Publications

13 Mar 2018
First Look

March 13, 2018

of firm-level total factor productivity (TFP), sales and cash-flow, higher probabilities to engage in R&D, and export. We find no significant effects for firms from industrialized economies and negative effects for firms in other... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovative Ways to Encourage Personal Savings

college roommates who worked in South Central Los Angeles as a community organizer. He was bemoaning the lack of financial services to people who lived there. As a result, I became very interested in what we might call "consumer" or... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

August 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

PayPal: The Next Chapter

By: Michael Porter, Mark Kramer and Annelena Lobb

Can a social purpose and stakeholder capitalism confer a powerful competitive advantage in the age of COVID-19? For PayPal, the answer is yes. After spinning off from eBay in a 2015 IPO, the company declared its purpose as "democratizing financial services" by ensuring... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Finance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Entrepreneurship; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry

October 1986 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Karen Leary (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Describes the evolution of the working relationship of Karen Leary, a new manager of a Merrill Lynch retail branch, and Ted Chung, a new financial consultant in the branch. Leary has some concerns about her working relationship with Chung and with his performance.... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Employee Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Performance Evaluation; Diversity; Financial Services Industry

Web

Documenting the Wartime Effort | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

into World War II gave the steel industry a financial boost from the depths of the Great Depression as well as an opportunity for image burnishing. Large corporations and government worked together on the joint goal of supplying steel for... View Details

March 2008
Case

Shangri-La Hotels

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

In November 2006, Symon Bridle, the newly appointed chief operating officer of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, was thinking about a number of organizational issues that presented challenges to Shangri-La's rapid expansion strategy. There were three major issues at hand:... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Growth and Development Strategy; Standards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Accommodations Industry; China; Europe; North America

June 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Best Buy in Crisis

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In June 2012, Best Buy was in crisis. In 1996, Best Buy overtook Circuit City as the world's leader in consumer electronics retailing; however, 18 years later, Best Buy now found this position threatened. With $51 billion in revenues, it was still the biggest CE... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Competitive Strategy; Ethics; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

01 Dec 2016
News

In My Humble Opinion: Chip Brewer (MBA 1991)

(photo by Christina Gandolfo) Perhaps not surprisingly, Oliver “Chip” Brewer III (MBA 1991) found his first job in golf while playing the game with a friend who happened to know the founder of Adams Golf. At the time, Brewer was working in the paper View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

Blog

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

experts perform their work. Yes, certain tasks can be completed correctly and completely by AI, but for those types of tasks we will see something like the Industrial Revolution, where people's jobs changed, and they were able to use new... View Details

February 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Best Buy Health: Enabling Care at Home

By: Robert S. Huckman, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Antonio Moreno, Bradley Staats and Sarah Mehta

This case explores retailer Best Buy’s decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health's strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad—the company's... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Electronics Industry; Electronics Industry; Electronics Industry; United States; Minnesota

April 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Commonwealth Care Alliance: Elderly and Disabled Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Jennifer F Baron

Individuals enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, known as dual eligibles, are among the highest-cost beneficiaries in the US. Commonwealth Care Alliance, a small nonprofit insurer and care delivery system in Massachusetts, operated under a public demonstration... View Details

Keywords: Programs; Public Sector; Alliances; Policy; Age; Service Delivery; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Welfare; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry; Massachusetts

Web

The Intersection of Public Relations and Photography | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture , 1884–1929 . “Businesses, especially manufacturing and communications industries at the forefront of both labor activism and welfare capitalism, responded... View Details

December 1998
Case

Pioneer Hi-Bred: Turning Seeds Into Factories

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey

The agricultural sector is among the preeminent information technology users in our economy," exclaimed an August 1998 Forbes ASAP survey of the U.S. economy's best and worst users of information technology (IT). The survey designated Pioneer Hi-Bred International,... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Multinational Firms and Management; Information Management; Infrastructure; Business Strategy; Information Technology; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Iowa