Business Units - Publications - Faculty & Research

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

fruitful streak came to an abrupt halt with the United States financial crash in the fall of 2008. Target was hit hard—much harder, in fact, than Walmart. Five years later the company was still struggling. With more than 1,800 stores and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

August 2023
Case

Constellation Pharmaceuticals: Corporate Development at a Novel Therapeutic Company

By: Satish Tadikonda and Brad Prosek

Constellation Pharmaceuticals was a company focused on epigenetic therapies for cancer patients. Despite a promising start and an early deal with a leading biopharma company, the company weathered twin setbacks in the end of a major research collaboration and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Goals and Objectives; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

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1 Apr 2013
Interview

Restoring U.S. Competitiveness: Professor Michael Porter in an interview with Charlie Rose

By: Michael E. Porter

"There is an historic opportunity right now for business and government to work together [to restore U.S. competitiveness]." Professor Porter discusses the eight federal policy priorities that business leaders and policymakers, liberals and conservatives agree will... View Details

Keywords: U.S. Competitiveness; Competition; Policy; Global Strategy; Business and Government Relations; United States

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January 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Financing American Housing Construction in the Aftermath of War

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

At the start of WWI, the United States faced a significant housing shortage. Public officials feared the spread of disease—and even communism—in the nation's cramped urban centers where vacancy rates held near zero and families often "doubled up" in single-housing... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Bonds; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Business History; Housing; Banking Industry; United States

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28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

direction, resulting in an excessive number of brands and factories organized nationally in a Europe undergoing economic integration, and a virtually autonomous business in the United States. There were... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

28 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

Hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in the service industry often thrive or die depending on whether they provide exemplary customer service, but new research shows that the color of a customer’s skin can determine whether the... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

01 Jun 2024
News

Quantum Leap

digital computer, a room-sized behemoth that sported 18,000 vacuum tubes and resembled the unholy offspring of a fuse box and a telephone exchange when it was unveiled in 1943. “This is the complexity you need to run five qubits,” Levy says, referring to the... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Chris Sorensen; quantum computing; innovation; leadership; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

26 Nov 2019
News

The Ritual Effect

enhance feelings of control, which reduces grief; in business negotiations, enacting rituals like handshaking can increase feelings of trust, which enables better working relationships. And the list goes on: rituals can increase belonging... View Details

Keywords: rituals

13 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Do Private Equity Buyouts Get a Bad Rap?

Private equity buyouts are a polarizing financial prospect. One need only look at the name of the recent bill that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced to regulate private equity in the United States—the “Stop Wall Street Looting... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services; Banking

10 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Entrepreneurs: Lessons for Government Policy

local, regional, and national competitiveness. “Former entrepreneurs offer a positive impression of what it's like to own your own business.” In recent research, Harvard Business School professor Ramana Nanda analyzes these deeper layers... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

27 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

How One Late Employee Can Hurt Your Business: Data from 25 Million Timecards

The retail business is not for the faint of heart. Turning a consistent profit requires navigating many variables, such as hiring capable staff, ordering the right products at the right time, and complying with a litany of regulations.... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Retail

Web

Our Team - Impact Investments

Our Team Our Team Principal Investigators Shawn Cole John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration Shawn Cole is a professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business... View Details

2009
Book

The Story of American Business: From the Pages of The New York Times

By: Nancy F. Koehn

This book sketches some of the most important people and moments in the last 150 years of U.S. business history. View Details

Keywords: Business History; United States

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July 2020
Case

Driving Transformation at the Majid Al Futtaim Group

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Esel Çekin

The case opens with Alain Bejjani, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holding, anticipating on the Group’s next phase in the multi-year transformation journey and reflecting on the initiatives he implemented to create the Group’s growth-oriented culture. Founded in 1995,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; United Arab Emirates; Middle East; Dubai

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21 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity

future, 50 percent of all tasks currently done by humans could be done by machine learning and artificial intelligence,” says Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, assistant professor at Harvard Business School. Overall, that could translate into a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Information

05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

turnover among the largest business firms, characterized in the United States by the fact that only one company, General Electric, has survived in the Dow Jones Industrials index since its beginning. We are... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

01 Sep 2023
News

Hands-on Learning About Global Markets

Laryea, third from left, Dylan Soukup, Charlie Li, Arden Kreeger, and Nitzan Israel. Photos by Mercedes Sojo 2023 FGI SITES Accra, Ghana Athens, Greece Bangkok, Thailand Boston, United States* Buenos Aires, Argentina Casablanca, Morocco... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

18 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying

Keywords: by William R. Kerr, William Lincoln & Prachi Mishra

Blog

What Can You Do to Foster Gender Equity?

up over half of the college-educated workforce in the United States, for example, they are still vastly underrepresented in corporate leadership ranks. So, why haven't organizations made more progress in promoting women? I worked with a... View Details

January 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Stonewall Kitchen

By: Myra M. Hart, Victoria Winston, Kristin Lieb, Kenna Wyllie Baudin, Alison Bell and Leslie Simmons

Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders of Stonewall Kitchen, started out in 1992 with a simple business selling jams and jellies at local farmers' markets. By 2004, they had grown the company into a $25 million organization with 250 employees. They expanded their... View Details