Publications

October 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Souqalmal: The Choice Is Yours (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Alpana Thapar

This case describes how Ambareen Musa, Founder and CEO of Souqalmal, a Dubai-based online comparison aggregator of banking and insurance products launched her business in 2011 and rapidly grew it over next couple of years. However, by 2017, the Mauritian entrepreneur... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Finance; Accounting; Competitive Strategy; Financial Statements; Insurance Industry; Middle East

March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Fetchr: A New Way of Last Mile Delivery

By: V.G. Narayanan and Eren Kuzucu

By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the... View Details

2016
Working Paper

An Evaluation of Compensation Benchmarking Peer Groups Based on Mutual Peer-Designating Behaviors

By: Jee Eun Shin

In this paper, I argue that firms mutually recognizing each other as compensation benchmarking peers constitute viable competitors in the same CEO labor market, and that non-mutual peer relationships can serve as a tool to evaluate firms’ executive compensation... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation

SSRN

March 2016 (Revised November 2021)
Teaching Note

T-Mobile in 2013: The Un-Carrier

By: John Beshears and Francesca Gino

By 2013, the U.S. wireless industry was in the midst of a costly transition. As consumers began to embrace more sophisticated mobile devices, the industry's four main players spent heavily to improve their infrastructures for providing reliable high-speed data... View Details

Keywords: Wireless Industry; Telecommunications; Mobile; Service Contracts; Behavioral Economics; Add-on Fees; Shrouded Attributes; Contracts; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; United States

October 2013
Supplement

Alcoa's Bid for Alcan (B)

By: Paul Healy and Penelope Rossano

In spring 2007, Alcoa CEO Alain Belda was concerned about the company's market position in light of increased competition from developing markets. China's recent entry into the aluminum market was affecting both supply and demand. Furthermore, downstream and upstream... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Acquisitions; Alcoa; Alcan; Rio Tinto; Aluminum Industry; Accounting; Financial Analysis; Consolidation; Market Participation; Financial Statements; Acquisition; Mining; Mining Industry; Canada; United States

June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Inditex: 2000

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2000, Inditex was one of the largest specialty apparel retailers in the world, with $2.4 billion in sales from 1,080 stores across 33 countries. Zara, Inditex's main brand, produced popular designer items at a fraction of design-house prices and could push an item... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Fashion Industry; Succession; IPO; Competition; Initial Public Offering; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Succession; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

March 2011
Case

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company in 2011

By: Willy Shih and Jia Cheng

When David Wang took over as the CEO of SMIC, he knew that if he was to capitalize on the company's strategic location in the China market, he would have to transform the company mindset and its operating structure from its roots in the manufacturing of DRAMs to the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Market Entry and Exit; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Customization and Personalization; Semiconductor Industry; China

May 2005 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Gallardo's Goes to Mexico

By: Clayton M. Christensen

The theories of market segmentation and brand building in Chapter 3, What Products Will Customers Want to Buy? in The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor suggest that when companies segment markets and build brands in ways that match how the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Global Strategy; Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Mexico

May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)

By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Industry Structures; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Bids and Bidding; Economy; Ownership Stake; Chemical Industry; Brazil

Find at Harvard

December 1999 (Revised March 2000)
Case

Workplace Safety at Alcoa (B)

At the May 1996 annual shareholders meeting, Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill reported that Alcoa was making great progress toward becoming a world-class leader, both in terms of workplace safety and profitability. This validated of O'Neill's decade-long emphasis on safety as... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Working Conditions; Quality; Cost; Profit; Management Systems

March 1998 (Revised June 1998)
Case

Coming to Grips with Deregulation: Bay State Gas

In 1995, CEO Roger Young made a surprising decision to bring in Joel Singer, an outsider with an MBA, to lead Bay State through the upcoming turmoil of deregulation. Singer was convinced that in this situation where the boundaries of the industry were being defined,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Emerging Markets; Energy Industry; Massachusetts

Find at Harvard

12 Oct 2022
Video

Dan Mall: Defining Good Design

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or The End of the Beginning?

TransDigm, an incredibly successful yet relatively unknown company, manufactures a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts utilizing a somewhat controversial strategy. In the 10 years following its IPO in March 2006, its stock price increased by... View Details

17 Oct 2023
Blog Post

HBS Section I Celebrates Parents, Mentors, and Partners Day

when responding to a parent's perspective. What set this session apart was Professor Fubini's innovative approach. He even called on Travis Fox, partner of Meghana Bansal (MBA 2024), to roleplay as CEO Rick Cohen telling his staff about... View Details

Web

Innovation & Innovative Capacity - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Research Areas Research Areas Antitrust & Competition Policy CEO Leadership Environmental Quality Innovation & Innovative Capacity Philanthropy Social Progress Index Innovation & Innovative ... Innovation & Innovative Capacity... View Details

19 Jan 2024
News

The Values and Virtues of a Quick Fix

just came to mind is the young CEO of the Momofuku restaurant group. Her name is Marguerite Seybar Mariscal. What I love about her as a storyteller is she's not afraid to use all kinds of different media. So yeah, she's telling the story... View Details

01 Jun 2023
News

Pet Project

than children—she started to think more seriously about the value proposition. Spies teamed up with Christine Busaba (MBA 2019) to launch Maev in March 2020 as a direct-to-consumer (DTC) raw dog food company. Business has tripled every year since, says View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Sporting Goods, Hobby, Musical Instrument, and Book Stores; Retail Trade

17 Apr 2022
Book

How to Avoid the 'Ethical Slide' That Leads Companies Astray

figure is even higher, at 22 percent. And managers are responsible for 60 percent of all misconduct, with nearly a quarter of it coming from senior managers. Avoiding ’the ethical slide’ Nelson points to the recent Theranos trial, in which founder and View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

2025
Working Paper

Management and Firm Dynamism

By: Nicholas Bloom, Jonathan S. Hartley, Raffaella Sadun, Rachel Schuh and John Van Reenen

We show better-managed firms are more dynamic in plant acquisitions, disposals, openings and closings in U.S. Census and international data. Better-managed firms also birth better-managed plants, and improve the performance of the plants they acquire. To explain these... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Business or Company Management; Performance Productivity