Publications

August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (A)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in November 2019 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are contemplating what the best fulfillment format and... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Grocery; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Turkey

October 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

The Transformation of Thomson

By: David J. Collis and Troy Smith

Thomson, a French multinational, went through a decade of dramatic change in the early years of the 21st century. From a state-owned enterprise earning 97% of its revenue from television sets and other analog consumer electronics, Thomson had become a publicly traded... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Technology Industry; France

February 2022
Case

Toto Wolff and the Mercedes Formula One Team

By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente

In December 2021, Toto Wolff, team principal and chief executive officer of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team (the ‘Mercedes team’) is preparing for the start of the 2021 Formula One (‘F1’) season’s last Grand Prix, in the United Arab Emirates. Everything the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Team Management; Culture; Organizational Culture; Sports; Entertainment; Media; Superstars; General Management; Engineers; Competition; Problems and Challenges; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

November 2018
Case

The Bundesliga in the U.S.

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Sascha L. Schmidt and Florian Holzmayer

The Bundesliga, Germany’s premier football (soccer) league, is assessing its global broadcast and marketing strategy, with special focus on the very lucrative but highly competitive U.S. market. Its CEO Christian Seifert believed that a strong international position... View Details

Keywords: Media; Sports; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Sports Industry; United States

24 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Bank Structure and the Terms of Lending to Small Businesses

Keywords: by Rodrigo Canales & Ramana Nanda; Banking

January 2007
Case

AMD: A Customer-Centric Approach to Innovation

By: Elie Ofek and Lauren Barley

AMD's launch of the Opteron microprocessor in 2003 has allowed the company to make inroads into the lucrative server segment. A long-time follower to Intel, AMD management felt it was in a position to lead the microprocessor industry in new directions. However, in 2006... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Price; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Semiconductor Industry

August 2007 (Revised September 2007)
Case

Gome: Bidding for China Paradise

Gome, China's largest electronics retailer, has the opportunity to acquire China Paradise, the number three player in the Chinese electronic retailer industry. This happened in the general context of a great market development and potential consolidation of the... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Trade; Market Entry and Exit; Performance; Opportunities; Competition; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry; China

Teaching Interest

Strategies for Value Creation (MBA Course)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

SVC is a capstone course that integrates topics from finance, strategy, and leadership. It is intentionally cross-functional and designed to force integration at the end of the MBA program. Students develop a value creation mindset and learn that value creation is an... View Details

October, 2022
Article

The Economic Dynamics of Competing Power Generation Sources

By: Gunther Glenk and Stefan Reichelstein

Competing power generation sources have experienced considerable shifts in both their revenue potential and their costs in recent years. Here we introduce the concept of Levelized Profit Margins (LPM) to capture the changing unit economics of both intermittent and... View Details

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June 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Voice War: Hey Google vs. Alexa vs. Siri

By: David B. Yoffie, Liang Wu, Jodie Sweitzer, Denzil Eden and Karan Ahuja

By early 2018, voice-controlled intelligent assistants had become a major new front in the battle between the giants of the technology sector. "Voice War" focuses on Alphabet’s strategy for Google Assistant, its entrant in the voice assistant space, and asks how the... View Details

Keywords: Alphabet; Amazon; Apple; Strategy; Technology; Intelligent Assistants; Smart Speaker; Voice Assistants; Voice; Platform; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Competitive Strategy; Product Positioning; Technology Industry

January 2025 (Revised February 2025)
Background Note

A High-Tech Revolution with Chinese Characteristics: China's Drive Towards EV Supremacy

By: William C. Kirby, Daniel Fu and Matthew Ngai

This background note explains and documents the rise of China's EV industry. Moreover, it identifies the challenges facing it and posits several questions about the decisions needed to be made to sustain the industry's global dominance. Would Chinese producers be able... View Details

Keywords: China; State Capitalism; Electric Vehicles; Tesla; Renewable Energy

Article

Price and Quality Decisions by Self-Serving Managers

By: Marco Bertini, Daniel Halbheer and Oded Koenigsberg

We present a theory of price and quality decisions by managers who are self-serving. In the theory, firms stress the price or quality of their products, but not both. Accounting for this, managers exploit any uncertainty about the cause of market outcomes to credit... View Details

Keywords: Causal Reasoning; Self-serving Bias; Strategic Orientation; Managerial Decision-making; Price; Quality; Decision Making; Theory

Find at Harvard

16 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Selection, Reallocation, and Spillover: Identifying the Sources of Gains from Multinational Production

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro & Maggie X. Chen

2010
Working Paper

Reversing the Queue: Performance, Legitimacy, and Minority Hiring

By: Andrew Hill and David A. Thomas

Studies of minority hiring have found that poor-performing firms or firms in highly competitive contexts are more likely to hire minority candidates. However, most work has examined hiring for entry and mid-level positions, not senior management. Management positions... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance Effectiveness; Sports Industry; United States

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08 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Location Choices Under Strategic Interactions

Keywords: by Juan Alcacer

01 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat

Keywords: by Paul Novosad & Eric Werker

07 Sep 2017
HBS Seminar

Martin Dimitrov, Tulane

November 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Zespri Grows

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned “corporatized cooperative” with the exclusive right to export New Zealand-grown kiwifruit (except to Australia). Zespri did not grow fruit but... View Details