Publications

July 1987 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Phillips 66: Controlling a Company Through Crisis

By: Lynda M. Applegate

The downstream operations subsidiary of a major U.S. petroleum company is faced with major restructuring decisions and responds by developing an Executive Information System (EIS) which allows for increased responsiveness, wider span of control, and higher levels of... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Information Management; Governance Controls; Organizational Design; Crisis Management; Communication; Management Teams; Growth Management; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; United States

22 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Want Hybrid Work to Succeed? Trust, Don’t Track, Employees

The COVID-19 pandemic made remote work more the norm than the exception, and now many companies are struggling to map out a hybrid plan that both managers and employees can... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2021
Case

'Why I Blew the Whistle': Mauro Botta v. PwC

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and Sarah Mehta

Set in April 2021, this case tells the story of Mauro Botta, a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In 2016, Botta filed a whistleblower claim with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that PwC had failed to fulfill its obligations to remain... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Ethics; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Governance; Corporate Governance; Accounting Industry; United States; California; San Jose

01 May 2006
What Do You Think?

Who Will Cast a Longer Shadow on the 21st Century: Friedman or Galbraith?

Schwartz, The Monetary History of the United States, he had earlier argued, however, for a significant government role in managing monetary policy to guard against the booms View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 1985 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Leckenby Co.

This game is a highly structured exercise in labor-management bargaining. If union and management cannot reach agreement within two days, then the union will strike. The costs of a strike are not the same for the two sides. Similarly, the cost of a settlement to... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Accounting; Labor and Management Relations

Professor McFarlan earned his AB from Harvard University in 1959, and his MBA and DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1961 and 1965 respectively. He has had a significant role in introducing materials on Management Information Systems to all major programs at... View Details

Keywords: communications; computer; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; nonprofit industry

February 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Viacom, Inc.: Carpe Diem

By: Joseph L. Bower and Thomas R. Eisenmann

Viacom has reached a powerful position in the global entertainment industry through skillful and very bold acquisitions. Now its further expansion is challenged by the moves of Rupert Murdock's News Corp. Different businesses within Viacom have contradictory positions... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entertainment; Global Strategy; Management; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

2008
Book

Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Operations; Performance; Strategic Planning; Business Strategy

2010
Report

State of the Region Report 2010: The Top of Europe Recovering—Regional Lessons from a Global Crisis

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The 2010 State of the Region Report, the seventh in this series of annual evaluations of competitiveness and cooperation across the Baltic Sea Region, takes the Region's economic temperature in the first year after the full onslaught of the global crisis. The focus of... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Policy; Performance Effectiveness; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Baltic Countries

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

extraordinarily difficult and controversial management task." And therein lies a big problem, because how effective an organization is at making high-quality decisions... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

Article

The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership

By: Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine

Agency theory, a new model of governance promulgated by academic economists in the 1970s, is behind the idea that corporate managers should make shareholder value their primary concern and that boards should ensure they do. The theory regards shareholders as owners of... View Details

Keywords: Agency Theory; Business and Shareholder Relations; Leadership; Corporate Governance

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November 2000
Case

WARDA: Leading a Rice Revolution in West Africa

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

The West Africa Rice Development Association, along with various national and international partners, was developing and transferring new rice technologies to farmers throughout West and Central Africa. While production in West Africa was growing faster than any other... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Government and Politics; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Performance Effectiveness; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Nonprofit Organizations; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa

October 1988 (Revised February 1990)
Case

HCC Industries

Describes a corporation that switches its philosophy of budgeting from "stretch" targets to "minimum performance standard" targets. The change has implications for management incentives, compensation, and corporate planning. Early results suggest the concept was not... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Budgets and Budgeting

23 Jun 2016
Video

What is Your Best Self?

April 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Gucci Group: Freedom within the Framework

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Elena Corsi and Vincent Marie Dessain

Gucci Group's CEO had to decide if his decentralized management style was the most effective philosophy in an economic downturn. The sharing of customer information across units and its use in the creative process are key initiatives analyzed in the case. CEO Robert... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Globalized Firms and Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership; Management Style; Management Systems; Brands and Branding; Apparel and Accessories Industry

04 May 2017
News

Leading a Team to the Top of Mount Everest

June 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Signet Jewelers: Assessing Customer Financing Risk

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos, Suraj Srinivasan and Monica Baraldi

Marc Cohodes, a renowned short seller, has identified weaknesses in Signet's business strategy, which he argues is heavily reliant on providing loans to customers with subprime credit scores. He believes that the company accounts for its receivables portfolio using... View Details

Keywords: Short Selling; Bad Debt Expense; Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Finance; Financing and Loans; Valuation; Retail Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

September 2021
Case

TAV Airports: Acquiring Almaty International

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

The case opens in April 2020 with Sani Şener, CEO of TAV Airports, a vertically integrated regional airport operator headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, and his team discussing the pending acquisition of the Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan. The company had... View Details

Keywords: Airports; COVID-19 Pandemic; Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Bids and Bidding; Air Transportation Industry; Central Asia; Turkey

January 2007 (Revised December 2007)
Case

PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf and Marie Bell

Senior management at PSI, arguably the world's largest and most successful social marketer with impressive achievements in the field of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria prevention must determine what to do about their slow-to-take-off clean water initiative.... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Health Care and Treatment; Social Marketing; Natural Environment; Social Enterprise; Business Strategy