Publications

2014
Book

Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World

By: John P. Kotter

Based on the award-winning article in Harvard Business Review, from global leadership expert John Kotter. It's a familiar scene in organizations today: a new competitive threat or a big opportunity emerges. You quickly create a strategic initiative in response and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Organizational Structure

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February 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Ernst & Young LLP

By: David F. Hawkins and Jacob Cohen

The history of Ernst & Young provides a platform to discuss the issues related to the sale of the consulting business as well as the founding of the legal unit. It dovetails with the issues raised at Arthur Andersen regarding the role of the Big Four accounting firms... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Conflict of Interests; Accounting Industry

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2022
Chapter

Capitalism and the Environment

By: Geoffrey Jones

Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians... View Details

Keywords: History; Environment; Sustainability; Capitalism; Ethics; Business History; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Pollution; Climate Change

22 Jul 2013
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Meeting Management Challenges in India

As Harvard Business School increasingly researches management issues around the world, India has proven a fertile ground for study. In this edition of Sharpening Your Skills, we revisit four articles where India and its managers... View Details

Keywords: Re: Tarun Khanna & Rohit Deshpande

24 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

Are Assets Only for America’s Wealthy?

enough money to prosper, low-income families' access to health benefits, their civic participation, family stability, and mental wellbeing are all diminished by their low success rate in building assets. Peter Tufano, Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

27 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?

Teresa Amabile argues that average folks deserve careful investigation, especially in the age of user innovation and crowdsourced problem-solving, when big ideas routinely come from the masses. The article appears in a forthcoming issue... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

The book Capitalism at Risk first appeared in 2011. The problems it identified with social inequality, global trade strife, and environmental degradation have only accelerated by 2020. The new edition of Capitalism at Risk, subtitled How View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Riding the Internet Fast Track

business model. If the model is characterized by increasing returns, demand begets still greater demand, as illustrated by eBay's success. A business may also benefit from significant scale economies if... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

21 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

The Parable of the Bungled Baggage And the Unhappy Customer

Late-arriving luggage proved to be a parable about customer service for Harvard Business School professor W. Earl Sasser. In this excerpted transcript from a new video CD presentation, Sasser discusses how a seemingly harmless budget trim... View Details

Keywords: by W. Earl Sasser

January 26, 2017
Article

Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned—and the Effects Are Costly

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Christopher Wallace

This article discusses the results of a survey of senior executives, middle managers, and sales people from companies across a variety of industries. The survey focused on questions about how well their companies’ strategies informed six critical elements of their... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Sales; Perception

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November 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kwame Spearman at Tattered Cover: Reinventing Brick-and-Mortar Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Kerry Herman

The case spotlights Kwame Spearman’s career-shifting decision to leave a NYC-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore, The Tattered Cover. The case lays out ways Spearman envisions a new approach... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Leadership; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Publishing Industry; Retail Industry; United States

26 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

The Airbnb Effect: Cheaper Rooms for Travelers, Less Revenue for Hotels

traditionally earned their biggest margins when rooms were scarce and customers were forced to pay higher rates—such as in Midtown Manhattan on New Year's Eve. And it's good news for travelers who don't have to pay through the roof to get a roof over their heads during... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Travel

25 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Will Machine Learning Make You a Better Manager?

buy, how we talk, and even how we feel—and use that to make predictions about how we’ll act next. As the field of machine learning (ML) has become increasingly mainstream, says Harvard Business School doctoral student Mike Teodorescu, it... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Information Technology

09 May 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 9

consider evolving into a chronic disease management company? Purchase this case:https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/317007-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 317-094 Sesame Workshop: Bringing Big Bird... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2006 (Revised January 2007)
Case

e-Types A/S

A successful young design firm faces a difficult decision: whether to compromise its creative values to win a big job. The client brief is very conservative. The company is pretty sure it can win the design competition, but the design staff hates what they think they... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Creativity

2011
Book

I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze

By: Deepak Malhotra

Now a Wall Street Journal Best-seller! If you were a mouse trapped in a maze and someone kept moving the cheese, what would you do? Over a decade ago, the best-selling business fable Who Moved My Cheese? offered its answer to the question: accept that change is... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Success; Personal Development and Career; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Creativity

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June 2017
Teaching Note

IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Ginni Rometty, who became IBM CEO in 2012, led efforts to transform the company around cognitive computing and the AI platform Watson. This Teaching Note helps instructors understand and teach the Harvard Business School case “IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Technological Change; Artificial Intelligence; Data; IBM; Watson; Internet Of Things; Innovation and Invention; Management; Sales; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Transformation; AI and Machine Learning

01 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

CEOs and Coaches: How Important is Organizational 'Fit?'

Coaches Really Matter? Is it Worth a Pay Cut to Work for a Great Manager (Like Bill Belichick)? Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and the coauthor, with... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik; Sports

July 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Mary Kay Inc.: Enriching Women's Lives while Embracing Change

By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Julia Kelley

In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at... View Details