Publications
Publications
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(5,770)
- Faculty Publications (551)
- February 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time
By: Stefan H. Thomke and Mona Sinha
Describes the Mumbai-based Dabbawala organization, which achieves very high service performance (6 Sigma equivalent or better) with a low-cost and very simple operating system. The case explores all aspects of their system (mission, information management, material... View Details
- 2009
- Book
Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization
By: Ranjay Gulati
In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why?... View Details
- November 2009
- Case
Dawn Stokes: The View from the Driver's Seat
By: Boris Groysberg and Lindsay Tanne
Dawn Stokes founded and was successful as CEO of Texas Driving Experience, a company that provided driving lessons, both safety-based for teens, and high-performance racecar driving for individual thrill seekers and corporate events. Although the company had done well,... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
PureCircle
By: David E. Bell and Aldo Sesia
In December 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that high-purity Rebaudioside A (Reb A), a natural and calorie-free product that a young company named PureCircle manufactured from the Stevia plant, could be used in beverages, foods, and as a... View Details
- November 2009
- Case
VF Brands: Global Supply Chain Strategy
By: Gary P. Pisano and Pamela Adams
This case examines VF Brands global supply chain strategy. Historically, VF has used a combination of in-house manufacturing and traditional arms-length sourcing arrangements. At the time of the case, the company is considering a third approach to supplier relations... View Details
- October 2009
- Case
Low-k Dielectrics at IBM
By: Willy C. Shih and Giovanni Carraro
Innovations at the frontiers of technology carry enormous risk of making wrong choices. This case examines a decision made by IBM in its semiconductor process technology strategy: a material to use as a dielectric insulator in its leading edge silicon chip technology.... View Details
- October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture
By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig
On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details
- August 2009
- Supplement
The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)
By: Willy C. Shih
When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details
- June 2009
- Case
Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge
By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham
In January of 2005, Manchester Products Inc., a longtime leader in office furniture that only recently entered into the home furniture market, acquired Paul Logan's Furniture Division (PLFD). The acquisition of PLFD made Manchester an instant market leader in household... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Don't Just Survive - Thrive: Leading Innovation in Good Times and Bad
By: Lynda M. Applegate and J. Bruce Harreld
Battered by contracting markets and frozen credit, many businesses today are fighting for survival. Indeed, the current global financial crisis provides a mandate for restructuring. But survival is not the end goal. In fact, cost cutting and restructuring are simply... View Details
- May 2009
- Article
The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad
By: Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Boris Groysberg and Nitin Nohria
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Few companies are thinking about hiring right now, but that's a mistake. If history... View Details
- April 2009
- Article
How to Market in a Downturn
By: John A. Quelch and Katherine Jocz
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Because no two recessions are exactly alike, marketers find themselves in poorly... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised February 2010)
- Case
Gucci Group in 2009
By: David B. Yoffie and Renee Kim
The Gucci Group had transformed itself into the world's third largest luxury retailer with multiple brands. The company had performed well even after the departure of star designer Tom Ford and former CEO Domenico De Sole. However, the challenging global economic times... View Details
- December 2008
- Case
Taylor Fresh Foods
By: David E. Bell, Natalie Kindred and Mary Louise Shelman
In 13 years, Bruce Taylor had built Taylor Fresh Foods into a $1 billion company and the top supplier of salads to the U.S. food service industry and to supermarket deli departments. In 2008, he was convinced that the time was right to make a big push in the fresh food... View Details
- December 2008
- Case
JBS Swift & Co.
By: David E. Bell and Cathy Ross
Brazilian meat packer JBS surprised many in the U.S. beef industry when it acquired Swift & Co.—a company more than five times its size—in 2007, then moved to acquire the U.S.'s fourth and fifth largest beef producers in 2008. The new JBS Swift slashed costs and... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
Omron: Sensing Society
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ethan S Bernstein
"Leading profitable growth is only part of the goal. We cannot live without breathing, but we do not live in order to take a breath,” said Omron's President and CEO, Hisao Sakuta, in 2008. Omron, a $7B global supplier of sensors, control system components, advanced... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
We test the hypothesis that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data... View Details
- July 2008 (Revised January 2010)
- Case
Affinity Labs, Inc.
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind
In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold... View Details
- 2008
- Simulation
Strategic Innovation Simulation: Back Bay Battery
By: Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen
This online simulation allows students to play the role of a business unit manager at Back Bay Battery Company who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery space. Players have to manage R&D... View Details
- June 2008 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Yataro Iwasaki: Founding Mitsubishi (A)
By: Geoffrey Jones, Masako Egawa and Mayuka Yamazaki
Considers the entrepreneurial career of the founder of Mitsubishi, Yataro Iwasaki, who built a large shipping company against the opposition of powerful Western incumbents. Although sometimes supported by the Japanese government, and often times opposed, the case... View Details