Publications

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

underlying reason why: Leaders often get stuck in echo chambers that merely reinforce their own ideas, says Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer. Meanwhile, lower-level employees are often fully aware of the problems that plague... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

13 Sep 2016
First Look

September 13, 2016

forthcoming Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Bounded Awareness: Implications for Ethical Decision Making By: Bazerman, Max, and Ovul Sezer Abstract—In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the... View Details

December 1997 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Wolfgang Keller at Konigsbrau-TAK (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Wolfgang Keller, manager of the Ukrainian subsidiary of a German beer company, faces a managerial dilemma. His subordinate, Dmitri Brodsky, is a talented and experienced commercial director who is not meeting his goals expediently and often requires considerable... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Performance Evaluation; Management Style; Managerial Roles; Behavior; Conflict Management; Situation or Environment; Failure; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Ukraine; Germany

May 1994 (Revised November 1994)
Case

PepsiCo: A View from the Corporate Office

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Describes the three business segments of PepsiCo (beverages, snack foods, and restaurants). It then explores the competitive environment within each segment and the response of PepsiCo's businesses. It seeks to show how PepsiCo CEO, D. Wayne Calloway, in a very... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Change; Governance Controls; Management Style; Organizational Structure; Situation or Environment; Competitive Strategy; Value; Food and Beverage Industry

15 Nov 2022
Book

Stop Ignoring Bad Behavior: 6 Tips for Better Ethics at Work

and distributors. It took a village of complicity to create an opioid epidemic that has led to a surge in overdose deaths, says Max H. Bazerman, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

Article

The Learning Effects of Monitoring

By: Dennis Campbell, Marc Epstein and F. Asis Martinez-Jerez

This paper investigates the relationship between monitoring, decision making, and learning among lower-level employees. We exploit a field-research setting in which business units vary in the "tightness" with which they monitor employee decisions. We find that tighter... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Business or Company Management; Decision Making; Employees; Research; Resignation and Termination; Rights; Business Units; Governance Controls; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

Find at Harvard

September 1990 (Revised November 1991)
Supplement

Procter & Gamble Japan (C)

By: Michael Y. Yoshino

Updates the (A) case. The issues facing P&G were two-fold. 1) General manager, Japan--how to keep both the business and organization growing; 2) President, international--what role should the Japanese operation play in the P&G worldwide business? View Details

Keywords: Business Offices; Business Growth and Maturation; Globalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizations; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Japan

October 2022
Case

Cost Plus Drugs

By: Alexander MacKay and James Barnett

In September 2022, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company CEO Alex Oshmyansky considered the future of the company. Cost Plus Drugs was a retailer for more than 340 generic oral medications, selling their drugs at significantly lower prices than typical pharmacies.... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Health; Markets; Social Enterprise; Society; Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Business Divisions; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; Texas

March 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales. These results were in marked contrast... View Details

Keywords: Best Buy; Hubert Joly; Renew Blue; Showrooming; Webrooming; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Marketplaces; Turnaround; Consumer Electronics; Consumer Electronics Accessories; Appliances; Stores-within-stores; Store Experience; Store Size; Store Pickup; Store Management; Delivery; Delivery Models; Amazon; Amazon.com; Pricing Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Cost; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Technological Innovation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Media; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Infrastructure; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Programs; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Resource Allocation; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; United States; Minnesota; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; St. Paul

September 26, 2022
Article

Is Your Family Office Built for the Future?

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Family offices can provide a number of benefits, including privacy, customization, and having your own team to handle a wide range of services, such as guiding family philanthropy, managing shared properties, or even managing household help. Successful principals in... View Details

Keywords: Business Offices; Family and Family Relationships

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22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

methodologies tuned to the experiential dimension. Capitalism scholars today are interested in the narratives created by the interplay of a broad variety of actors, from those who organize businesses to those who consume, trade, plant,... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

October 1996 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (D): Gasoline Marketing

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Mobil US Marketing & Refining has shifted from a centralized staff-driven organization to decentralized business-units. Staff functions now must negotiate service agreements with a buyer's committee consisting of representatives from the profit-center business units.... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Management Teams; Human Resources; Agreements and Arrangements; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customers; Situation or Environment; Business Units; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; United States

25 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

We May Have Taken Too Much Credit for Easing Workplace Segregation

Hroe Large American companies are less racially integrated today than a generation ago—in fact, businesses have returned to the bleaker segregation levels of the 1970s, new research shows. This racial View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

College. Andy is also fluent in Japanese. Todd Krasnow (MBA 1983), Orchid Partners Todd Krasnow graduated from Harvard Business School in 1983. Following three years at the Star Market division of Jewel... View Details

September 2007
Case

Kohl Industries

By: John A. Davis

Describes a compensation dilemma with a father and his three children, who work in different businesses under the family holding companies. The father, James Cole, must set compensation that meets the needs of the family and the business. View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Family Business; Compensation and Benefits; Family and Family Relationships

July 2010 (Revised June 2016)
Case

Erik Peterson at Biometra (A)

By: John J. Gabarro, Thomas DeLong and Jevan Soo

Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a medical device company owned by a parent corporation. Raises issues of corporate divisional relationships and the difficulties facing an inexperienced manager who seems to be... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Product Launch; Organizational Structure; Problems and Challenges; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

19 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

The Regional Slice of Your Global Strategy

Harvard Business School professor Pankaj Ghemawat has long argued that the best international strategy also includes recognition of differences in local markets. In the December 2005 issue of Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

October 1979 (Revised March 1986)
Case

PC&D, Inc.

By: Evelyn T. Christiansen and Richard G. Hamermesh

Covers history of PC&D from 1960 to 1975 as it grows from a single business firm to a diversified firm. Emphasizes the use of subsidiaries for product development and fast growth. Other issues include problems of a new CEO in keeping control of fast growing divisions. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Business Subsidiaries; Diversification; Growth Management; Product Development