Publications

April 2024
Supplement

Cyrus 3.0: Turning a Traditional Business Model on Its Head (B)

By: James Heskett

The objective of improved work-life balance is achieved. However, it prompts a discussion of whether management should take on special events during what is now a long weekend in order to improve the bottom line even more. The case raises questions about other... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Work-Life Balance; Strategic Planning; Profit

January 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods: Getting Out Of The Gun Business (A)

By: George A. Riedel

Dick's Sporting Goods was one of the top five retailers of a range of firearms in the US. Over the last several years and specifically following the Parkland shooting of 2018, Ed Stack, the CEO and chairman, had wrestled with the question of their role as a leading... View Details

Keywords: Gun Policy; Gun Violence; Sporting Goods; Sport; Human Behavior; Violence; Ethics; Decision Making; Social Issues; Corporate Accountability; Sports Industry; Retail Industry; United States

01 Nov 2022
What Do You Think?

Why Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy?

reasoned, rational approach to this opportunity that its business community is best equipped to provide. Why aren’t business leaders more vocal about immigration policy? What do you think? Share your... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2021
White Paper

Report on Racial Inclusion in the Boardroom: A Workshop Convened by Harvard Business School's Leadership Initiative and Board Leadership Project

By: James I. Cash, Linda A. Hill, Hubert Joly, Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Inclusion; Organization Culture; Corporate Governance; Diversity; Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Race; Fairness; Organizational Culture

Read Now

13 Jun 2016
Lessons from the Classroom

That's Classic: Modern-Day Business Lessons from Ancient Rome

ethical issues. It’s extraordinary. Related Reading: Why Leaders Need Great Books Teaching The Moral Leader Machiavelli, Morals, and You This article first appeared in the HBS Alumni Bulletin. View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Governing PG&E

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details

08 Feb 2010
HBS Case

Looking Behind Google’s Stand in China

working inside the country to create value for its Chinese users, employees, and business partners. To critics, Google was selling out its core principles to play in the world's second largest economy.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

simply you and the person on the other side of the table, but it is often much more complex, requiring an act of disciplined imagination rather than a mechanical list. In our new book, we systematically work... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

30 Sep 2002
What Do You Think?

Are Business Schools Really Important “Crucibles of Leadership?”

suggested by Abraham Zaleznik in a 1977 Harvard Business Review article, "Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?" Arguing that they are, Zaleznik cited one difference:Is a View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Apr 2009
What Do You Think?

How Much Obsolescence Can Business and Society Absorb?

their leaders to recognize the importance and take advantage of advances in communications technology to remain relevant and competitive. J. W. Carpenter reported that "Our study shows that without the capacity to absorb... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Publishing; Journalism & News

20 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Users Love Ello, But What’s the Business Model?

Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration, provide insights into the next generation of social networks, and what kind of network they'd build with unlimited funding. Q: How native is advertising to the social media space? Is... View Details

Keywords: Re: John A. Deighton & Sunil Gupta; Publishing; Financial Services

February 2009 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Yahoo! in China (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Daniel Baer

In 2007 Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo!, was lambasted by U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, for Yahoo's role in the arrest and imprisonment of Chinese journalist and democracy advocate Shi Tao. The case describes the... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Compliance; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Business and Government Relations; Internet; Information Technology Industry; China; United States

February 2013
Case

18 Months in a Startup: Zaggora.com

By: Tom Nicholas

The founders of Zaggora reflected back on a tumultuous year-and-a-half in which they had generated, from just $40,000 in personal savings, a multi-million dollar sportswear enterprise selling Hotpants to women. These were hotpants not of the 1960s hipster variety, but... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention; Corporate Finance; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

27 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

IBM Finds Profit in Diversity

number of self-identified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender executives gained 733 percent. Another benefit: "By deliberately seeing ways to more effectively reach a broader range of customers, IBM has seen significant bottom-line results," says Thomas.... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Thomas

02 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Food Stamp Entrepreneurs: How Public Assistance Enables Business Bootstrapping

"Delivering phone books is the worst way to spend a Sunday when you're a kid," says Olds, now an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurship Management unit at Harvard Business School. The family... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

13 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

Small Businesses Are Worse Off Than We Thought

survey of nearly 6,000 small-business owners conducted by a team of researchers in partnership with Alignable, an online business networking platform with 4.5 million members. The survey results paint a... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

10 Nov 2014
HBS Case

How Restaurants in Lima and Copenhagen Became Best in the World

dishes. That's also what makes growth issues harder—it's much more cumbersome to re-create. But anything less than the Noma experience would have to be called something else. As a business manager in these... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

September 2000
Case

MBA In Jeopardy (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Gagan Gupta and Phani K. Nagarjuna

The Community Standards Panel of Harvard Business School must determine whether two students have violated the school's community standards, and if so, what sanction would be appropriate. Concerns allegations of plagiarism. In a second-year elective course, two... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Business Education; Learning; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Education Industry

January 2015
Article

Costly Third-party Punishment in Young Children

By: Katherine McAuliffe, Jillian J. Jordan and Felix Warneken

Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly third-partypunishment in 5- and 6-year-old children. Participants were asked to accept (enact) or reject... View Details

Keywords: Third-party Punishment; Inequity Aversion; Social Cognition; Cooperation; Fairness; Behavior