Publications

October 1990 (Revised September 1993)
Case

Changing the Culture at British Airways

By: John P. Kotter

In just 10 years, 1980-1990, British Airways turned around both its declining image and financial situation. Focusing on the paramount importance of customer service, British Airways went from "bloody awful" to "bloody awesome." Experiencing a financial crisis in 1981... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Customer Relationship Management; Corporate Strategy; Privatization; Air Transportation Industry; United Kingdom

24 Sep 2019
Blog Post

Launching a Career in Clean Energy

of paying for college on my single mother. But it was actually a great fit; I have a tendency towards structure, hierarchy, discipline, and reward, so that worked out well in the military. After college, I enlisted in the Marine Corps for five years as a logistics... View Details

11 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?

for change: Who needs a car, anyway? Societal shifts and technology improvements may well force dealers to change their selling models, the professors say. That’s because the way people view transportation is changing and, at least in... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto

September 2017 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Careem: Raising a Unicorn

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Alpana Thapar

This case follows two ex-McKinsey consultants, Magnus Olsson and Mudassir Sheikha, who in search of their true purpose decide to found Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing service. Following its launch in July 2012, Careem experiences rapid growth of 30% per month in the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Information Technology; Organizational Culture; Decision Making; Growth Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Middle East; North Africa; United Arab Emirates

March 2016
Case

N12 Technologies: Building an Organization and Building a Business

By: David A. Garvin and Aldo Sesia

N12 Technologies was a startup founded in 2010 that employed nanotechnology to manufacture a patented material to improve the performance of carbon fiber composites, which were used in a wide variety of products, ranging from bicycles to automobiles to aircraft parts.... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Organizational Structure; Nanotechnology; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Management Systems; Commercialization; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; United States

04 Sep 2019
Blog Post

A Guided Experience into the World of Entrepreneurship

learned about Sidewalk Labs, a unit of Alphabet (Google) with “a grand vision of developing the Toronto waterfront using advanced technology to make a better city, one with more efficient transportation and a more sustainable... View Details

February 2001 (Revised October 2001)
Case

JetBlue Airways: Starting from Scratch

JetBlue Airways shows how an entrepreneurial venture is able to use human resource management, specifically a values-centered approach to managing people, as a source of competitive advantage. The major challenge faced by Ann Rhoades is to grow this people-centered... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Competitive Advantage; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Business Startups; Air Transportation Industry

10 Oct 2023
Blog Post

Policy Drivers for Environmental Justice: What Businesses Need to Know

transportation and construction projects, and supporting equitable transit planning, all with DACs in mind.[40] These various programs primarily serve to create a better quality of life and good jobs, though several also facilitate clean... View Details

08 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching

his own research, he has spent hundreds of hours studying a similarly fraught industry—high-risk medical transport teams—to learn how they acquire knowledge that can literally mean the difference between life and death. He found that much... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

and other GM executives placed a series of important bets on what American consumers wanted (different makes, models and prices; cars that were status symbols and identity holders as well as transportation sources) and they did so with... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

September 2020
Case

Uber at a Crossroads (2017)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details

04 Feb 2022
Book

Beyond the Cold War: Reinventing Socialism in 5 Countries

Although many view socialism through the rigid lens of Soviet orthodoxy, it has always been a work in progress and an evolving and adaptable ideology on a global scale, says Harvard Business School Marvin Bower Associate Professor Jeremy Friedman. In his new book, Ripe... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2015 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Trouble at Tessei

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details

Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan

May 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

In December 2015, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) has just made its third bid to acquire Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), one of the largest railroads in the United States. Having rejected the prior offers, NSC’s CEO James Squires and the NSC board must now value... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Activism; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Corporate Strategy; Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; United States; Canada

18 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

not dry, and if lightning strikes, act very quickly.” By ensuring that a forest is not dry, Gupta means companies should make sure they are perceived positively before a crisis occurs. The Transportation Security Administration works to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Technology

23 Mar 2023
Blog Post

Arla Foods: How Sustainable Can A Dairy Company Be?

occur at the farm level. The remaining emissions come from operations, logistics, packaging and retail and consumer use. On Scope 1 and 2 emissions, Arla explained how they plan to secure 100% green electricity, maximize operational and View Details

11 Apr 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching a ‘Lean Startup’ Strategy

in the clean tech and biotech fields, both of which often require a great deal of time and capital to create any workable product. The same is true of the transportation industry—inventor Dean Kamen's Segway, for example, or startup... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Computer

January 2021 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Snapp: Scaling Under Sanctions in Iran (A)

By: Meg Rithmire and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in November 2019 as Eyad Alkassar and Mahmoud Fouz, co-founders of Iran’s first and leading ride-hailing platform, Snapp, find out about Apple’s and Google’s decisions to remove all Iranian apps from their respective application stores.
The case... View Details

Keywords: Sanctions; Change Management; Disruption; Volatility; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Government and Politics; International Relations; National Security; Risk Management; Crisis Management; Transportation Industry; Iran; Middle East