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January 2018
Case

PrimeStone Capital and dormakaba

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

London-based activist hedge fund PrimeStone Capital identifies a potential investment in Swiss security company Kaba. PrimeStone believes that the company is undervalued because it has been pushing back various financial targets and thinks it can help by proposing a... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Value Creation; Executive Compensation; Performance Improvement

2022
Chapter

Luxury Tourism and Environmentalism

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter examines the evolution of luxury tourism and its environmental impact. Whilst mass tourism is widely seen as environmentally damaging, the impact of luxury tourism is nuanced. During the first stage of the growth in the nineteenth century, the numbers of... View Details

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April 2011 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.: Driving Change Through Internal Communication

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), confronted in 2003 with an urgent need to change how it operated externally, adopted a highly innovative approach to communicating internally. This case, set in 2010, presents an overview of the new, more interactive model of employee... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Interpersonal Communication; Employee Relationship Management; Innovation and Management; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; India

March 2023
Case

Interior Collab

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

After venture capital-funded online interior design agency Homepolish collapsed, its former freelance designers met to discuss next steps. The bitter experience led some of them to create a workers’ collaborative called Interior Collab. The founding members needed to... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Cooperative Ownership; Employee Ownership; Trust; Service Industry; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

December 2012 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Plastiq

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Gaurav Jain, Liroy Haddad, Luke Langford and Matt Noble

The young CEO of a venture-backed startup needs to figure out his go to market strategy and the right profile for his first key sales hires. Should he develop partnerships with channels that would provide leverage or build out a direct sales force? And should the sales... View Details

Keywords: Payments; Sales; Channels; Credit Cards; Digital Platforms; Selection and Staffing; Cost vs Benefits; Salesforce Management; Marketing Channels; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Management Systems

02 Apr 2024
Research & Ideas

Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company's Creative Approach to Staying Productive

workers each, running on tight schedules with little room for error. Yet the average daily worker absenteeism rate was 11 percent, and for any particular production line, the absence rate was 20 percent or higher at least one out of 11 days. “You View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Fashion

Web

Social Progress Index - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Research Areas Research Areas Antitrust & Competition Policy CEO Leadership Environmental Quality Innovation & Innovative Capacity Philanthropy Social Progress Index Social Progress Index Social Progress Index Social progress is defined as the capacity of a... View Details

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

isn't perfect, is a part of the balance of happiness. And that you need both in order to maintain being happier. And so I learned to appreciate the times when there is unhappiness. Because that unhappiness has something to reveal to you... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

Article

The Implications of Working Without an Office

By: Ethan Bernstein, Hayley Blunden, Andrew Brodsky, Wonbin Sohn and Ben Waber

In early 2020, the world began what is undoubtedly the largest work-from-home experiment in history. Now, as countries reopen but COVID-19 remains a major threat, organizations are wrestling with whether and how to have workers return to their offices. Business leaders... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Work From Home (WFH); Employees; Working Conditions; Health Pandemics; Performance Productivity; Creativity

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July 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Sycamore Networks

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Daniel J. Green

Founders Desh Deshpande and Dan Smith reflect on Sycamore's sales strategies and consider how going public might affect the morale of its key employees. In the optical networking sector, technological change and exploding demand has created a market for talent in which... View Details

Keywords: Applied Optics; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Retention; Employees; Communication Technology; Technological Innovation; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

The fawning executives lined up outside your office on Day One to tell you how fortunate the organization is to have you and to offer to help you succeed are often fakes. The people you need to impress and enlist as supporters are not... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

June 2007
Article

Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in a Structured Market

By: A. E. Roth, Tayfun Sonmez and M. Utku Unver

Patients needing kidney transplants may have donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other pairs only when there is a "double coincidence of wants." Developing... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Size; Emotions; Human Needs; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Infrastructure; Supply Chain Management; Fairness; Performance Improvement; Health Industry

March 2022
Case

The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program: 2009-2021

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Julia Kelley

In December 2021, more than a decade after its founding, Goldman Sachs’s 10,000 Small Businesses program was still going strong — and the firm now needed to evaluate potential program modifications to reach a wider group of small business owners. Launched in the... View Details

Web

Help - Alumni

For more information, e-mail the Alumni Relations Office at alumni@hbs.edu . Giving to HBS When do I need to fulfill my pledge? Donors to HBS, particularly alumni in reunion classes, can make pledges to be fulfilled at a later date.... View Details

05 Sep 2023
Book

Thriving After Failing: How to Turn Your Setbacks Into Triumphs

economy, managers need to send the message that they support employees even when they make mistakes, she says. “Each and every one of us is a fallible human being. That’s not a choice or a judgment, that’s... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

May 2009
Article

The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad

By: Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Boris Groysberg and Nitin Nohria

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. Few companies are thinking about hiring right now, but that's a mistake. If history... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Management Practices and Processes; Managerial Roles