Publications

August 2019
Case

Creating Accountability in Afghanistan

By: Jonas Heese, Gerardo Pérez Cavazos, Eugene F. Soltes and Grace Liu

By early 2019, the United States had contributed $132 billion to the Afghan reconstruction. John Sopko, in his role as the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), was in charge of providing accountability for U.S. aid funding. Sopko’s oversight... View Details

Keywords: Auditing; Fraud; Accountability; Crime and Corruption; Law Enforcement; Governance; Infrastructure; Information; Networks; Strategy; Afghanistan

07 Aug 2009
What Do You Think?

Why Can’t Americans Get Health Care Right?

and digest information, test ideas, define the purpose, and align it to a strategy (Akram Boutros, Jack Slagle, Nikos Mourkogiannis, among others). This all will require more leadership (Paul Karras, Phil Clark). There was general... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

December 2002 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Gates Foundation and Small High Schools, The

By: Stig Leschly

Covers the evolution of the Gates Foundation's multibillion dollar effort to influence reform in the U.S. public education system since 1999, particularly the foundation's recent decision to invest heavily in the breakup of existing urban high schools and the creation... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Urban Development; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Education Industry

Ryan Raffaelli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He created and teaches the MBA course "Leadership: Execution and Action Planning" (LEAP) and serves... View Details

Keywords: publishing industry; advertising; consulting; information technology industry; grocery; nonprofit industry; retailing; consumer products; federal government

December 1996 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Cynthia Hogan and the Birth of Novartis

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

An American woman heads an integration office for merger transition activities between two giant Swiss pharmaceutical companies. She needed to develop an implementation plan to shape the new global powerhouse. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Global Strategy; Organizational Design; Strategic Planning; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland; United States

July 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Pricing at Netflix

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg and Amy Klopfenstein

Since its launch in 1998 as “the Amazon.com of DVDs,” Netflix had evolved from a DVD rental company to a video streaming platform and producer of original films and television shows. As the company matured, it regularly increased prices and adjusted its product... View Details

March 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Exercise

Organizational Alignment Exercise

By: Michael Beer and John J. Gabarro

Presents an overview of a method for diagnosing and developing an organization's capability to achieve its goals and implement its strategy, with exercises for application. A rewritten version of an earlier exercise. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Alignment

15 Nov 2010
Lessons from the Classroom

Connecting Goals and Go-To-Market Initiatives

Cespedes: For most firms, the largest, most difficult, and increasingly expensive part of strategy implementation is aligning field behaviors and go-to-market systems with espoused strategic goals. It's the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Supplement

Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Cost of Capital; Corporate Finance; Value; Valuation; Industrial Products Industry; United States; Denmark; Republic of Ireland

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum Business Marketing and Sales

Business markets differ from consumer markets in important ways. Typically, the buying process is more complex, the buying units and purchase criteria differ, and marketing decisions are more closely interrelated with firm-wide strategic choices. In addition,... View Details

March 1997 (Revised July 1999)
Case

S1 Corporation

S1 is a fast growing subsidiary of the Samsung Group in South Korea that sells business security products. S1 has implemented a number of marketing initiatives that the company president would like to have evaluated. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Price; Salesforce Management; Consumer Products Industry; Service Industry; South Korea

Program

Advanced Management Program

tackle your organization's toughest strategic challenges, lead with greater confidence, inspire performance at all levels—and contribute more value as a member of your company's senior leadership team. Lead a global organization by setting the right View Details

June 2001
Exercise

Strategic Human Resource Management Applications Exercise

By: Michael Beer

Overview of a method for diagnosing and developing an organization's capability to achieve its goals and implement its strategy, with exercises for application. A rewritten version of an earlier exercise. View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Strategy

September 1992 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Chrysler: Iacocca's Legacy

By: Nitin Nohria and Sandy Green

Describes the changes fashioned by Iacocca during his tenure as CEO of the Chrysler Corp. Pays particular attention to the rhetoric he employed in mobilizing change and the actions he took to implement change. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Management Teams; Communication Strategy; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry

March 2020 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Performance Management at Afreximbank (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Siko Sikochi and Josh Steimle

Based in Cairo, Afreximbank was founded in October 1993 as a specialized continental financial institution designed to address the low level of intra-African trade, the decline in financial flows to Africa, the worsening external debt situation of many African... View Details

Keywords: Performance Management; Balanced Scorecard; Performance Expectations; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Organizational Culture; Strategy; Banking Industry; Africa; Egypt

January 2007 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Procter & Gamble: Organization 2005 (A)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Alessandro L. Spadini

In response to a huge crisis in 2000, the new CEO of Procter & Gamble has to decide whether to continue with an unusual organizational design or to revert to the old matrix organization. Describes all the organizational designs used by Procter & Gamble from the 1920s... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

February 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

"Not another Bochum." Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila was clear in the goals he set for the 2011 restructuring that Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, had decided was necessary to address the dramatically changed competitive environment the company faced in smartphones... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Plant Closure; Outplacement; Shared Value; Business or Company Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Restructuring; Employee Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Cisco Business Councils (2007): Unifying a Functional Enterprise with an Internal Governance System

By: Ranjay Gulati

In response to the 2001 market downturn, Cisco Systems implemented a major restructuring that transformed the company from a decentralized to centralized organization. While recognizing that a centralized, functional structure was necessary to avoid product and... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Customer Focus and Relationships; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resource Allocation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry