Publications

January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Mercado Libre: The Best Is Yet to Come

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Fernando Fragueiro, Carla Larangeira and Mariana Cal

In 2024, Marcos Galperín, CEO and co-founder of Mercado Libre, reflected on its 25-year rise as Latin America’s largest marketplace, fintech leader, and most valuable public company. With operations spanning 18 countries and a robust ecosystem combining e-commerce,... View Details

6 Jul 2021
Interview

Best Buy's Hubert Joly on Walking the Talk of Stakeholder Capitalism

By: Hubert Joly and Alison Beard

Hubert Joly, former chairman and CEO of Best Buy, says that now is the time for companies to get serious about operating to benefit not just shareholders but also employees, customers and broader society. In the face of environmental crisis, racial turmoil, and rising... View Details

Keywords: Stakeholder Capitalism; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Mission and Purpose; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy? People Trust Business, But Expect CEOs to Drive Social Change Making Diverse Leadership a Priority at Whittier College Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

July 2019 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Backstage at Boston Ballet

By: David G. Fubini, Ryan Raffaelli, Begum Agca Okutgen and Julia Kelley

This case asks students to consider how to prioritize goals when placed in a new leadership role. In August 2014, Meredith “Max” Hodges became the youngest Executive Director (ED) in the Boston Ballet’s 51-year history. In her first year, she was able to claim several... View Details

Web

Skydeck - Alumni

owner and 26 North founder Josh Harris (MBA 1990) on why anchoring leadership in personal passion and civic responsibility is a winning strategy The Vinyl Revival Caren Kelleher (MBA 2010) on why records are reclaiming their place in a... View Details

October 2024
Case

Edizione

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Dante Roscini, Elena Corsi and Hugo Etchegoyhen

This case study examines the diversification and transformation of Edizione, the Benetton family's holding company originally established to reinvest dividends from the Benetton clothing brand. Edizione expanded significantly in the late 1990s and early 2000s,... View Details

2022
Book

The Heart of Business (ハート・オブ・ビジネス)――「人とパーパス」を本気で大切にする新時代のリーダーシップ

By: Hubert Joly and Caroline Lambert

A remarkable turnaround by a leader with a remarkable philosophy: Find your noble purpose. Put people at the center. Unleash human magic.
"It was fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early,... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Business and Stakeholder Relations

March 2009 (Revised July 2014)
Case

PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (A)

By: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan and Alison Comings

In 2003, PNC Financial focused its corporate citizenship and philanthropic resources on a ten-year, $100 million investment in early childhood education called PNC Grow Up Great. The case tracks the origination of Grow Up Great, how it was developed and implemented... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Business and Community Relations

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

defense against hearing the truth because it’s hard to have your assumptions and practices disconfirmed,” Beer says. “But it’s important to listen.” Reflect, diagnose, and develop a plan. The leadership team needs to reflect on the truth,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You a Strategist?

Leader Your Business Needs, Montgomery discusses when that disconnect happened, why it's a problem today, and how leaders can turn themselves back into strategists. (Read an excerpt from The Strategist.) According to Montgomery, the divorce of strategy and View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

23 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2008

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=608091 Transforming Arizona's Health Care System: Developing and Implementing the Health-e Connection Roadmap Harvard Business School Case 808-072 Addresses the issues of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

Most companies fail. It's an unsettling fact for bright-eyed entrepreneurs, but old news to start-up veterans. But here's the good news: Experienced entrepreneurs know that running a company that eventually fails can actually help a career, but only if the executives... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2011
Chapter

Developing an Effective Organization: Intervention Method, Empirical Evidence, and Theory

By: Michael Beer

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)-a platform... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Governance; Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Research; Alignment; Theory; Value

June 2025
Supplement

The Miccosukee Tribe and the Battle to Save the Everglades (B): The Art of Coalition Building

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Supplement to the (A) case, 324-002 Curtis Osceola, Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, exercised leadership to mobilize allies, deal with opposition, and forge internal and external multi-sector coalitions to help preserve the... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Leadership; Projects; Alliances; Natural Environment; Power and Influence; Florida; Everglades National Park

Web

Courses | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

disciplines. The Required Curriculum incorporates social enterprise cases and topics in several courses ranging from finance to entrepreneurship. As a result, all students learn about social enterprise related topics and considerations from various functional... View Details

30 May 2024
News

How to Have Effective Conversations

communicator is good for our health. READ MORE April White: Conversation is all around us, it’s one of those things that's just ubiquitous in our lives. So I'm curious how you came to recognize its importance. Charles Duhigg: For me, it really started at HBS. Every... View Details

October 2022
Article

How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy: Navigating the Paradox of Preservation and Modernization in Swiss Watchmaking

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Rich DeJordy and Rory M. McDonald

How do leaders with divergent visions for their organization come together to create a novel strategy? This paper employs paradox as a lens to investigate how leader-dyads can integrate opposing strategies to produce a new, generative approach. Drawing on a qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Paradoxes; Senior Leaders; Organizational Reinvention; Leadership; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Change; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Switzerland