Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (986)
- March 2024 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Supercell 2.0: Clash of Plans
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and George Gonzalez
Founded in 2010, Supercell was a Helsinki, Finland-based mobile gaming company that had developed and launched five global hit mobile games: Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day, Brawl Stars, and Boom Beach. The company’s early philosophy was that it could produce... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
Funderbeam: Teaming Up or Going Alone?
By: Paul A. Gompers, Elena Corsi and Orna Dan
Funderbeam, a global platform founded in Estonia to enable start-ups to run private syndications and secondaries while offering liquidity for private equity investors, was at a crossroads. Over its ten-year run, the company had expanded its services and areas of... View Details
Keywords: Decision Making; Business Exit or Shutdown; Transition; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Law; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Ownership Stake; Expansion; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; Estonia; Republic of Ireland; United Kingdom; Singapore
- March 2024
- Background Note
Physical Climate Risk
By: Michael W. Toffel, Spencer Glendon and Alison Smart
This note describes how managers can identify their company’s physical climate risks, which can heighten the risk of business disruption, change the costs of operations and supply chains, and affect the demand for their goods and services. The note also provides a... View Details
- February 6, 2024
- Article
Find the AI Approach That Fits the Problem You’re Trying to Solve
By: George Westerman, Sam Ransbotham and Chiara Farronato
AI moves quickly, but organizations change much more slowly. What works in a lab may be wrong for your company right now. If you know the right questions to ask, you can make better decisions, regardless of how fast technology changes. You can work with your technical... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
Continuity & Change at Boston Consulting Group
By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane
As the new CEO of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) since autumn 2021, Christoph Schweizer had big shoes to fill—his predecessor, Rich Lesser, had tripled the partnership’s total revenues and created digital initiatives that contributed 40+% of 2021 revenues, more than... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Change Management; Talent and Talent Management; Governance; AI and Machine Learning; Environmental Sustainability; Leading Change; Risk Management; Organizational Culture; Partners and Partnerships; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Succession; Consulting Industry
- February 2024
- Teaching Note
Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth (A) and (B)
By: Mark Egan
Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 224-023 and 224-024. As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. A nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand, birddogs had carved its niche in men’s... View Details
- February 6, 2024
- Article
Find the AI Approach That Fits the Problem You’re Trying to Solve
By: George Westerman, Sam Ransbotham and Chiara Farronato
AI moves quickly, but organizations change much more slowly. What works in a lab may be wrong for your company right now. If you know the right questions to ask, you can make better decisions, regardless of how fast technology changes. You can work with your technical... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
Shore Capital Partners: The Next Ten Years
By: Boris Groysberg and Kerry Herman
Private equity firm Shore Capital Partners is at an inflection point, after 12 years of phenomenal growth and success. Now, as the partners consider options, should Shore remain micro-cap focused, or move into more mid-cap investments? Should Shore hold investments... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
More than Optics: Olympus's Vision to Become a Leading Global MedTech Company
By: David J. Collis and Haisley Wert
In August 2022, CEO Yasuo Takeuchi reflected on Olympus Corporation’s recent transformation from being known as a Japanese consumer camera company to becoming a leading global medical technology (MedTech) company. Over the past dozen years, Takeuchi and prior... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Runa
By: Paul Gompers and Carla Larangeira
In early 2022, Courtney McColgan, founder and CEO of Runa, a human resources and payroll Software-as-a-Service platform, faced an unexpected tech market downturn. Founded in 2018, Runa catered to small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico, offering an affordable and... View Details
- January 2024
- Supplement
Winning Business at Russell Reynolds
By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco
In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting—and... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Change Management; Transformation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Curriculum and Courses; Teaching; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Franchise Ownership; Performance Expectations; Performance Improvement; Strategic Planning; Attitudes; Conflict Management; Corporate Strategy; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Education Industry; Music Industry; Massachusetts; United States
- January 2024
- Case
Colbún and Chile's Energy Transition
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
In May 2023, Colbún, Chile’s second-largest electricity generator, plans capacity expansions using renewable energy and storage. This strategy supports Chile’s commitment to carbon neutrality (also known as net zero emissions) by 2050. The case delves into the... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Transforming Healthcare Delivery at Karolinska University Hospital
By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Elena Corsi and Nikolina Jonsson
The case study examines the journey toward value-based healthcare at Karolinska University Hospital. The hospital's ambitious shift to a patient-centered care delivery model, accompanied by the construction of a new facility, encountered challenges such as high costs,... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Rapport in Organizations: Evidence from Fast Food
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Parker Howell, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
Common identity often provides a foundation for workplace rapport. Though gender is perhaps the most frequently studied dimension of identity among workers, little is known about how gender match between managers and their workers might affect team performance. Using... View Details
- December 2023
- Case
Santa Elena: Table Grape Production in Chile's Water-Challenged Regions
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
In the fiscal year ending in September 2022, Santa Elena, Chile’s fifth-ranking table grape exporter, a grape producer and exporter since 1980, had exported around 3.5 million boxes (18-pound each). But, due to a 13-year-long drought that plagued table grape-growing... View Details
Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Natural Resources; Food; Environmental Law; Problems and Challenges; Weather; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chile; South America; Latin America
- December 1, 2023
- Article
When Charismatic CEOs Are an Asset—and When They’re a Liability
By: Nitin Nohria
Starting in the 1980s, a generation of larger-than-life CEOs became full-blown celebrity, but over time, research suggested that charismatic CEOs tended to have drawbacks at leaders. However, charisma can be especially useful in two business concepts with big unknowns:... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
From Imitation to Innovation: Zongshen Industrial Group (Abridged)
By: Willy Shih and Nancy Dai
Like other small shops based in Chongqing, China, Zongshen Industrial Group started by assembling motorcycles from "standard" parts. The quality of its early products was good enough for rural Chinese buyers, though wealthier consumers usually purchased premium... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Swanson Health: Becoming a Super Seller
By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Paige Boehmcke
Founded in 1969, Swanson Health sold vitamins, supplements, natural health products, and organic foods. Over the years, the company had successfully navigated multiple industry transitions as it expanded from a print catalog to sell products on its own... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
UST's Adoption of Open Talent
By: Christopher Stanton and Kristen Senz
This case details the 2020 launch and subsequent scaling of UST’s Open Talent initiative, a program to integrate freelancers from digital platforms into its workforce. The case highlights how the shifting post-pandemic world, including layoffs, wage inflation, and... View Details