Publications

Profile

Fola Folowosele

Why was earning your MBA at HBS important to you? At Mesoamerica Energy, the wind energy company I worked at prior to business school, I held a cross functional role that straddled engineering and business development. It was through this experience that I realized... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products; Consumer Products

01 Dec 2006
News

Inside Intel

was taken with the opening of Fab 3 in Livermore, California, in April 1973. It was here that the now familiar “bunny suit” was introduced. “The bunny suits and the whole routine were a huge joke around the company for years,” according to manufacturing View Details

Keywords: Richard S. Tedlow; Hanna, Julia; technology; manufacturing; innovation; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing

18 May 2020
Working Paper Summaries

No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm

Keywords: by Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo; Fashion

Web

Entrepreneurial Sales 102: Building the First Sales Team - Course Catalog

this course is to demystify sales and help you understand how to manage go-to-market functions within entrepreneurial settings. The course material is applicable whether you become an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, View Details

John W. Brown

by 2004, and the number of employees increased from 325 to 15,000 during the same time period. Brown steadfastly expanded the company’s product lines and introduced an effective decentralized management... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare

22 Feb 2010
Op-Ed

Tragedy at Toyota: How Not to Lead in Crisis

inquiry this week.) Meanwhile, he let serious product quality issues spiral out of control by understating safety risks and product problems. This left the media, politicians, and consumers to dictate the... View Details

Keywords: by William George; Auto

01 Sep 2012
News

Faculty Books

How did the United States lose its leading edge in producing innovative goods and services? Pisano, the Harry E. Figgie Jr. Professor of Business Administration, and Shih, professor of management practice, demonstrate the disastrous... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

June 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Best Buy in Crisis

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In June 2012, Best Buy was in crisis. In 1996, Best Buy overtook Circuit City as the world's leader in consumer electronics retailing; however, 18 years later, Best Buy now found this position threatened. With $51 billion in revenues, it was still the biggest CE... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Competitive Strategy; Ethics; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

01 Sep 2009
News

E Ink’s Wild Ride

Chappell Russ Wilcox (MBA ’95) was two years out of HBS, married to classmate Gina Wilcox and working as a strategy consultant following a stint as a product manager at a Boston-area technology firm. But he... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; e-books; e-reading; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing

October 1996 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Schroder Ventures: Launch of the Euro Fund

By: Josh Lerner, Kate Bringham and Nick Ferguson

Schroder Ventures is considering launching a pan-European fund in response to investor demand. This will lead to changes in the interactions between the parent organization and the national affiliates. A related question is the extent to which the private equity model... View Details

Keywords: Change; Private Equity; Investment Funds; Multinational Firms and Management; Product Launch; Europe

March 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Designing the Future of Work: Atlassian's Distributed Work Practices

By: Ashley Whillans and Gabriel Rondón Ichikawa

In early 2020, the software company Atlassian made a bold commitment: employees could work from anywhere—forever. While many tech peers reversed course on remote work, Atlassian worked to optimize their fully distributed model across 13 countries. This case follows... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Working Conditions; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Employees; Technology Industry

January 2025
Case

Jaipur Literature Festival 2024

By: Tarun Khanna and Kanika Jain

The Jaipur Literature Festival had evolved from a modest gathering in 2006 into one of the world’s most significant literary events. It was known for its principle of egalitarian access, allowing people from various social backgrounds to come together and engage with... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Media; Business Strategy; Expansion; Profit; Product Positioning; Asia; South Asia

25 Feb 2020
News

The Past Informs the Future of Work

was very thoughtful about these questions, and described his concerns about the next 10 to 20 years if we don’t manage the workforce transformation in a productive way,” says Kerr. “I don’t see technology as... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie; Telecommunications; Information

01 Oct 2001
News

Carl M. Plochman III: A Savory Success

of antique mustard pots to posters from the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, where the company's product has earned more than a few gold medals. Less expected is the sculpture of a phoenix that graces the office of Plochman's president,... View Details

Keywords: Hanna, Julia; Food Manufacturing; Manufacturing

April 1999 (Revised August 1999)
Case

R&B Falcon

R&B Falcon is the world's leading offshore drilling contractor. Amid surging exploration budgets and increasing deepwater drilling activity, the company makes huge investments in several new state-of-the art $300 million ultra-deep-water drilling rigs. As day rates and... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Change Management; Industry Growth; Mining; Product Marketing; Mining Industry

Find at Harvard

12 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

The Value of a ‘Portable’ Career

League in the MIT Sloan Management Review. "As research on the National Football League reveals, sometimes the specific nature of a job determines whether a great performer at one company can replicate that performance at another," they... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Sports

October 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

TH!NK: The Norwegian Electric Car Company

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

On August 1, 2007, 61-year-old Jan-Olaf Willums' plane was flying along the Greenland coastline on his way back to Norway after intense discussions with several prominent U.S. venture capital investors, among them Kleiner Perkins and Rockport Capital Partners, about... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Auto Industry; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Norway

March 2012 (Revised February 2013)
Background Note

The Hybrid Vehicle Market

By: Michael W. Toffel and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon

This note describes the hybrid electic vehicle market, the results of different automaker strategies, and the environmental regulatory issues that can promote or inhibit market growth in the United States. Introduces students to the technologies and regulatory aspects... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Product Development; Information Technology; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan; United States