Publications

April 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Case

The Auction for Travelport (A)

By: Andrei Hagiu and Misha Sanwal

A senior Blackstone director is deciding how aggressively to bid for Travelport, a travel distribution business containing several key services and platforms. Travelport's most important properties were Galileo, one of the top 3 global distribution systems (GDSs),... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Product Positioning; Cost vs Benefits; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Competitive Advantage; Auctions; Industry Structures; Travel Industry

19 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?

much harder to predict. Because of this, it becomes very expensive for insurance firms to hold the capital necessary to cover catastrophic losses. So they turn to reinsurance firms, paying them a fee to... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Financial Services

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible

made its threat credible. This may be more than enough of an incentive for you to decide not to bid after all. As the CEO's strategy illustrates, increasing the costs you will incur by not following through... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

2020
Working Paper

Pioneer (Dis-)advantages in Markets for Technology

By: Moritz Fischer, Joachim Henkel and Ariel Dora Stern

This study sheds new light on first- and early-mover advantages in the context of product innovation. Research on this classic topic often assumes that each firm participates in the entirety of the innovation and commercialization process. However, a division of labor... View Details

Keywords: First-mover Advantage; Product; Innovation Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Acquisition; Technology

SSRN

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April 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Teaching Note

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price and Suraj Srinivasan

In spring 2015, Dollar General CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over 11,500... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry

01 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

A Penny for Your Thoughts? For Big-Picture Ideas, the Right Pay Structure Matters

upgrading its management techniques. Hoping to spur employees to develop ideas for bettering the company’s performance, the firm launched a system in which workers who put forth ideas were recognized with... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

find a robustly positive relationship between OSS contributions and entrepreneurial growth,” the authors write. “Higher-quality firms are more likely to contribute to OSS, and OSS boosts their subsequent performance.” Translating the OSS... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

November 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

In spring 2015, Dollar General's CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; United States

September 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Acer Group, The: Vision for the Year 2000

By: D. Quinn Mills and Richard C. Wei

In the early 1990s, Acer, Inc. set two goals: to be a top-five PC company worldwide in 1995 and to be a global consortium of companies by the year 2000. The company identified potential obstacles concerning capital, image, number of experienced international managers,... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Structure; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Experience and Expertise; Marketing Strategy; Production; Rank and Position; Business Strategy; Capital; Computer Industry; Japan

Find at Harvard

01 Apr 1998
News

Going For The Summit

to make high-stakes decisions that affect a lot of people, and you have to act quickly or you're in trouble," Carpenter explains. "Managing an Internet firm is just like that." Despite the challenge, under Carpenter's expert guidance, her... View Details

Keywords: Caroline Chauncey

July 2007 (Revised September 2009)
Case

CEMEX's Foundations for Sustainability

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Pamela Yatsko and Ryan Raffaelli

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Strategy; Change Management; Emerging Markets; Construction Industry; Mexico; Egypt; United States

October 2013
Supplement

Dongfeng Nissan's Venucia (B)

By: Forest Reinhardt, Mayuka Yamazaki and G.A. Donovan

The (A) case describes the launch of a new passenger vehicle in China, produced jointly by Nissan of Japan and by Chinese automaker Dongfeng. Early sales results following the April 2012 launch were disappointing and the joint venture's managers had to decide how to... View Details

Keywords: China; Japan; Multinational Firms; Cross-cultural/cross-border; Environment; Sustainability; Competitive Strategy; Product Launch; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Crisis Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Auto Industry; China; Japan

December 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Course Overview Note

Corporate Strategy: Course Note for Instructors

By: Bharat N. Anand

Introduces students to the concerns that impact a firm's choice of strategy, scope, and organization and assists in three central tasks that comprise the typical decision problem: diagnosing the sources of corporate advantage, evaluating the limits to such advantage,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy

October 2003
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Building a Platform for Distributed Innovation

By: Marco Iansiti and Marcin Strojwas

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Model; Networks; Product Design; Production; Decisions; Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management

May 2010
Case

Clayton Industries, Inc.: Peter Arnell, Country Manager for Italy

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Benjamin H. Barlow

Clayton Industries, a sixty-year-old U.S.-based firm in the HVAC industry (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), with nearly $1 billion in revenues, has gradually built a presence in a number of countries, including several in Europe. Peter Arnell, previously... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Conflict and Resolution; Sales; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Wisconsin; Italy; United Kingdom

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

implement the layoffs quickly—in less than a year—to minimize workplace disruptions and gain credibility with the capital market. For some companies, however, strategic and business factors could warrant a more gradual approach to... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

June 2009 (Revised April 2017)
Case

Christian Dior: A New Look for Haute Couture

By: Geoffrey Jones and Veronique Pouillard

The case describes the foundation of Christian Dior, the leading Parisian fashion house, in 1946 and its subsequent globalization strategy. After explaining the historical origins of France's preeminence in upscale fashion, the case explores the challenges to this... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Luxury; Fashion Industry; France; New York (city, NY)

2001
Working Paper

Contextuality Within Activity Systems

By: Michael E. Porter and Nicolaj Siggelkow

Research on the interactions among activities in firms and the extent to which these interactions help create and sustain competitive advantage has rapidly expanded in recent years. In this research, the two most common approaches have been the complementarity... View Details

Keywords: Value Chain; Strategy; Competitive Strategy

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January 2014
Case

Maricopa, Inc.: Finding the Right Treatment for Growth

By: William A. Sahlman, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Joseph B. Fuller and Shikhar Ghosh

The founders of Maricopa, Inc., a startup that sold proprietary hair-care products directly to salons, were preparing a board presentation to address the young company's inability to meet financial projections. While the products had caught on with customers, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Financial Condition; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Expansion; Planning; Fashion Industry; Iowa