Publications

Read Now

January 2009 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Grupo Bimbo: Growth and Social Responsibility

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Regina Garcia-Cuellar

Bimbo, headquartered in Mexico with 2008 sales of $7 billion, was one of the largest bakery companies in the world. Even as it had grown spectacularly in the last several decades, the company had earned a stellar reputation for its corporate social responsibility... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Reputation; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

12 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance (Harvard Business Press). As a practical guide, The New Science of Retailing helps retailers mine their sales data to identify and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Retail; Auto

August 2019
Case

Twiggle: E-Commerce with Semantic Search

By: Shane Greenstein and Danielle Golan

Four years after being founded, in 2014, by former Google executives Amir Konigsberg (CEO) and Adi Avidor (CTO), Twiggle had developed a search enhancement that plugged into an online merchant’s existing framework. The company utilized advanced structuring and... View Details

Keywords: Search Technology; Customer Acquisition; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Technology Industry; Israel

19 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 19, 2017

but also in explaining the number of different uses. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49447 Creating the Market for Organic Wine: Sulfites, Certification, and Green Values By: Jones, Geoffrey, and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

14 Feb 2018
Blog Post

Meet HBS Leadership Fellows: Verdell Walker, Sesame Workshop

During the year, we’re connecting with some of our 2017-18 HBS Leadership Fellows, to hear about their backgrounds and their experiences in the Fellowship year. Read on to learn more about Verdell Walker’s (MBA ‘17) experience at Sesame Workshop. Tell us about the... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

January–February 2017
Article

Buying Your Way into Entrepreneurship

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

An increasingly popular route to success as a small business owner is “acquisition entrepreneurship”—buying and running an existing operation. If you’re considering such a path, the authors offer practical advice for each stage of the process. Think it through. Do you... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Acquisition; Planning

Register to Read

Winter 2013
Article

The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive Aggregators and Super-Aggregators

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

The patent market consists mainly of privately negotiated, bilateral transactions, either sales or cross-licenses, between large companies. There is no eBay, Amazon, New York Stock Exchange, or Kelley's Blue Book equivalent for patents, and when buyers and sellers do... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Platforms; Intermediaries; Aggregator; Patents; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Distribution Channels

Read Now

2011
Case

How Fast and Flexible Do You Want Your Information, Really?

By: Thomas H. Davenport and Jim Snabe

Almost all executives want more and faster information, and almost all companies are racing to provide it. What many of them are overlooking is that the real aim should not be faster information but faster decision making, and those aren't the same things. Executives... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Information; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Crisis Management

April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu

Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

With cross-sector collaborations on the rise, a new book exploring partnerships between business and social organizations in the Americas comes at just the right time. Social Partnering in Latin America: Lessons Drawn from Collaborations... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

2000
Article

The Consequences of Customization on the Use of Management Accounting Systems

By: J. Bouwens and Margaret A. Abernethy

The understanding of the antecedent conditions influencing the design of management accounting systems (MASs) is very limited. In recent years, significant research attention has been devoted to understanding how different strategic priorities influence these systems.... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Management Systems; Accounting; Customization and Personalization

11 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Sexual Harassment: What Employers Should Do Now

tolerated with others. The sales manager who brings in big bucks but acts in a hostile, domineering way with his team may be seen as the definition of success, yet letting “a brilliant jerk be a jerk” could cost a company many other... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Sep 2020
Blog Post

Turning a Moment into a Movement: How the Anti-Racism Fund Co-Founders are Fighting Racism and Encouraging Other Companies to Do Their Part

knew were coming to us wanting to know how they could offer support, where they should donate, and how to make an impact, and we were wondering that ourselves,” said Kenneth. “To provide one answer, we decided to start a GoFundMe page that would distribute funds to... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

July 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Technical Note

The Future of Mobility: Economic, Environmental, and Social Implications

By: George Serafeim and David Freiberg

This technical note explores how advancements in technology are fundamentally transforming how consumers interact with mobility. Transformation is being driven by three independent trends: the emergence of affordable electric vehicles, the development of autonomous... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Automobile Manufacturing; Technological And Scientific Innovation; Mobility; Inequality; Electric Vehicles; Ride-sharing; Ambidexterity; Transformation; Disruption; Change; Technological Innovation; Transportation; Equality and Inequality; Auto Industry; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Distribution Industry

Almost all executives want more and faster information, and almost all companies are racing to provide it. What many of them are overlooking is that the real aim should not be faster information but faster decision making, and those aren't the same things. Executives... View Details

12 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Operations and the Competitive Edge

appointment to the Harvard Faculty in 1966, Hayes worked for IBM and McKinsey & Company. He is currently the School's Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus. Martha Lagace: You write in the book that many managers relegate operations View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

24 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Managing Alignment as a Process

like budgeting, should be part of the annual governance cycle. Whenever plans are changed at the enterprise or business unit level, executives likely need to realign the organization with the new direction. The alignment process, of... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Consumer Products; Retail

November 1996 (Revised December 1996)
Case

SAP America

By: David A. Garvin and Artemis March

SAP America has grown at an explosive rate. This case describes the company's strategy, organization, and culture, with special attention to its approach to partnering and its sales and consulting process, which have been instrumental in allowing growth to proceed. Now... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Demand and Consumers; Organizational Culture; Alliances; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; United States