Publications

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March 2011
Supplement

BOOKOFF Corporation in 2007

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi and Yoshinori Fujikawa

A visionary founder appoints a former part-time worker and homemaker as his successor in order to keep the corporate culture he created intact. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership; Management Succession; Organizational Culture; Strategy

December 1998
Supplement

An Interview with Zhang Ruimin, CEO, Haier Group, Video

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jennifer Benqing

Zhang Ruimin, founder and CEO of China's Haier Group, must decide whether to acquire Red Star Electric Appliance Co., an insolvent local manufacturer of washing machines. Although Haier, slated to become one of China's first global brand names, has successfully turned... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Acquisition; Business or Company Management; Consumer Products Industry; China

February 1997 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Mexico (B): Escaping from the Debt Crisis?

By: Huw Pill

Describes the response of the Mexican authorities and the international community to the "Third World Debt Crisis" that came to the forefront of global economic concerns in the early 1980s. Focuses on the respective roles of the private sector, governments (Mexican and... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Mexico

Clayton Rose is Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice. He currently teaches the course Accountability in the Advanced Management Program. His research is focused on the how leaders can manage the challenges created by the intense, varied and often... View Details

Keywords: financial services

08 Oct 2021
Blog Post

8 Stories from PRIDE for National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day is October 11, 2021, and HBS will be supporting and participating in events that celebrate the LGBTQ+ community throughout October. Some students come... View Details

21 Jun 2024
Blog Post

What Does PRIDE Mean to You?

PRIDE is HBS's home for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning MBA students and their partners. PRIDE builds community through dedicated social View Details

September 2008 (Revised July 2011)
Case

Keeping Google 'Googley'

By: Boris Groysberg, David A. Thomas and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

This case, set in 2008, examines how Google has worked to avoid potential negative byproducts of rapid growth such as bureaucracy, slow decision-making, lack of visibility, and organizational inconsistency. When the case protagonist, Kim Scott, started with Google in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Internet; Information Technology Industry

June 2008 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Bernd Beetz: Creating the New Coty

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Considers the creation of the world's largest fragrance company by Bernd Beetz, appointed chief executive of Coty Inc. in 2001. In 1990 the German consumer goods company Benkiser began acquiring fragrance and cosmetics brands with the intent of developing a beauty... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Germany; United States

30 Jun 2023
Blog Post

Finding Pride

notices around campus, discreetly inviting fellow gay and lesbian students to connect via an untraceable off-campus phone number. Those founding members launched what would become a decades-long tradition—a View Details

October 2004 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Product Team Cialis: Getting Ready to Market

By: Elie Ofek

Lilly and ICOS are preparing for the launch of a new drug, Cialis, to compete against Viagra. To position against the incumbent firm Pfizer, which developed and markets Viagra, and other newcomers into the erectile dysfunction market, they must determine how best to... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Segmentation; Pharmaceutical Industry

30 Oct 2019
Video

Kutayba Alghanim

Kutayba Alghanim, Chairman of Kuwait-based Alghanim Industries, a highly diversified business group, discusses how to create a corporate culture which motivates employees of many different nationalities to be... View Details

January 2013 (Revised March 2017)
Case

CloudFlare, Inc.: Running Hot?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alex Godden

In July 2012, the cofounders of CloudFlare, a Silicon Valley startup that protects websites and accelerates their traffic, are considering the implications of five employees' resignations over the prior three months. Was this natural attrition for a high-tech venture... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Resignation and Termination; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; California

24 Aug 2017
News

Does Le Pliage Help or Hurt the Longchamp Luxury Brand?

18 Apr 2024
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on Emerging Markets

The HBS African American Student Union (AASU) aims to create a close-knit community for its members from the time they choose to join HBS, through their transition to the second year, and beyond graduation.... View Details

March 1998 (Revised March 1999)
Case

Shepard Quraeshi Associates (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Harold F. Hogan Jr

Samina Quraeshi, principal of Boston-based Shepard Quraeshi Associates, must decide whether to take legal action against her key employees after they leave her firm to start their own, taking with them key clients and data. Quraeshi sees the situation as reflecting... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Nationality; Ethics; Employees; Gender; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Immigration; Growth and Development Strategy; United States

October 2000 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Rob Waldron at SCORE! Educational Centers (Abridged)

By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie L. Woerner

Describes Rob Waldron's actions upon assuming leadership of SCORE! Educational Centers, an after-school tutoring enterprise. Examines the issue of acquiring and growing a small, privately-owned company into a professional organization, especially regarding corporate... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Education; Human Resources; Recruitment; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Private Ownership; Education Industry

Megan is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School. She is interested in identity and the relationship between people's work- and non-work lives, and is currently conducting a longitudinal qualitative study of people's experiences as they... View Details

February 2003 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Safe to Say at Prudential Financial

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Corey B. Hajim

The CEO initiated a cultural change process at Prudential Financial to support a major business reorientation. Prudential, historically a privately held ("mutual") insurance company, went public in 2001. The cultural change was intended to prepare the organization to... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Private Ownership; Going Public; Transformation; Organizational Culture