Publications

27 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Learning to Make the Move to CEO

You're a successful senior executive with 20, 25 years of experience under your belt. You've made your mark and stand just 1 or 2 rungs from the position of CEO. Now what? As faculty chair of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

September 2022
Case

ROI vs. ROI: The Grupo Baobá Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger

Fernando Scodro, a third-generation member of his family, mulled over the next step in integrating an ESG strategy into his family office’s investment portfolio. While his family office, Grupo Baobá, had made excellent progress in incorporating his family’s values into... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; ESG; Green Building; Family; Partnership; Latin America; Brazil; Buildings and Facilities; Green Buildings; Family Business; Family and Family Relationships; Financial Management; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Services Industry; Brazil; Latin America

November 1993 (Revised July 1995)
Case

OfficePro (A)

By: John A. Quelch

The international procurement manager of an off-price office supply retail chain has to recommend which of several bids to accept for the right to supply computer diskettes to OfficePro's new French subsidiary. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Globalized Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Supply Chain Management; Retail Industry; France

2009
Working Paper

Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement

By: Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling

This paper discusses five common divisional performance measurement methods—cost centers, revenue centers, profit centers, investment centers, and expense centers—providing a theory that explains when each of these methods is likely to be the most efficient. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business Headquarters; Decisions; Cost; Investment; Investment Return; Profit; Revenue; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Managerial Roles; Performance Efficiency; Strategy

SSRN

March 2023
Case

Mirakl: Growing The Marketplace Economy

By: Antonio Moreno, Santiago Gallino and Emilie Billaud

Mirakl provided the technology and seller network required for companies like Macy's, Best Buy, Walmart, Siemens, or Carrefour to simply design, launch, and administer a marketplace that included products from third-party sellers. What began as a basic business idea in... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Sales; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Europe; France; Paris; United States

November 2006 (Revised September 2007)
Case

The Bollingers: Negotiating with Wal-Mart (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Ellen Knebel

Describes the negotiations by Howard and Marilyn Bollinger over supplying a new product line to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. The (A) case outlines the Bollingers' development of their product, the Wallpockett, documents their negotiation preparation for... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Product Development; Supply Chain; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry

28 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

The Profit Power of Corporate Culture

themselves to local needs and cultures. If good managers are to be moved around the world as part of a "one company" strategy, they have to be hired with that in mind and provided with training in language and customers, time to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2010
Working Paper

Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations

By: Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

We study how exploration versus exploitation innovations impact economic growth through a tractable endogenous growth framework that contains multiple innovation sizes, multi-product firms, and entry/exit. Firms invest in exploration R&D to acquire new product lines... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economic Growth; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Size; Research and Development; United States

2020
Working Paper

Updating the Balanced Scorecard for Triple Bottom Line Strategies

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan

Many companies are now attempting to achieve triple bottom line performance on financial, environmental, and societal metrics. Successful strategies for such performance, however, generally require new relationships among multiple players in multiple sectors across a... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adaptation; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Performance; Strategy

SSRN

Read Now

19 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Inexperienced Investors and Market Bubbles

MacKay observed in 1852, "even chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen dabbled in tulips." These days it's not just chimney-sweeps who are lured to investment heartbreak. New research suggests that even professional fund managers—if... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

11 Aug 2021
Blog Post

The Equity Network: How HBS Helped Me Launch a Tech-Enabled Social Enterprise

Kristina Hu is from the Class of 2022 and a proud member of Section H. After graduating from Harvard College in 2016, she worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley before pivoting into tech, eventually becoming a product View Details

January 2001 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Range, The (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Tracy Thompson and Michael Smith

Reveals the potential benefits and pitfalls of reorganization into teams in order to respond to environmental change. Takes place in the newsroom of a metropolitan daily newspaper. Both management and employees struggle to find new balance after a major restructuring... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Groups and Teams; Restructuring; Balance and Stability; Organizational Structure; Business Processes; Journalism and News Industry

Find at Harvard

June 2003 (Revised September 2004)
Exercise

The Pacific Sentinel: Role for Chris Coleman

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Dina R. Pradel

A new publishing company has just purchased the Pacific Sentinel, a fictional West Coast newspaper. The new publisher is willing to invest $1 million in the future success of the paper and has asked the executive editor and advertising manager to develop a joint plan... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Conflict of Interests; Decision Making; Publishing Industry

Research Summary

Transition Leadership

Michael Watkins is developing frameworks, programs, and e-performance tools for helping leaders to take charge in new senior management roles. New leaders' actions during their first few months on the job have a disproportionate impact on their ultimate success or... View Details

February 1999 (Revised October 1999)
Case

Cherkizovsky Group (A), The

By: Lynn S. Paine and Hal Hogan

Describes the transformation of a formerly state-owned meat processing plant in Russia into a privately-owned and operated food processing conglomerate under Russia's economic reforms of the 1990s. Among the challenges the CEO, Igor Babaev, and his top management team... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Privatization; Transformation; Global Strategy; Culture; Food and Beverage Industry; Russia

November 2015 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Huaxia: Building a U.S.-Style Dairy in China

By: Tarun Khanna, Nancy Hua Dai and Juan Ma

In 2015, Charles Shao, chairman of Huaxia, considered the alternatives to ensure sustainable growth of Huaxia and rebuild the overall health of China's dairy industry. He came to China in 2004 and set up Huaxia dairy farm with the goal to build a world-class dairy farm... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Emerging Markets; Agribusiness; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China

25 Oct 2017
News

Demanding a Bachelor’s Degree for a Middle-Skill Job Is Just Plain Dumb

January 2001
Case

Merck Global Health Initiatives (B): Botswana

By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and James Weber

The case series focuses on Merck's drug donation program and then raises new issues facing management about what to do about HIV/AIDS in Africa given the company's development of a new therapy. Describes collaboration among many parties including the Gates Foundation,... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Private Sector; Public Sector; Alliances; Problems and Challenges; Africa; Botswana