Publications

January 1990 (Revised March 1991)
Case

American Red Cross Blood Services: Northeast Region

By: Robert L. Simons

Recounts the financial difficulties and management changes experienced by American Red Cross Blood Services: Northeast Region (NER) during the 1980s. After summarizing industry-wide changes in the collection, testing, and distribution of blood and blood products, the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Budgets and Budgeting; Financial Management; Restructuring; Health; SWOT Analysis; Social Enterprise; Marketplace Matching; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; North and Central America

2020
Discussion Paper

Acting Now While Preparing for Tomorrow: Competitiveness Upgrading Under the Shadow of COVID-19

By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Peter Clinch

This paper aims to provide policy makers, especially those focused on the longer-term growth potential of their countries, with an initial framework to think about their action priorities in the context of the overall COVID-19 response. Our focus is on the... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; COVID-19 Pandemic; Competition; Government Administration; Health Pandemics; Economy; Supply Chain; Safety

Read Now

30 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Where Could More Regulation Help Small Businesses? Online Lending.

the depth of problems in small business lending, and find and measure solutions. In the advent of another credit crisis this could prove disastrous. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is empowered within Section 1071 of... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

18 Aug 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Courageous Leader Triggers a Moral Revolt of CEOs Against Trump

Strategy and Policy Forum, recognized the deep unrest among his members after multiple conversations with them, and decided to call a telephone meeting of the forum members for late Wednesday morning. In addition to those who indicated they View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

13 Jan 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Private Equity and Industry Performance

Keywords: by Shai Bernstein, Josh Lerner, Morten Sørensen & Per Strömberg

25 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse

Most people at one time or another feel as if they are just spinning their wheels, unable to gain traction either in career or in life. This feeling of being stuck in one place, while troubling, is part of a necessary crisis leading to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Utilis: Designing, Producing, and Selling Rapid Deployment Shelters for a Troubled World

By: Herman B. Leonard, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Simon Harrow

How can a company that supplies disaster response and humanitarian agencies best handle the intrinsically unpredictable and highly volatile demand for its products? Utilis is a French supplier of rapid-deploy high-end tent solutions for civilian and military uses (such... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Strategic Planning; Natural Disasters; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; France

August 2017
Case

Hacking Heroin

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta

"Hacking Heroin" was the first hackathon that Annie Rittgers, founder of Cincinnati-based 17a, had organized or even attended. "There will continue to be a lot of preventable overdose deaths and wasted potential if the opioid crisis continues unabated," she said.... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Hackathon; Heroin; Opioids; Crowdsourcing; Public Sector; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Pandemics; Public Administration Industry; Health Industry; Ohio; Cincinnati

05 May 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Denial Endemic to Management?

"data-driven decision style" (David Cawlfield), the development of "early warning indicators" combined with an "external interference mechanism" (Gopal Padinjaruveetil), scenario planning of the type... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

February 2013 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Elasto Therm: The Next Step

By: Jim Sharpe and James Weber

Julia and Nate Burstein were living their dream running their own business and balancing the demands between their work and family obligations while creating a company that was responsive to their employees' and their customers' needs. The Bursteins had joined a large... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurs; Pricing; Pricing Policies; Pricing Strategy; Pricing Structure; Sales Force Management; Acquisitions; Work/family Balance; Family-owned Business; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Work-Life Balance; Manufacturing Industry; Rubber Industry; United States

June 2006 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Dana Hall: Funding a Mission (A)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Herman B. Leonard and Melissa Tritter

Dana Hall is a private all-girls school in New England facing a crisis in its mission. As social norms shift away from single-sex education, the school's enrollment is falling and deficits are becoming the norm. At the same time, the modern vision for girls' education... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Financing and Loans; Nonprofit Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Strategic Planning; Education Industry; England

February 2000 (Revised April 2000)
Case

Microsoft, 2000

By: Michael G. Rukstad, David B. Yoffie and Carl Johnston

Surveys five threats to the sustainability of Microsoft's strategy (imitation, substitution, hold-up, slack, and saturation) and examines Microsoft's response to these threats. Teaching purpose: To evaluate the sustainability of Microsoft's competitive advantage. View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Planning; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry

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02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

kinds of mistakes from the U.S. Midwest. In this case, environmentalists and farmers opposed a power company's plans to build a dam. On the surface, the parties appeared to have deep, irreconcilable positions, which had resulted in a long... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

May 2020
Case

Big Boom Beverages: Fight or Flight?

By: Stephen A. Greyser and William Ellet

Four college friends market a beverage that combines ingredients like those in a drink they consumed in college bars. It includes a caffeinated energy drink, malt liquor, and a soft drink flavoring. They launch the business, Big Boom Beverages (BBB), with their own... View Details

Keywords: Alcoholic Beverages; Energy Drinks; Regulation; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Marketing Communications; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Reputation; Communication Strategy; Decision Making

December 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Birth of Modern Macroeconomic Policy, The: Sweden and the Great Depression

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and Lisa Lewis

By early 1937, a debate over the proper conduct of monetary policy raged in Sweden. Sweden's response to the Great Depression was unique. It had, in particular, embraced a revolutionary goal for monetary policy when it abandoned the gold standard in 1931. View Details

Keywords: History; Money; Policy; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Sweden

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16 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Government Debt Management at the Zero Lower Bound

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, Joshua S. Rudolph & Lawrence H. Summers

Research Summary

Modernization Regimes

Professor Fabbe is currently conducting fieldwork for a book project that focuses on how societies respond to crisis and how states seek to use modernization initiatives to strengthen social resilience and cohesion. Towards this end, she is researching local... View Details

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

How Business Strategy Tamed the “Invisible Hand”

1930s, where it was noticed that direct labor costs tended to decrease by a constant percentage as the cumulative quantity of aircraft produced doubled. Learning effects figured prominently in wartime production planning efforts. World... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

October 2023
Case

Leading Transformation at IHCL

By: Krishna G. Palepu, V.G. Narayanan and Malini Sen

In November 2017, Puneet Chhatwal, took charge as MD and CEO of IHCL, popularly referred to as the Taj Hotels. Despite being India’s largest hospitality company by market capitalization and respected for its values and service, IHCL had made losses for the last seven... View Details

Keywords: Turn Around Management; Hospitality Industry; Brand Management; Financial Strategy; Business Model; Restructuring; Asset Management; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Segmentation; Asia; India