Publications

October 2005 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Augusta National Golf Club Controversy, The (A)

By: Herman B. Leonard, Marc J. Epstein and Melissa Tritter

The prestigious Augusta National Golf Club's secret membership is widely believed to exclude women. When feminist advocate Martha Burk receives a mysterious list of "members," she must decide how best to use this information in her efforts to crack the glass ceiling.... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Attitudes; Decision Making; Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Gender; Non-Governmental Organizations; Communication Strategy; Sports Industry

March 2004 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Journey to Sakhalin: Royal Dutch/Shell in Russia (A)

By: Rawi E. Abdelal

Operations of Royal Dutch/Shell in Russia included a strategic alliance with Gazprom, the country's natural gas monopoly, the development of the Salym oil fields in Siberia, and a small retail refilling network in St. Petersburg. Focuses on the Sakhalin II project.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Energy Generation; Foreign Direct Investment; Lawfulness; Agreements and Arrangements; Alliances; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Russia

17 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Being the Boss

Nineteen years ago, Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill wrote the first edition of her book Becoming a Manager, detailing the experiences of several first-year supervisors who were making the daunting transition from star... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

08 Sep 2015
News

Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching

December 2019
Case

The Business of Pain: Johnson & Johnson and the Promise of Opioids

By: Erik Snowberg, Trevor Fetter and Amy W. Schulman

This case is designed to provide an engrossing overview of stakeholder capitalism through a vigorous discussion of the conflicts that can arise when trying to serve multiple stakeholders. In 2007, Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) subsidiary Janssen has to decide whether or... View Details

Keywords: Opioids; Addiction; Stakeholder Capitalism; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Product Launch; Decision Making; Ethics; Social Issues; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2010
Article

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

By: Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms... View Details

Keywords: System; Information; Decisions; Cost; Opportunities; Performance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Economics; Theory; System Shocks; Rank and Position

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Online Management Course | HBS Online

decision-making. Highlights Evaluate the Process, Not the Outcome The Bay of Pigs Case Talk of the Town Case Three C's of Effective Decision Making Show Hide Details Case Studies The Bay of Pigs Trouble at... View Details

April 2008
Case

Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2008)

By: John T. Gourville

An updated "Four Products" case. This 2008 version includes: sliced peanut butter, foldable bicycle tires, high-end wooden puzzles, and artificial dirt for thoroughbred race tracks. These four products form the basis to assess the drivers of new product adoption. In... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Innovation and Invention; Product Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Adoption

August 2, 2016
Article

Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand

Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details

Keywords: Social Evaluation; Experimental Economics; Moral Psychology; Cooperation; Reputation; Decision Making

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16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

Gulati: The difference between the outside-in and inside-out perspectives is central to the book's arguments. When I began this research, I naively assumed that all firms must indeed have an outside-in orientation whereby they put their customers first in all their... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

31 Jul 2023
News

Striving for Imperfection

love this example. They care about endangered fish species, and they know that some of those get captured by fishing boats at sea. They knew that you could put video camera technology aboard those boats. They didn’t know how to translate that into View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

01 Sep 2023
News

Case Study: The Home Team

Illustration by Jon Krause Illustration by Jon Krause Brendan Kennealey (MBA 2006) wasn’t even searching for a business idea. A couple of years ago, the Wilmington, Delaware, native met up with an old friend who’d bought a new house. Over dinner this friend enumerated... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Real Estate

October 1993 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Conflict on a Trading Floor (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A junior salesperson on FirstAmerica Bank's trading floor is assisting a top salesperson, Linda, on a deal to finance the construction of a new cruise ship for Poseidon Cruise Lines. While the terms of the deal are being worked out, he realizes Linda has taken... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage

10 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

Minimum Wage Debate Is Really About Social Values

me hopeful. Q: How do people make decisions about these big economic questions? A: Economists have a very good way of thinking carefully—scientifically, you might say—about the mechanical effects of an... View Details

Keywords: by April White; Retail; Manufacturing

August 2020
Case

Gerald Chertavian

By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble

Gerald Chertavian (HBS 1992) finds himself at a personal crossroads. It is 1999--the height of the dot com-bubble--and Chertavian and his business partners have just sold their Internet-based business for $83 million. His share of the sale’s proceeds means that he has... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Personal Development and Career; Decision Choices and Conditions

February 2023
Case

Ransomware Attack at Springhill Medical Center

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan (Jason) Ni

In July, 2019, Springhill Medical Center (“SMC”) in Mobile, Alabama, fell prey to a malicious ransomware attack that crippled the hospital’s internal network systems and public-facing web page. While the hospital rushed to securely restore the network, medical... View Details

01 Jun 2023
News

Pet Project

for subscription options (with tracking). And Maev should keep in mind that the purchase decision is made at the shelf, so include key conversion claims right on the packaging. Success in DTC will make for a... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Sporting Goods, Hobby, Musical Instrument, and Book Stores; Retail Trade

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry