Publications

May 2025
Case

Wilburn Medical USA

By: David Ager, Lynda M. Applegate and James Barnett

In September 2024, Emily Wilburn Andrews, CEO of Wilburn Medical USA, is five years into her tenure leading the medical equipment supply company since taking over for her father, the company’s founder. She considers approaches to grow the company while maintaining the... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Change Management; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Health; Medical Specialties; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Family Business; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

2012
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Business and the Natural Environment

By: Pratima Bansal and Andrew J. Hoffman

Environmental issues now loom large on the social, political, and business agenda. Over the past four decades, "corporate environmentalism" has emerged and been constantly redefined, from regulatory compliance to more recent management conceptions such as pollution... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Policy; Governance Compliance

Find at Harvard

March 2020
Case

ZEISS Group: Organize by Customer Culture?

By: Willy C. Shih

How should ZEISS, the German manufacturer of precision optical and optoelectronic systems manage two historic businesses that operated fairly autonomously? The Industrial Quality Solutions (IQS) business sold measurement equipment to manufacturing companies in sectors... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Manufacturing Industry; Europe; Germany

October 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

HTC and Virtual Reality

By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Allison M. Ciechanover

In fall 2017, HTC CEO and Chairperson Cher Wang was driving the company to focus on virtual reality (VR). HTC's first VR product, VIVE, released in spring 2016, was applauded for its superior immersive room-scale capabilities. However, early adoption of VR beyond... View Details

Keywords: Virtual Reality; Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Innovation and Management; Consumer Behavior; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Industry

November 2022
Case

The Battle Among Channels for Marketing Pharmaceuticals: UpScript, Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Direct-to-Consumer Sales

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Tiffany Farrell

Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous... View Details

Keywords: DTC; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Customer Value and Value Chain; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Strategy; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry

18 Apr 2007
HBS Case

How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor

the United States. We've been unable to crack that code of 'courting the poor' in any systematic way, so I wanted to investigate further." Frei, a member of the HBS Technology and Operations Management Unit, uses the case in the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

June 2008 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Cook Composites and Polymers Co.

By: Deishin Lee, Michael W. Toffel and Rachel Gordon

This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Business Processes; Performance Efficiency; Natural Environment; Wastes and Waste Processing; Pollutants; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Manufacturing Industry

2008
Working Paper

Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges are the Benefits

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ingrid M. Nembhard

The value of teams in new product development (NPD) is undeniable. Both the interdisciplinary nature of the work and industry trends necessitate that professionals from different functions work together on development projects to create the highest quality product in... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Learning; Management Skills; Product Development; Projects; Groups and Teams; Conflict Management; Social and Collaborative Networks

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing, Cespedes, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, offers research-based insight and context, and presents sales productivity not only as a core way to increase... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

28 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

How Leaders Can Navigate Politicized Conversations and Inspire Collaboration

interested in improving their conversation styles to create higher quality collaboration. Francesca Gino, the Tandon Family Professor at Harvard Business School and author of Rebel Talent, began researching the conversation styles of... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

June 2009 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

By: Anita L. Tucker and Amy C. Edmondson

The case describes an organization's use of the science of improvement to transform their process quality from below average to the top 10% in their industry. The case outlines the protagonist's strategy of developing internal experts who are trained in a common... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Experience and Expertise; Leading Change; Measurement and Metrics; Service Delivery; Performance Improvement; Health Industry; Ohio

December 2019
Case

WeWork Files for an IPO

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

For the board of The We Company—better known as WeWork—August 14, 2019, promised to be a pivotal day. It was then that WeWork’s IPO prospectus, known as an S-1 filing, would be made public, giving potential investors, the media, and the general public a window into the... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Going Public; Leadership; Management; Private Equity; Valuation; Venture Capital; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United States

18 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Learning in Action

immediate and impressive. Participants reported a quick 10 percent productivity improvement, rising to 25 percent a year later. There were equally striking gains in managers' evaluations of their ability to spot problems, conduct high View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

David A. Moss

David Moss is the Paul Whiton Cherington Professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Business, Government, and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. He earned his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Yale. In 1992-1993, he served as a... View Details

Keywords: banking; credit card; federal government; financial services; health care; insurance industry; state government

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

(shortcuts) when making these decisions. This behavioral approach (to distinguish it from a completely rational agent approach), however, introduces biases in the supply chain management decisions. We use the term bias here to represent... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

Rosabeth M. Kanter

Rosabeth Moss Kanter holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School, specializing in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. Her strategic and practical insights guide leaders worldwide through teaching, writing, and direct... View Details

September 2007
Article

Relevance and Rigor: Executive Education as a Lever in Shaping Practice and Research

By: Michael L. Tushman, Amy Fenollosa, Dan McGrath, Charles A. O'Reilly and Adam Michael Kleinbaum

As professional schools, business schools aspire to couple research rigor with managerial relevance. There has been, however, a concern that business schools are increasingly uncoupled from practice and that business school research lacks real world relevance. This... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Executive Education; Learning; Teaching; Management; Practice; Research