Publications

February 2009 (Revised March 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Union seeks to protect its pension funds through shareholder activism focused on corporate governance and executive compensation. The case uses Countrywide Financial as an example. Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

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1989
Book

Planning and Power in Iran: Ebtehaj and Economic Development under the Shah

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book provides a biography of Abol Hassan Ebtehaj, who headed Iran's central bank and Plan Organization during the 1940s and 1950s. It provides a wide-ranging survey of the problems of modernization and economic planning in Iran. Ebtehaj was at the center of... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decision Making; Economics; Central Banking; Policy; Political History; Resignation and Termination; Biography; Books; Surveys; Growth and Development Strategy; Planning; Iran

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12 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide

and Chrysler combined—and that was true even before GM filed for bankruptcy and Chrysler was merged with Daimler. Retailers should learn from the Big Three's mistakes. Toyota couldn't have beaten them without innovative human View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Retail; Auto

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

How to Put Meaning Back into Leading

leader's willingness to make sure (through design and training) that each individual's positional assignments fit their conception of self and their aspirations. The leader's willingness to commit her own time and organizational resources... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

June 2018
Teaching Note

Difficult Conversations and Dealing with Challenging Situations at Work

By: Boris Groysberg and Amram Migdal

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 416-031, 416-032, 416-033, 416-034, 416-035, and 416-036. View Details

October 2024
Case

Reed Group and Succession in a Family Business: An Impossible Job to Fill?

By: Lauren H. Cohen and Tonia Labruyere

James Reed had taken over Reed Group, the recruitment and career services company his father had founded and built, in 1994. He was now reflecting on succession planning and other challenges that lay ahead: with no obvious choice among his family members, he needed to... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Succession Planning; Family Business; Values and Beliefs; Management Succession; Mission and Purpose; Family Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Family and Family Relationships; Recruitment; AI and Machine Learning; Employment Industry; United Kingdom; London

June 2018
Case

Candor at Clever

By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala

Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details

September 1999 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Eggrock Partners, LLC (A)

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Myra M. Hart and Sharon Peyus

Explores the challenges of choosing how to grow a professional services firm (PSF). Before developing a growth strategy, the partners need to agree on what business(es) the company should be in. Each of the three partners has differing views of what the company should... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Expansion; Business Processes; Industry Structures; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Partners and Partnerships; Service Industry

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17 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 17

deployed to handle uncertain tasks. How can they effectively use their knowledge resources to assure quality communications and high performance when confronting uncertainty? Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, we... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Mar 2021
News

New Releases: Alumni and Faculty Books, Podcasts

mission interrupts his search. Fighting unjust forces, Joe is swept into an evil plot that neither can elude. Their struggles against machines, men, and nature test the resilience of the human spirit. Set in a richly imagined near future,... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

October 2018
Case

American Family Insurance and the Artificial Intelligence Opportunity

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

May 2024
Case

HarvEast

By: Jeremy Friedman and Natalie Kindred

In late 2023, Dmitry Skornyakov, CEO of Ukrainian agribusiness HarvEast, was navigating the turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014 and escalated into full-scale war in February 2022. Before the full-scale invasion, HarvEast managed 127,000... View Details

Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Natural Resources; Food; Problems and Challenges; Adaptation; Innovation and Management; Crisis Management; Logistics; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Loss; Trust; Human Needs; War; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chile; South America; Latin America; Ukraine

23 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 23

high-tech venture with a staff of 35 experiencing explosive growth, or were the resignations symptomatic of bigger issues with CloudFlare's culture and management processes? After describing CloudFlare's early history, business model, organization structure, and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Career Coach

Layla A. Ramirez

Layla A Ramirez has more than 7 years of experience leading global, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) initiatives and coaching C-Level executives as they navigate their DEIB journeys. She is well known for coaching the whole person and for asking... View Details

Keywords: Education; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services (All); Social Enterprise; Technology

02 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 2

partners investing at the same VC firm at the same time. Furthermore, our estimates suggest the partner's human capital is two to five times more important than the VC firm's organizational capital in explaining performance. Download... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

01 Sep 2005
News

Clark Bids Farewell to HBS

problem aside and turn it off. If you can’t do that, you really won’t be able to do this job. What was toughest part of the job? It always comes down to people. The hardest decisions are about who to promote and who not to. The toughest situations are dealing with... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

19 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 18

Publication:Harvard Business Review 88, no. 12 (December 2010) Abstract This article identifies five problematic issues in the intersection of work and life that create human resource challenges for... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Strategy and CEO Succession at Starbucks

By: Krishna G. Palepu and David Lane

On August 13, 2024, Starbucks announced that Laxman Narasimhan who was appointed as the CEO only in September 2023, was stepping down as CEO and board director “with immediate effect.” Laxman would be replaced on September 9 by Brian Niccol, CEO since 2018 of Chipotle... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Management Succession; Cost Management; Labor Unions; Working Conditions; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Service Operations; Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resignation and Termination; Food and Beverage Industry; United States