communication - Publications - Faculty & Research

April 2019 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Kraft Heinz: The $8 Billion Brand Write-Down

On Friday, February 22, 2019, following an unexpected and disappointing earnings report, The Kraft Heinz Company’s stock price fell 27%, wiping out $16 billion in market value. CEO Bernardo Hees had announced that the company had taken a $15.4 billion asset write-down,... View Details

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Shira Asa-El

absolute opponents. Being part of the HBS community is like Being a global citizen. I have never before sat in a room with people from so many different countries, nor have I even had the opportunity to do so. Professionally, I feel that... View Details

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

many of its funds as mid-size. Shifting to a majority mid-sized fund designation might confuse the investment community that now associated Brown Capital with its winning small-company strategy. What’s more, their mid-sized company fund... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Getting the Message: How the Internet is Changing Advertising

the world's largest advertising and marketing-services firms, describes the $4 billion spent last year as "chicken feed." What he finds interesting about the Web is the impact it is having on the wider area of communication... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

01 Jun 2023
News

Cultivating Prosperity in Afghanistan

supportive community it gave us in which to learn and grow as entrepreneurs.” After earning prize money as runners-up in both the HBS New Venture Competition and the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge, the founders secured funding... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

12 Jun 2023
Blog Post

What Does PRIDE at HBS Mean to You?

build connections with members of the community that I was able to be myself with. Putting on a “straight face” all week while we discussed cases and worked on problem sets could be exhausting; it was with the group from HBS PRIDE that I... View Details

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Budgeting Kills Your Company

strategies, leading them to overinvest in the near term," says Baxter. Senior management can provide valuable top-down guidance here by using three- to five-year strategic plans to define the boundaries of these discussions and then making sure they're clearly... View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gary

February 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Institutional Neutrality, Restraint or Convenience?

By: Clayton S. Rose, Nicole Zelazko and Alexis Lefort

In the fall of 2023 and winter of 2024, college campuses across the U.S. experienced protests and encampments in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas, and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. These... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Governance; Leadership; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Adaptation; Disruption; Communication Strategy; Higher Education; United States

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14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

four Porsches in the garage and who join online brand communities to share in their love for the brand. When Porsche tried to appeal to female consumers with its Porsche Cayenne SUV, these fanatics howled in protest about the "feminizing"... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

16 Apr 2019
Blog Post

How Being an Introvert Influenced My Business School Experience

bolster important communication skills and build up a base level of confidence needed to address large audiences, a valuable “real world” skill. Given that as an introvert I prefer a slower pace and value reflection (extroverts tend to... View Details

21 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Your Employees Passing Up Incentives? Try Promoting the Programs More

communicate them.” The reason might be as simple as employees not knowing about the incentive programs. Leslie John, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and a team of researchers found that a major factor... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

16 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

How the Coronavirus Is Already Rewriting the Future of Business

gone. This is an opportunity to learn Slack and Zoom and have a mentor teach you how to use these tools. The second thing is, working remotely is very effective if you can also restructure the organizational processes for how View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

April 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Soren Chemical: Why Is the New Swimming Pool Product Sinking?

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sunru Yong

Topics include distribution channels, pricing, and new product marketing. Jen Moritz, the marketing manager for Soren Chemical Co. is struggling with the poor sales performance of Coracle, a new clarifier for residential swimming pools. The performance is puzzling... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Mix; New Product Marketing; Pricing; Branding; Price; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Communication Strategy; Chemical Industry

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Summer 2013
Article

A Tale of Two Stories: Sustainability and the Quarterly Earnings Call

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

One of the challenges companies claim to face in making sustainability a core part of their strategy and operations is that the market does not care about sustainability, either in general or because the time frames in which it matters are too long. The response of... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Communication; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Environmental Sustainability

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22 Dec 2020
News

Dove: Maintaining a Brand with Purpose

Web

Our Mission & Team | Institute for Business in Global Society

Our Mission & Team We are working with scholars, business leaders, and community leaders around the world to advance our understanding of business' role in society and to develop a thriving ecosystem for translating that research into... View Details

02 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

The Secret of How Microsoft Stays on Top

the company has built over time, which is largely embedded in its software code libraries. This base is critical to internal innovation, as it makes product development more efficient and powerful. Additionally, it spawns external innovation, in Microsoft's large View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2023 (Revised May 2025)
Case

On

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger and Sascha Mader

Founded in 2010, in just one decade, the Swiss company On had established itself as a main player in global sports footwear and apparel. Based on an unconventional strategy which one of the founders labeled as “obsessively distinct,” On grew its sales with a compound... View Details

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26 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

7 Leadership Principles for Managing in the Time of Coronavirus

in which to communicate decisions and priorities, but also have rapid communication to the entire body of constituents—not delays over hours or days or, even worse, weeks. Silence is absolutely the worst... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

'GEnron'? Markopolos versus General Electric (A)

By: Jonas Heese and David Lane

In August 2019, Harry Markopolos—the forensic accountant known for uncovering Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—alleged that General Electric had committed accounting fraud totaling $38 billion, coining the term “GEnron” for perceived similarities with the 2001 accounting... View Details