Publications

October 3, 2023
Article

10 Pitfalls That Destroy Organizational Trust

By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss

In their new book, Move Fast and Fix Things, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss outline five strategies to help leaders tackle their hardest problems and quickly make change. Their second strategy is to build — or rebuild — trust with your stakeholders. This means... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business or Company Management

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July 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

Conflicting Responsibilities

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Presents a framework for resolving issues in which managers' responsibilities--to shareholders, employees, other stakeholder groups, and to their own values and commitments in life--conflict with each other. The framework analyzes these issues in terms of duties,... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Employees; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations

December 2019 (Revised June 2024)
Case

The Dutch East India Company in 1612 (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

The Dutch East India Company’s board of directors must decide what to do about an impending legal requirement to liquidate the company’s assets and return to shareholders their capital and any profits earned during a ten-year lock-up period. The charter granted to the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Laws and Statutes; Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business History; Shipping Industry; Netherlands

March 1987 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Kansas City Zephyrs Baseball Club, Inc.

By: Kenneth A. Merchant, Krishna G. Palepu and Joseph P. Mulloy

Describes a dispute between the owners of the major league baseball teams and the players' union about the profitability of the baseball teams. The issue is important because of the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. A consultant is brought in to decide... View Details

Keywords: State Ownership; Compensation and Benefits; Entrepreneurship; For-Profit Firms; Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Resource Allocation; Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Labor and Management Relations; Financial Management; Sports; Sports Industry; Kansas

01 Jun 2023
News

Spray Canon

Taylor Callery Taylor Callery When street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled sold for $110.5 million in 2017, famed art dealer and curator Jeffrey Deitch (MBA 1978) told the New York Times that the artist was “now in the same league... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

01 Jun 2008
News

Alumni Books

management in colleges and universities. What the Customer Wants You to Know: How Everybody Needs to Think Differently about Sales by Ram Charan (MBA ’65, DBA ’67) (Penguin Group) To upgrade the productivity... View Details

Keywords: Management

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies that environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. This case compares the models of two dissimilar... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations; Business Strategy

July–August 2012
Article

What Good Are Shareholders?

By: Justin Fox and Jay W. Lorsch

The article looks at the role outside shareholders play in corporate governance in the U.S., and the relationship between companies' shareholders and managers, as of 2012. It recounts the shift beginning in the 1970s toward shareholders claiming an increasing amount of... View Details

Keywords: Shareholder Activism; Business and Shareholder Relations; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Decision Making; Managerial Roles; United States

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December 2006 (Revised April 2014)
Case

J. R. D. Tata

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

J.R.D Tata, Chairman of the Indian conglomerate Tata & Sons, played a significant role in building India's economic infrastructure. Under his guidance, Tata & Sons built locomotives, steel refineries, airlines, chemical plants, and technology-based enterprises.... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Development Economics; Working Conditions; Leadership; Infrastructure; Personal Development and Career; Business and Government Relations; India

June 2025
Case

Vail Resorts: Responding to Activist Pressure (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

On January 27, 2025, the head of a relatively small hedge fund named Late Apex Partners sent a highly critical letter to the board of directors of Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski resort operator. In his letter, and the 88-slide presentation that accompanied his... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Capital Budgeting; Corporate Governance; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Leading Change; Valuation; Investment Activism; Climate Change; Management Succession; Financial Management; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Travel Industry; United States; Australia; Canada

10 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Entrepreneurs: Lessons for Government Policy

Danish labor market across time (the data tracks when a person enters a company and when he or she moves between periods of employment and self-employment), Nanda View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

May 2018
Supplement

Abe on Womenomics, part 2: Women as Leaders – Policies & Exemplars: Excerpt from Opening Address to the World Assembly of Women, Tokyo, August 28, 2015

By: Boris Groysberg

This video supplement is a lightly edited excerpt from a 2015 speech by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in which he describes Womenomics--policies and aspirations to promote greater economic participation by Japan's women, thereby promoting economic growth, greater... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Gender; Employment; Business and Government Relations; Growth and Development; Working Conditions; Japan

2018
Book

The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society

By: William R. Kerr

The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Policy; Labor; Economy; Talent and Talent Management; United States

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05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

information-driven model by gaining a better understanding of product and customer relationships." Dean Vella cited Walmart's innovation in supply chain management and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

March 2010 (Revised September 2010)
Case

TeamLease: Putting India to Work (Il) Legally

By: Tarun Khanna and Anjali Raina

This case focuses on the growth dilemmas facing Manish Sabharwal, co-founder, TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd. TeamLease is a human resource outsourcing and temp staffing company located in India, which has grown rapidly from 2002 to 2009. Set in the context of the highly... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employment; Human Capital; Lawfulness; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Power and Influence; Employment Industry; India

18 Mar 2014
News

The Oz of Data Opens the Curtain

Scott Howe Nineteenth-century Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker famously said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Nearly 150 years later, Scott Howe (MBA 1994), president and CEO... View Details

Keywords: Robert S. Benchley; Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services; Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services

2014
Report

Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America's Middle Skills

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Jennifer Burrowes, Manjari Raman, Dan Restuccia and Alexis Young

The market for middle-skills jobs—those that require more education and training than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree—is consistently failing to clear. That failure is inflicting a grievous cost on the competitiveness of American firms... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Human Capital; Education; Competency and Skills; Macroeconomics; United States

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April 2019 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects

By: Christopher Stanton, Richard Saouma and Olivia Hull

The importance of a good peer or coworker is widely discussed, but understanding the glue that makes coworkers valuable is less understood. This case sheds light on the importance of peers and the practices and environments that make a group greater than the sum of its... View Details