Publications

January 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

The Olmos Project: Value Creation and Value Capture

By: John Macomber, Fernanda Miguel, Laura Urdapilleta and Valeria Moy

Private investment in public infrastructure can be encouraged when there are multiple avenues to capture and to share the value created by such a project. Gains in the market value of land adjacent to projects are not customarily channeled back into defraying the... View Details

Keywords: Value Capture; Infrastructure; Decision Making; Agribusiness; Value Creation; South America; Peru

2013
Case

Innovation and Development of China Machine Press in the New Century

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ning Jia and Guo Jia

China Machine Press (CMP), founded in 1952, is a leading multi-field, multi-discipline and multimedia publishing group in China with large scale, comprehensive and specialized business that integrates paper media, audiovisual media and online media, and combines... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organizational Structure; Strategy; China; China

Web

About - Business & Environment

Director Lynn Schenk is the Director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School. In this role, Lynn applies her broad understanding of the intersection of business and climate change. She is a strategic thinker and View Details

30 Jun 2022
HBS Case

Peloton Changed the Exercise Game. Can the Company Push Through the Pain?

through the roof,” Dolan says. “Then they hit a lot of bumps.” Backlash from a holiday 2019 ad foreshadowed problems to come. In the ad, a fictional husband gifts his wife a Peloton, and the wife documents her yearlong use of the bike, View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Media & Broadcasting; Health; Bicycle

Blog

Take Control of Your Personal Brand

ideas, but if you don't take the lead on the parts you CAN control, those ideas will be formed by what people think they know about you, perhaps based on stereotypes, on first impressions, or on what other people have said about you when... View Details

24 Oct 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Startup or Established Company? Which Is Best for You?

Julia B. Austin Industry veterans doing their first startup. Founders coming from mature companies with no startup experience can have big company confidence, be great at hiring and leading teams, but lack scrappiness to get a Minimum... View Details

Keywords: by Julia B. Austin

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

conditions? What’s wrong with a conscious pursuit of a low-retention strategy if it is based on providing exciting, demanding jobs, even if they lead to “burn out” among some employees? Is it a problem of sustainability? After all,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Web Services; Retail; Apparel & Accessories; Consumer Products; Fashion

June 2004 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Scientific-Atlantia (S-A), a leading manufacturer of cable TV equipment, is confronting strategic challenges in mid-2004. For decades, cable operators have faced high switching costs that have locked them into exclusive supply relationships with either S-A or its... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Competition; Industry Structures; Television Entertainment; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Manufacturing Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Most leadership books are written for people who are already labeled as “leaders”—corporate execs, high-ranking managers, entrepreneurs. They may not speak to the underrepresented young person or uncommon experienced person with a dream to create change in the... View Details

07 Jul 2011
What Do You Think?

So We Adapt. What’s the Downside?

investment, for example)." As C. J. Cullinane put it, "we have to be adaptable and flexible but Too much adaptability can lead to lack of direction " RT said that there is "No shame in revising ideas—publicly and to... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

Swedish capitalism is like.” Could this lead to the end of the high-tax “Swedish model” that like-minded nations have come to admire? Harvard Business School Professor Debora Spar, who has analyzed Sweden extensively, says no, the Swedish... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

April 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Turnaround at Mattel, 2017

By: Ted Berk

Just nine months into her new role as chief executive of Mattel, the world's leading toy maker, Margo Georgiadis faces a set of unexpected, inter-related decisions in the fall of 2017. Mattel's performance had been lagging for a number of years, and Georgiadis had been... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Takeover; Leading Change; Financial Condition; Decision Making; Transformation

17 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Venture Capital Data: Opportunities and Challenges

Keywords: by Steven N. Kaplan and Josh Lerner; Financial Services; Banking

Research Summary

Energy Strategy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Forest L. Reinhardt is writing cases and other materials on the strategic problems and opportunitites faced by firms in the energy industry. Significant economies of scale and scope, combined with rapid technological change, present firms in the industry with a... View Details

July 19, 2021
Article

Do Most Family Businesses Really Fail by the Third Generation?

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Perhaps the most commonly-cited statistic about family businesses is their failure rates. Most articles or speeches about family businesses start with some version of the “three-generation rule,” which suggests that most don’t survive beyond three generations. But that... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Success; Perception

Register to Read

December 2017
Case

Charity or Bribery?

By: Eugene Soltes and Brian Tilley

Filip Kowalski, a senior manager at the pharmaceutical company Healthgen, leads sales for the firm’s Polish division. While pitching Healthgen’s products, he develops a relationship with a director of a regional health fund who also runs a private foundation. After a... View Details

Keywords: Bribery; Crime and Corruption; Law; Ethics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States; Europe

November 2016 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Deutsche Bank: Structured Retail Products

By: Boris Vallée and Jérôme Lenhardt

Describes how Deutsche Bank, a leading European bank, is deciding whether or not to launch a new structured retail product in Germany: an autocallable note. Will this product find a market and how does it fit into the bank’s product portfolio? The case investigates how... View Details

September 2016
Supplement

ZenRecruit: Sales Coaching and Performance Reviews

By: Mark N. Roberge

Amara Kaggwa leads the small but rapidly expanding sales team at ZenRecruit, a recruiting software application used by small businesses. Armed with six months of sales performance metrics, Kaggwa is preparing for her monthly performance conversations with two... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Salesforce Management; Applications and Software; Employees; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry

September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

ZenRecruit: Sales Coaching and Performance Reviews

By: Mark Roberge

Amara Kaggwa leads the small but rapidly expanding sales team at ZenRecruit, a recruiting software application used by small businesses. Armed with six months of sales performance metrics, Kaggwa is preparing for her monthly performance conversations with two... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Sales