal Liability; Business Processes; Legal Services Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

2001
Book

From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

This is a pathbreaking account of how the environmental movement has led to profound changes in the perceptions and practices of large-scale corporations, as shown here in the chemical and petroleum industries. The book traces how market, social, and political... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Environmental Sustainability; Public Opinion; Social Issues

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