Publications

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

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21 May 2001
Research & Ideas

From Tigers to Kaleidoscopes: Thinking About Future Leadership

professor Linda A. Hill. And leaders at the forefront of top companies in the future, she believes, already know that the key to competitive advantage is their own ability as leaders to nurture and harness the "collective genius," of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

28 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

It’s India Above China in New World Order

professor of strategy at HBS. It is also important because the two countries have embraced very different models of development. The biggest source of worry is the state of China's banking sector, which is technically insolvent.—Yasheng... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

April 2022
Teaching Note

Tempur Sealy International (A, B & C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 718-422, 718-423, and 718-424. The cases explore the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms... View Details

September 2017 (Revised April 2022)
Supplement

Tempur Sealy International (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

This case explores the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms enjoyed a mutually beneficial and commercially prosperous... View Details

June 2020
Teaching Plan

Chief

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Kathleen L. McGinn, Julia Kelley, Amy Klopfenstein and Katherine Chen

Teaching Plan serves as a supplement to the case for “Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers” (920-019), “Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan” (920-020), and “Scaling at Chief” (920-021). View Details

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

explosion of trade and capital flows created a world that looked in many ways like ours. Yet even in the early 20th century, there remained tensions of increasing inequality and wage competition in a context of ruthless international... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto; Aerospace; Chemical; Consumer Products; Electronics; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

28 Jun 2016
First Look

June 28, 2016

businesses. The strategy literature uses real option theory to explain the transition to scale, but does not consider the complex relationships between corporate ventures and their parent organizations. By comparing six longitudinal cases... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 5

took only a portion of each bird produced and OSI had to develop a go-to-market strategy for the rest. The case describes the opportunities and challenges of operating in China and raises questions involving vertical integration, View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 4, 2007

the acquired operation has a different culture than its existing operation. How can Gome remedy that? How does the acquisition, if it happens, fit the overall corporate strategy of relying on thin margin and volume? How would this... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Viacom, Inc.: Carpe Diem

By: Joseph L. Bower and Thomas R. Eisenmann

Viacom has reached a powerful position in the global entertainment industry through skillful and very bold acquisitions. Now its further expansion is challenged by the moves of Rupert Murdock's News Corp. Different businesses within Viacom have contradictory positions... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entertainment; Global Strategy; Management; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

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November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Bridgit: Persevere or Pivot?

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

In late 2012, Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake, two young women in their final year of college, founded Bridgit, a technology startup that developed solutions to simplify vital but laborious processes within the construction industry. In the Fall of 2013, after months... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Founder; Co-founders; Women Executives; Pivot; Startup; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Product Launch; Research and Development; Competition; Construction Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Canada

December 2015
Supplement

An Intern's Dilemma (B)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Matthew Preble

An HBS student is asked to misrepresent himself during the course of his student internship by his employer in order to obtain data from a competitor. This case describes how the student handled the situation and what he learned about himself from it. View Details

Keywords: Conflict; Leadership; Conflict Management; Competition; Ethics; Knowledge Acquisition; Organizational Culture; Employees; Power and Influence

December 2015
Case

An Intern's Dilemma (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Matthew Preble

An HBS student is asked to misrepresent himself during the course of his summer internship by his employer in order to obtain data from industry competitors. View Details

Keywords: Conflict; Leadership; Conflict Management; Competition; Ethics; Knowledge Acquisition; Organizational Culture; Employees; Power and Influence

22 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 23

challenges ranging from global competition to digitization. In times past, being caught flat-footed might have set a company back several years, but it could recover. Today, the threats are existential in nature, and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Nov 2024
In Practice

Layoffs Surging in a Strong Economy? Advice for Navigating Uncertain Times

the layoff research of our colleagues as a touchpoint, we are troubled by the potential long-term costs of this trend, including reduced innovation, lower team engagement, and attrition of talented people. The path to competitive... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Palm (A): The Debate on Licensing Palm's OS (1997)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Debates; Decisions; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Production; Competition; Value Creation; Information Technology Industry