Publications

August 2019
Case

Preserving Trust at Care.com (A)

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Julia Kelley

Care.com was an online platform designed to match caregivers with individuals seeking care for themselves, others, and pets, through job postings, caregiver profiles, and directories of local day care centers. In March 2019, the Wall Street Journal had just published a... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Corporate Governance; Digital Platforms; Market Design; Emerging Markets; Trust; Technology Industry; United States

November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Anthology: Pivoting the Business Model

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton

In July 2014, after 18 months and eight unsuccessful product launches, the CEO of Yabbly has agreed to sell his company to a larger, well-funded startup, providing a return of capital for his investors and a home for his team. Two weeks prior to the scheduled closing,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Fairness; Valuation; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; North America; United States; Seattle

September 2016
Supplement

Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (B)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby

The (B) case documents the development of a strategy to achieve system-level impact in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape for a nonprofit focused on addressing patients' basic social needs through healthcare institutions. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Social Impact; Scaling Social Enterprise; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Outcomes; Nonprofit Scaling; Nonprofit; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

November 2015 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design

By: Ryan W. Buell

The case describes IDEO, one of the world's leading design firms, and its human-centered innovation culture and processes. It is an example of what managers can do to make their own organizations more innovative. In reaction to a rapidly changing competitive landscape,... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Innovation; Service Management; Service; Design; Service Delivery; Innovation and Management; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Peru

May 2014 (Revised November 2014)
Supplement

Houston We Have A Solution: NASA and Open Innovation (B)

By: Michael Tushman, Hila Lifshitz-Assaf and Kerry Herman

Jeff Davis, director of Space Life Sciences Directorate at NASA, has been working for several years to raise awareness amongst scientists and researchers in his organizations of the benefits of open innovation as a successful and efficient way to collaborate on... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Aerospace Industry

February 2013 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization

By: Linda A. Hill, Anthony J. Mayo and Dana M. Teppert

Iz-Lynn Chan, assistant director of retail business group and service quality and vice president of Far East retail consultancy for Far East Organization, a private real estate developer group in Singapore, raises service standards in the company's hospitality... View Details

Keywords: Hospitality; Organizational Change And Transformation; Leadership; Leading Change; Change Management; Service Industry; Singapore

August 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Swire Beverages: Implementing CSR in China

By: Christopher Marquis, G.A. Donovan and YiKwan Chu

Swire Beverage, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in China, recently created a corporate social responsibility (CSR) organization to oversee environmental, community, health and safety initiatives at the companies' nine bottling plants in China. The case considers... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Design; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; China

January 2009 (Revised May 2009)
Case

College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact

By: Stacey M. Childress and Geoff Eckman Marietta

College Summit, a nonprofit organization "committed to the day when every student who can make it in college makes it to college," was faced with an important strategic decision. After growing rapidly at more than 30% a year for the last several years, founder and CEO,... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Nonprofit Organizations; Education Industry

April 1992 (Revised February 1996)
Case

CFM International, Inc.

In April 1987 the management team of CFM International, Inc. (CFMI) was considering developing a new jet engine for the Airbus A340. The withdrawal of a competitor's engine had created an unforeseen opportunity for CFMI to re-enter a competition it had apparently lost... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Partners and Partnerships; Investment; Globalized Markets and Industries; Manufacturing Industry; Air Transportation Industry

01 Sep 2023
News

Money Does Grow on (Family) Trees

every page posted within 90 days and that the arduous task of indexing each handwritten name in the census records—almost 123 million—would be completed in seven months. In reality, it took a team of hundreds about nine months. Still, it... View Details

Keywords: April White; Illustrations by Fabio Consoli; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

Web

Health Care Courses - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

value-based health care. Value-Based Health Care Curriculum Value-Based Health Care Delivery (VBHCD) is a distinctive curriculum developed at Harvard Business School by Professor Michael Porter and the health team at the Institute for... View Details

March 2024
Case

Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble (A)

By: N. Louis Shipley and Stacy Straaberg

In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina

March 2021 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine

On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that... View Details

Keywords: September 11; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Decisions; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Growth Management; Digital Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Air Transportation Industry; Tourism Industry; San Francisco

January 2021
Case

Anodot: Autonomous Business Monitoring

By: Antonio Moreno and Danielle Golan

Autonomous business monitoring platform Anodot leveraged machine learning to provide real-time alerts regarding business anomalies. Anodot’s solution was used in various industries in order to primarily monitor business health, such as revenue and payments, product... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Knowledge Sharing; Information Management; Sales; Value Creation; Product Positioning; Israel

11 Feb 2015
HBS Seminar

EVENT POSTPONED - Ohad Barzilay, Tel Aviv University

Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

Distributor Decisions By: Isamar Troncoso , Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg June 2025 | Case | Faculty Research Education technology (edtech) company TagHive, founded in 2017, used a direct sales team and third-party distributors to... View Details

24 Feb 2016
HBS Seminar

David Brumley of Carnegie Mellon University

01 Sep 2023
News

Solving for Z

With nearly 20 years of experience as a senior human resources executive, Matthew Breitfelder (MBA 2002) has seen a lot of change in the corporate talent space. But what’s happening now looks like a tectonic generational shift. From his perch as global head of human... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; Illustrations by Doug Chayka; Administration of Human Resource Programs; Government

2011
Chapter

Developing an Effective Organization: Intervention Method, Empirical Evidence, and Theory

By: Michael Beer

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)-a platform... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Governance; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Research; Alignment; Theory; Value