Publications

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

May 1998 (Revised August 2017)
Case

DuPont Kevlar: Commercializing a Miracle Fiber

By: Clayton Christensen and Rory McDonald

Describes Dupont's efforts to build commercial markets for its miracle fiber, Kevlar. Initially, it sought to create a market for Kevlar tire cord, primarily because its existing tire cord business was languishing. This market never developed, even after Dupont spent... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Crisis Management; Product Launch; Emerging Markets; Research and Development; Technology

February 2010
Supplement

Organization and Strategy at Millennium (B)

By: Julie M. Wulf and Scott Waggoner

This case examines Millennium's strategic and organizational responses to the rapid evolution of the biopharmaceutical industry. In the early 2000s, as Millennium's competitive advantage in early-stage research slipped away and its losses mounted, founder CEO Mark... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Transformation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Competitive Advantage; Commercialization; Selection and Staffing; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Pharmaceutical Industry

01 Sep 2015
News

Faculty Q&A: The Working World

make the product a reality. That made an impression—that an immigrant living in the United States was turning back to his home country to help realize the products of his invention. So my first work in this... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

Charles H. Revson

Known for his autocratic and direct management style, Revson built Revlon into the second largest cosmetics company in the U.S. Revson's unique talent of grasping the female psyche, bolstered by his fiercely competitive nature, allowed... View Details

Keywords: Personal Care & Home Products

November 1991 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Whelan Pharmaceuticals: Tax Factors and Global Site Selection

Whelan Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. company with $3 billion in sales, must decide where to manufacture its newest product. In considering possible sites, both foreign and U.S., the firm must identify and make trade-offs between tax, marketing, and manufacturing factors. View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Geographic Location; Cost vs Benefits; Production; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

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

Career Coach

Ryan Kennedy

hone their career visions, craft their job searches, and take the next steps towards a meaningful career. Work Experience: Product Manager at LendingHome.com (mortgages), Risk & Operations View Details

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

01 Jun 2005
News

Ideas: Books

innovations in management practices and production technology in the Thyssen firms. Restoring Trust in American Business edited by Jay W. Lorsch, Leslie Berlowitz, and Andy Zelleke (MIT Press) HBS professor... View Details

Keywords: Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Chandler

Arjun Chopra

(including production systems on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for 10 of the top 20 Global financial institutions), managed over 200M hours of uptime in the public cloud and was recognized as one of AWS' top 22... View Details

03 Jun 2020
Blog Post

Jeff Surette and Mike Peters: A Winning Team at TB12

the company started in management consulting. After graduating from Harvard College in 2005, Surette joined Parthenon for three years before matriculating at HBS in the fall of 2008. Amid a global recession, his business school experience... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

28 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Helping Yelp Create More Accurate Reviews

elite reviewer more likely to post a positive review, too—or a negative one. Of course, some reviewers care more about their reputation on Yelp than others; while others may prefer to never deviate from their prior reviews. How product... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Food & Beverage

May 2003
Background Note

How to Induce Retailers to Reduce Stockouts?

By: V.G. Narayanan

Describes how the lack of incentive alignment between retailers and their vendors can lead to stockouts. Also describes various means to reduce incentive misalignment and hence stockouts. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Supply Chain Management; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution; Alignment; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry