Publications

February 2013
Case

18 Months in a Startup: Zaggora.com

By: Tom Nicholas

The founders of Zaggora reflected back on a tumultuous year-and-a-half in which they had generated, from just $40,000 in personal savings, a multi-million dollar sportswear enterprise selling Hotpants to women. These were hotpants not of the 1960s hipster variety, but... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention; Corporate Finance; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

September 2017
Case

Sensing (and Monetizing) Happiness at Hitachi

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

Inspired by research linking happiness and productivity, Hitachi had invested in developing new “people analytics” technologies to help companies increase employee happiness. Hitachi had begun manufacturing high-tech badges that quantify a wearer’s activity patterns.... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Japan; Sociometers; Wearables; Interpersonal Communication; Human Resources; Happiness; Technology Industry; Japan

November 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Pitney Bowes Inc.

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Ho Howard Yu

Pitney Bowes, the world's dominant maker of equipment used in generating and handling mail, is facing flattening growth in its core businesses and needs to create new growth products and businesses. Describes how a group of employees use state-of-the-art techniques for... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

01 Mar 2010
Op-Ed

A Golden Opportunity for Ford and GM

board chair. Since that time, he has acted decisively, removing Fritz Henderson as CEO and assuming the mantle himself. Whitacre quickly reorganized the company from top to bottom, cut out layers of middle management, initiated new View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Auto

08 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Building Effective R&D Capabilities Abroad

capabilities and product portfolio, the company needed a dedicated laboratory site in East Asia. The new site would support efforts to manufacture and market pharmaceuticals by adapting View Details

Keywords: by Walter Kuemmerle

13 Jan 2023
Blog Post

Video: Introduction to the Harvard MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences

in this program, which go through the design fundamentals and the process of launching a new high-tech venture. And it covers the whole process from the initial need discovery process, through developing the idea, fleshing out the View Details

July 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Case

Lady Gaga (A)

By: Anita Elberse and Michael Christensen

In September 2009, Troy Carter, manager of up-and-coming pop star Lady Gaga, has to decide on a new course of action now that his artist's planned co-headlining arena tour with hip-hop superstar Kanye West has been cancelled. Carter knows that continuing the tour, but... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Product; Product Development; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Creativity; Music Industry

December 1, 2022
Article

Which Connections Really Help You Find a Job?

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral

Experiments involving 20 million people generated a surprising finding: moderately weak connects — and not strong connections — are the most useful in finding a new job. To be more specific, the ties that are most helpful for finding new jobs tend to be moderately... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Job Search

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10 Sep 2020
Blog Post

Founding a Company at the Intersection of Medicine and Technology

Paxton Maeder-York is a proud member of the MBA class of 2019, Section G. He deferred between his RC and EC years to complete an additional master’s degree in Computational Science. Having studied Biomedical Engineering as an undergraduate and worked as a View Details

August 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Haier: Taking a Chinese Company Global in 2011

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Phillip Andrews

In 2011, Haier, China's leading appliance manufacturer, had over $20 billion in worldwide sales and had just been named the leading refrigerator manufacturer worldwide. Describes Haier's rise over three decades from a defunct refrigerator factory in China's Qingdao... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Global Strategy; Expansion; Diversification; Emerging Markets; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; China

Spring 2021
Article

Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19

By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang

The coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp market decline while raising heterogeneous responses across companies related to their employees, supply chain, and repurposing of operations to provide needed products and services. We study whether during the 2020 COVID-19... View Details

SSRN

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January 2003 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Finding a CEO for the School District of Philadelphia: Searching for a Savior?

Following the largest state takeover of a local public school district in U.S. history, a new governing body must find a CEO to effect a large-scale turnaround in the Philadelphia school district. This case examines the context of large urban public schools and... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Restructuring; Education; Crisis Management; Education Industry; Philadelphia

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21 Jan 2020
Cold Call Podcast

China-based Fuyao Glass Considers Manufacturing in the US

Keywords: Re: Willy C. Shih; Manufacturing

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Board Director Dilemmas—Sharing Expertise

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Amram Migdal

This case focuses on a new director who was invited to the board specifically due to her expertise in a technical area. The case allows for discussion of the board director’s appropriate role: to advise and direct management or to ask thoughtful questions about... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Experience and Expertise

February 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Versity.com

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Versity.com has grown from four college students working out of a dorm to a $125 million venture capital-backed company. The young founders and new professional managers struggle to create a company vision and grapple with the question of whether to acquire another... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Growth and Development; Organizational Design; Mission and Purpose; Strategic Planning; Conflict and Resolution; Mergers and Acquisitions; Management Teams; Core Relationships