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01 Dec 2023
News

Rounding the Bend

Illustration by Fernando Cobelo To help people visualize what a circular economy could look like and bring the challenges down to a closet-sized scale, Emily Bolon (MBA/MPA 2007) recommends the following exercise. First, make a mental tally of the number of garments... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

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

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

Too often, there's a huge gap between a company's overall business strategy and the way its salesforce operates in the field. In fact, says Frank V. Cespedes, articles and books about strategy rarely take sales into consideration at all.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Web

Terms of Use - Alumni

Help Terms of Use 20ms Harvard Business School has provided a suite of alumni services through its Alumni Website for the benefit of the HBS community. Services exclusive to the HBS community are protected by HBS Login and require a... View Details

November 1993 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Erik Peterson (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a mobile cellular 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; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Mobile Technology

05 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Six Ways to Build Trust in Negotiations

in the heat of conflict this became a secondary concern. Just two weeks after the first flare-up, Impress announced that it would be taking its business elsewhere. Kristen worked in a division of RLX that... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

15 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How Does a Social Startup Decide to Commercialize? It May Depend on the Founder's Gender

2016 Echoing Green Fellow Christine Su is co-founder and CEO of PastureMap. The for-profit software company helps sustainable ranchers record their grazing practices on mobile devices. (Photo courtesy of Echoing Green.) A division of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

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

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

February 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Roche's Acquisition of Genentech

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Bo Becker and Vincent Marie Dessain

Franz Humer, CEO of the Roche Group, must decide whether to mount a hostile tender offer for the publicly-owned shares of Roche's biotechnology subsidiary, Genentech. The case provides opportunities to analyze Roche's strategy with respect to Genentech, the pros and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Subsidiaries; Negotiation Offer; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland

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

30 May 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Entrepreneurship’s Wild Ride

new vigor in the development of deep intellectual roots. The entrepreneurial research community now has its own division in the Academy of Management, most schools have courses in entrepreneurship, and there are over 150 endowed... View Details

Keywords: by William Mahoney

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

October 1991 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Workplace Safety at Alcoa (A)

By: Kim B. Clark and Joshua D. Margolis

Examines the challenge facing the managers of a large aluminum manufacturing plant in its drive to improve workplace safety. The CEO of the company has made safety a top priority. The plant has made good progress in reducing the injury rate, but now confronts the need... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Safety; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Operations; Resignation and Termination; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Manufacturing Industry; United States

01 Oct 1997
News

W. Hall Wendel, Jr.

calculated risks." He has followed that philosophy in business as well - and no more so than in 1981, as president of the Polaris E-Z-Go Division of Textron. Says Wendel: "Textron wanted to sell Polaris... View Details

Keywords: James E. Aisner; mountain; adventure; climbing

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