Publications

February 2009 (Revised April 2011)
Supplement

Mistry Architects (B)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles and Mona Sinha

This case is a follow-up of Mistry Architects: Innovating for Sustainability (A) (Case 609-044). In Case (A) Sharukh and Renu Mistry found and run an architectural firm dedicated to being both client-oriented and environmentally responsible. The case uses a difficult... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Emerging Markets; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Natural Disasters; Environmental Sustainability; Product Design; Innovation and Invention; Construction Industry

October 2007 (Revised July 2016)
Teaching Note

Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines

By: Anthony J. Mayo

A $385 million loss for the final months of fiscal year 1994 signaled Continental might go bankrupt. Could new CEO Gordon Bethune turn Continental around? Continental was in dire straits because the deregulation of the commercial airline industry in 1978 ushered in a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Profit; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Improvement; Labor and Management Relations

03 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 3

Brightwork Brand Holdings Corp. acquired it as an asset purchase in 2011. Ghurka, under CEO John Reuter, worked to re-launch the brand with a ten-year, three-phase growth plan. The company aimed to be profitable by 2016. Management worked... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2003
Case

Executive Compensation at Reckitt Benckiser plc

By: V.G. Narayanan, Krishna G. Palepu and Lisa Brem

Investors felt betrayed by the increasingly lucrative pay packages awarded to CEOs and other top executives at multinational companies. Yet, board members charged with adequately rewarding executives were forced to compete with rising packages of salaries and stock... View Details

Keywords: Design; Stock Options; Investment Activism; Corporate Accountability; Compensation and Benefits; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations; Consumer Products Industry; Netherlands; United States

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Do I Dare Say Something?

enterprises as well. In this e-mail interview, Edmondson and Detert discuss their research and how managers can create environments that encourage and support "upward voice." Their paper is called "Latent Voice Episodes:... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

October 2010 (Revised July 2013)
Case

AEP: Carbon Capture and Storage

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

By October 2010, American Electric Power, the largest coal-fired, electric utility in the United States, had been operating a carbon capture and sequestration pilot plant for one year. Using a proprietary, Alstom chilled ammonia technology, AEP was capturing and... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Government Legislation; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Projects; Decision Choices and Conditions; Environmental Sustainability; Problems and Challenges; Utilities Industry; United States

01 Dec 2011
What Do You Think?

Thinking Slow: An Argument for Bureaucracy?

Kahneman's diagnosis, but not his remedy Whether the decision is to be made by an individual, a team, or 'the bureaucracy', I would say that all would be well served by the discipline imposed by adherence to a rational process (which) requires the intellectual rigor... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 13

May 2017 American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings Immigration and the Rise of American Ingenuity By: Akcigit, Ufuk, John Grigsby, and Tom Nicholas Abstract—We build on the analysis in Akcigit, Grigsby, and Nicholas (2017) by using U.S. patent and census data to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 30, 2015

Management Journal Monitoring Global Supply Chains By: Short, Jodi L., Michael W. Toffel, and Andrea R. Hugill Abstract—Firms reliant on supply chains to manufacture their goods risk reputational harm if the working conditions in those... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (A)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

Acumen Fund is a global venture capital firm with a dual purpose: it looks for a return on its investments, and it also seeks entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty. This case examines Acumen's new projects in Kenya. The organization's investment committee and its... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry; Kenya

August 2022 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Iluméxico: For Every Family to Have Power

By: Brian Trelstad, Isa Oliveres and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago

In 2022, Manuel Wiechers, the CEO of Iluméxico, a for-profit social enterprise that provided off-grid solar energy services in rural Mexico, was finalizing his presentation for the company’s upcoming board meeting. In the 12 years since Wiechers had co-founded... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Energy; Energy Policy; Energy Generation; Energy Sources; Growth Management; Business and Government Relations; Equity; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Energy Industry; Mexico; Latin America

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

American Auto’s Troubled Road

ways of thinking. It comes down to this: How do you rewrite all the implicit, explicit, and inefficient contracts and relationships that comprise the U.S. industry? To complete the move from such a protected market into a wide-open,... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

January 2010
Teaching Note

Youth Villages: The challenges of scaling a nonprofit with government as the primary funding source (TN)

By: Allen S. Grossman

Teaching Note for [309007]. View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Nonprofit Organizations; Emotions; Behavior; Cost; Growth and Development Strategy; Age; Business and Government Relations

September 2020
Teaching Note

Miami's Tech Future (C): Reaching Another Miami

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

The effects of Miami’s startup scene have not reached many “left-behind” lower-income Black communities, which are disproportionately affected by problems such as segregation and racial discrimination, lack of transportation access, crime, education quality, government... View Details

November 2010
Article

Wealth and Jobs: The Broken Link

By: Nitin Nohria

This article discusses the weakening connections between business growth and job creation. The industrial economy of the 20th century ensured that growing firms would need to add workers, but the increasingly globalized and information-based economy of the early 21st... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Economic Growth; Jobs and Positions; Employment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

July 2005 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Jesse Holman Jones and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Bridget Gurtler

Jesse Holman Jones is regarded as one of the most influential men in reviving the American economy from the Great Depression. With only an 8th grade education, he rose to the top of the banking, real estate, and lumber industries, as well as the upper echelons of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Financial Strategy; Business History; Leading Change; Managerial Roles; Business and Government Relations; Power and Influence