Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,594)
- Faculty Publications (382)
- November 2000 (Revised December 2000)
- Case
Loewen Group Inc., The
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jose Camacho
A publiclytraded funeral home and cemetery consolidator faces imminent financial distress. The company has aggressively grown through use of debt. Restructuring the debt is potentially very costly to creditors, shareholders, suppliers, and other corporate stakeholders.... View Details
- September 2000 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
Old Mutual
By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Kirsty O'Neil-Massaro
Designed to explore the demutualization and listing overseas of one of Africa's largest financial institutions, Old Mutual, and the effects that these actions have on South Africa's domestic capital markets. Explores the particular difficulties that arise as a result... View Details
Keywords: Financial Institutions; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Global Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Capital Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Education; Financial Strategy; Business or Company Management; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; South Africa
- July 2000
- Background Note
Industry Transformation
By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin
One of the steepest challenges a strategist faces is to navigate his or her company through a period of industry transformation--an era of rapid and wholesale changes in industry structure. This note considers how periods of transformation typically unfold. It then... View Details
- June 2000 (Revised February 2003)
- Case
Must Zee TV
By: Bharat N. Anand and Tarun Khanna
Explores issues related to (1) the vertical boundaries of the firm in an emerging-economy context, especially the effects of lack of intellectual property rights and lack of contract enforcement on both industry structure and boundaries of the firm; and (2) the extent... View Details
- May 2000 (Revised April 2003)
- Case
Contractual Innovation in the UK Energy Markets: Enron Europe, The Eastern Group, and the Sutton Bridge Project
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Peter Tufano
In December 1996, Enron Europe and The Eastern Group were on the verge of signing an innovative transaction in the utility industry. Eastern was going to buy a long-term option to convert natural gas into electricity from Enron, thereby giving it the economic right to... View Details
- May 2000 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Health Development Corporation
Health Development Corp. (HDC) owns and operates health clubs in the Greater Boston area. HDC engaged a local investment banker to explore a sale of the company. The most likely buyer views HDC's prior purchase of real estate as a negative. HDC's management is... View Details
Keywords: Cash Flow; Property; Business Exit or Shutdown; Valuation; Value; Decisions; Health Industry; Boston
- April 2000 (Revised May 2000)
- Case
Capital One Financial Corporation
By: Bharat N. Anand, Michael G. Rukstad and Christopher Paige
Designed to explore the structure, implementation, and sustainability of an information-based strategy (IBS) undertaken by Capital One during the 1990s. Particular issues of interest are the impact of mass customization on industry structure, the ability to transfer... View Details
- February 2000 (Revised October 2000)
- Case
E-commerce at Williams-Sonoma
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Galvin
Describes Williams-Sonoma's development of a third channel of business on the Internet. Describes the strategies for managing changes in the organizational, operational, and technological structure of the company. The new e-commerce division confronts challenges posed... View Details
- January 2000 (Revised March 2001)
- Teaching Note
Competition & Strategy: Course Structure TN
By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin
Provides an overview of the Competition & Strategy course, a first course on business strategy, as taught at Harvard Business School during the summer of 1999. Describes the role of the course in the overall MBA curriculum, the superstructure of the course, and the... View Details
- December 1999
- Case
Agrochemicals at Ciba-Geigy AG (A)
By: Michael L. Tushman, Wendy Smith and Daniel Radov
After spending five years to develop a revolutionary product, the director of Ciba-Geigy's fungicide research department is handed an unfavorable market study. The case details the R&D process for the new product, including information on corporate partnerships,... View Details
Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Product Launch; Marketing Channels; Change Management; Product Development; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Corporate Accountability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- December 1999 (Revised July 2000)
- Case
Cimetrics Technology (B): Russian Perspectives
By: Lynn S. Paine
Presents the perspectives of two Russian software developers working for Cimetrics in Moscow. A central issue from the Russian perspective is whether a more structured and formal arrangement is needed for managing the Russian team. View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Applications and Software; Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Labor and Management Relations; Product Development; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Russia; Canada; United States
- November 1999
- Case
Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (A)
By: Andre F. Perold
Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (LTCM) was in the business of engaging in trading strategies to exploit market pricing discrepancies. Because the firm employed strategies designed to make money over long horizons--from six months to two years or more--it adopted a... View Details
- November 1999
- Case
Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (C)
By: Andre F. Perold
Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. (LTCM) was in the business of engaging in trading strategies to exploit market pricing discrepancies. Because the firm employed strategies designed to make money over long horizons--from six months to two years or more--it adopted a... View Details
- March 1999
- Case
City of Charlotte (B)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
This case shows how two operating departments-transportation and police-translate the high-level corporate scorecard for the city into departmental balanced scorecards. The transportation department follows a highly structured approach designed to link initiatives... View Details
- February 1999 (Revised June 1999)
- Case
Bloomberg L.P.
By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard G. Hamermesh and Jeremy Dann
Michael Bloomberg founded his company to provide customers quick access to financial market data and analytical tools for understanding that data. As Bloomberg L.P. grew quickly,entered the ranks of "large, established companies," it grappled with a whole new range of... View Details
- February 1999
- Article
The Persistence of Shocks to Profitability
By: Anita M. McGahan and Michael E. Porter
In this study, we use data for 1981 through 1994 on a large sample of U.S. companies to examine the persistence of incremental industry, corporate-parent, and business-specific effects on profitability. Our results indicate that the incremental effects of industry on... View Details
- December 1998
- Case
Australian Wheat Board Limited.: Becoming a Grower-owned Corporation
By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis
In July 1999, the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), a statutory national and international grain marketing organization, would become grower-owned. As a private corporation, the AWB would no longer receive government borrowing guarantees and would have to rely on its own... View Details
- September 1998
- Case
Cooperating to Compete: EGS of Turkey
By: Pankaj Ghemawat and C. Fritz Foley
In the early 1980s, Turkey adopted policies that liberalized trade as a part of a structural adjustment program. Within the garment industry, small- and medium-scale enterprises were not well positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities to compete in... View Details
- August 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
Product Development at Dell Computer Corporation
By: Stefan H. Thomke, Vish V. Krishnan and Ashok Nimgade
Describes how Dell redesigned its new product development process after experiencing a major product setback and a significant decline in firm profits in 1993. Dell's new process is challenged during the development of a new line of portable computers when the incoming... View Details