Publications

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January 1991 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Black Caucus Groups at Xerox Corp. (A)

In 1970 Xerox had a very progressive affirmative action program yet, once hired, black employees faced serious problems, due both to overt discrimination and to their exclusion from the informal networks of support, information and mentoring that the other salespeople... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Alliances; Race Characteristics; Employees; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; United States

July 2011
Case

Teach Plus: Mobilizing a New Generation of Teacher Leaders

By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie J. Creary

This case profiles the evolution of Teach Plus, a non-profit organization founded on the premise that in order for public schools to continuously improve urban student achievement, teaching must become a career that motivates and retains effective early career... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Decision Making; Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Cambridge; Boston

Article

California Fair Trade: Antitrust and the Politics of 'Fairness' in U.S. Competition Policy

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

In the decades before World War II, U.S. antitrust law was anything but settled. Considerable pressure for antitrust revision came from the states. A perhaps unlikely leader, Edna Gleason, organized California's retail pharmacists and coordinated trade networks to... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Fairness; Laws and Statutes; Policy; United States

Find at Harvard

29 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 29, 2007

Working PapersEconomic Catastrophe Bonds Authors:Joshua D. Coval, Jakub W. Jurek, and Erik Stafford Abstract The central insight of asset pricing is that a security's value depends on both its distribution of payoffs across economic... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

centralization can improve complex problem-solving in a shifting environment because it helps preserve diversity of ideas and enables a core to elevate the best ones, as long as two-way communication exists. One way to preserve that... View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

2015
Book

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details

19 Apr 2016
First Look

April 19, 2016

forthcoming Journal of Marketing Research Does 'Liking' Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes By: John, Leslie K., Oliver Emrich, Sunil Gupta, and Michael I. Norton Abstract—Does “liking” a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

new product plans. Such decisions are either centralized near the top of the corporate ladder or decentralized and delegated to the top of a particular business unit. And the decision makers often depend on ERP software, which facilitates... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

December 2004 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Intel Research: Exploring the Future

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

It is 2004 and David Tennenhouse, the director of Intel Research, is reviewing the organization he has built since 2000. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the "silicon roadmap" that drove most of Intel's R&D efforts.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Performance Evaluation; Venture Capital; Technology Networks; Semiconductor Industry; United States

25 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Being a Team Player: Why College Athletes Succeed in Business

“The question is how important those networks and friendships are later in life,” Gompers says. “It's something we definitely want to explore.” There may also be implications for diversity, equity, and inclusion in corporations and... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

that a leading affiliate network could have invoked an optimal payment delay to eliminate 71% of fraud without decreasing profit. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-072.pdf Secrets of the Academy: The Drivers of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2006 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Atheros Communications

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lauren Barley

Managers at Atheros, a leading provider of wireless local area network chipsets, must decide whether to join a special interest group (SIG) proposed by Intel to end an impasse over standards for the 802.11n (11n), the next generation of "Wi-Fi" technology. Two factions... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Standards; Wireless Technology; Semiconductor Industry; United States

November 2018
Case

Goldman Sachs: The 10,000 Small Businesses Program

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Aldo Sesia

In 2008, Goldman Sachs started the 10,000 Small Businesses program to help small businesses in the United States by providing education and a network of support—at no cost —and access to capital. It required the firm to create a new business ecosystem with a wide... View Details

Keywords: Ecosystem; Public/private Partnership; Small Business; Programs; Education; Partners and Partnerships; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

June 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Exchange-Traded Funds at Vanguard (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Steven Vickers

Vanguard Group management, led by CEO John Brennan, was considering whether to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in early 2000. ETFs, first created in the early 1990s, combined aspects of traditional mutual funds and closed-end funds. The US ETF industry had reached... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development Strategy; Experience and Expertise; Market Entry and Exit; Network Effects; Profit; Business and Shareholder Relations; Product Launch; Asset Management; Distribution Channels; Ownership; Financial Services Industry; United States

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

demographics, first in the US and later throughout much of the world. The other face of the platform looks toward a wide network of 6,000 of those once-struggling small clothing factories in China. In this way, SHEIN acts as the... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

December 2022
Case

Mission Produce in 2022

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Founded by CEO Steve Barnard in 1983, California-based Mission Produce was a leading supplier of Hass avocados with a global sourcing, marketing, and distribution network and $892 million in 2021 sales. Barnard had been influential in the global avocado trade’s... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; California; Peru; Guatemala; Colombia; Mexico; Chile

2024
Working Paper

Hidden Alpha

By: Manuel Amman, Alexander Cochardt, Lauren Cohen and Stephan Heller

This paper documents the central role of hidden connections between fund managers and firm officers in financial markets, drawing on an extensive dataset of over 100 thousand manually identified Facebook profiles and their 35 million Facebook friends. Our findings... View Details

Keywords: Returns; Investment Return; Networks

Read Now

18 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 18, 2008

leadership is useful in identifying potentially effective spreaders of WOM among very loyal customers, it is less useful for the sample of less loyal customers. We suggest a measure of one's social network breadth may help to identify... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2012 (Revised May 2013)
Case

ASUSTeK and the Google Nexus 7 Tablet

By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang

Days after Jerry Shen introduced a new tablet computer at the Consumer Electronics Show, a Google meeting convinced him to go with a lower price point and co-branding as the Nexus 7. While his company would have a premier position at launch, companies like Samsung... View Details