Publications

July 2000 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Guidant: Radiation Therapy

Describes a potential new approach to treating cardiac disease--radiation therapy. Guidant, a leading medical device maker, faces a choice about whether to pursue this new and risky technology and, if so with what strategy. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Decisions; Innovation Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Product Design; Corporate Strategy; Medical Specialties; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry

August 1988 (Revised April 1998)
Case

IBM 360: Giant as Entrepreneur

By: Joseph L. Bower

Presents the ingredients that went into a major entrepreneurial shift by IBM--investing $5 billion into a new product line that would obsolete any existing computer product line offered by the competition, or by IBM itself. The economic and technical challenges of this... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Investment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

January 2024
Case

ECOALF: Fashion for the Future

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Diego Aparicio, Carlota Moniz and María José Satrústegui

ECOALF, a Spanish fashion brand and sustainability pioneer, aimed to tackle the industry's challenges of excessive consumption and production. The brand's mission was to create timeless apparel exclusively from recycled and eco-responsible materials, matching the... View Details

December 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Ebony Magazine

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Jackson

For nearly 75 years, the Johnson Publishing Company has been the most successful African American magazine publisher. Its flagship Ebony magazine was an iconic coffee table fixture for decades in black households of all classes, making founder John H. Johnson... View Details

13 Jun 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: A Startup Takes On the Credit Ratings Giants

studied the credit ratings industry in the wake of the financial crisis. In a paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics, he examined the role of competition between raters. One important distinction, in his view, is between View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Banking; Financial Services

November 2008
Case

Adnexus Therapeutics, Inc.: Considering the Exit

By: Vicki L. Sato and Rachel Gordon

Dr. John Mendlein, CEO of Adnexus Therapeutics Inc. (Adnexus), a private biotechnology company, must decide whether to pursue acquisition talks with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) after a successful six-month collaboration or continue with Adnexus' planned IPO. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Initial Public Offering; Corporate Strategy; Biotechnology Industry

01 Jun 2003
News

Books

Press) In the past decade, as technological developments raced forward, large corporations with a history of scientific leadership like AT&T, IBM, and Xerox ironically found themselves struggling to keep up. Their problem, says HBS... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Laura Singleton; Donald; Sull; Henry; Chesbrough; Rob; Austin; Leslie; Perlow; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

02 Oct 2008
What Do You Think?

Workout vs. Bailout: Should Government Take Advantage of the Buffett Effect?

down" response of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the Depression era rather than the "bottom up" strategy (involving the purchase of individual properties) of the Resolution Trust of the 1980s. The... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

12 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 12

case: http://hbr.org/search/513053-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 314-09 IBM and the Reinvention of High School (A): Proving the P-TECH Concept IBM, through its corporate citizenship arm, demonstrated the role of business in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

GM’s IPO: Back to the Future

solicitation of interest from sovereign wealth funds alongside traditional buyers. IPOs require a leap of faith from investors who have to bet on a new company. The new GM wants to be just that, a corporation intent on presenting itself... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

19 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 19, 2010

Southwest Airlines One Report, combing financial and nonfinancial performance information. This case examines Southwest's environmental and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports produced in the two years preceding 2009 and follows... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Oct 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers

collection of research and readings about head-on collisions between corporations and consumers, how to think through potential problems in advance, and course-correcting when the inevitable disaster occurs. A Good Place to Start... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Air Transportation

September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Supplement

Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (B)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

As Acumen Fund, a global venture philanthropy firm, moves forward with an investment portfolio exceeding $22 million, it runs into two critical measurement problems. First, how should it track the performance of each investment when its interest is not just the bottom... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Portfolio; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Standards; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Evaluation; Social Enterprise; Competition; Financial Services Industry; Kenya

01 Sep 2007
News

Getting Security Right

Education classes,” he notes, “we often focus on the actions and strategies of political leaders because they offer compelling examples that are familiar to everyone.” Mills’s new book, Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the... View Details

Keywords: National Security and International Affairs; Government; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

November 2015 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Huaxia: Building a U.S.-Style Dairy in China

By: Tarun Khanna, Nancy Hua Dai and Juan Ma

In 2015, Charles Shao, chairman of Huaxia, considered the alternatives to ensure sustainable growth of Huaxia and rebuild the overall health of China's dairy industry. He came to China in 2004 and set up Huaxia dairy farm with the goal to build a world-class dairy farm... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Emerging Markets; Agribusiness; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China