Publications

September 1992 (Revised July 1994)
Case

MEM Company, Inc.: English Leather

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Laura Goode

In 1992, the president of MEM (a producer of personal care products, including men's fragrances) considered a redeployment of field sales efforts and changes in sales compensation policies. Any changes, moreover, must consider the context of strategic decisions... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

Article

Creating Value in the Age of Distributed Capitalism

By: Shoshana Zuboff

Capitalism is a book of many chapters—and we are beginning a new one. Every century or so, fundamental changes in the nature of consumption create new demand patterns that existing enterprises can't meet. When a majority of people want things that remain priced at a... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Economic Systems; Transformation

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07 Sep 2007
What Do You Think?

Are Elite Business Schools Fostering the Deprofessionalization of Management?

management by building more value in their alumni networks than in their curricula and teaching. 2) Business school curricula, if not always their teaching, reflect the demands of the market. This is or is not appropriate, but not... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

October 21, 2022
Article

Climate Regulations Are About to Disrupt Global Shipping

By: Willy C. Shih

Ships that transport goods across oceans are collectively a major generator of greenhouse gases. Rules from the International Maritime Organization and the European Union aimed at curbing these emission promise to make transoceanic and regional shipping more expensive... View Details

Keywords: Shipping; Decarbonization; Environmental Regulation; Supply Chain; Disruption; Shipping Industry; Atlantic Ocean; Oceania; Asia; Europe; North and Central America

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January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG

By: George Serafeim

In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Governance; Leading Change; Economy; Performance Improvement; Japan

Guhan Subramanian is the Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and the Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School. He is the first person in the history of Harvard University to hold... View Details

2012
Book

Commentaries and Cases on the Law of Business Organization

By: William T. Allen, Reinier Kraakman and Guhan Subramanian

This fourth edition is completely updated throughout. It now includes excerpts from important recent cases such as "Air Products v. Airgas" and "In re CNX Gas" and provides commentary on current developments, such as "Say on Pay," proxy access and the Dodd-Frank Act of... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Laws and Statutes; Lawsuits and Litigation

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06 Mar 2020
Book

A Great Teacher's Lessons for Leading

focused on leadership, organizational behavior, managing human capital, and career management. His new book, Teaching by Heart: One Professor’s Journey to Inspire, was recently published by Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

29 Sep 2021
News

Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

February 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Korea Venture Investment Corporation

By: Paul A. Gompers and Billy Chan

Financial service sector Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC) is the venture capital arm of the Korean government with a founding mission to build a domestic startup ecosystem that would be as competitive as Silicon Valley. KVIC manages a basket of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Society; Investment; Venture Capital; Mission and Purpose; State Ownership; Financial Services Industry; Asia; South Korea

02 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

It's the rare manager who doesn't partake in quarterly or annual goal-setting exercises. And woe to those who don't make their goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). But do these goals really work? Researchers... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 1991 (Revised July 1994)
Case

Tom Paine Mutual Life Insurance Company

A junior portfolio manager at a major life insurance company must choose among various public and private debt alternatives in connection with the funding of a new Guaranteed Investment Contract. The case serves as an introduction to life insurance companies as... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Insurance; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry

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November–December 2023
Article

Iterative Coordination and Innovation: Prioritizing Value over Novelty

By: Sourobh Ghosh and Andy Wu

An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Novelty; Goals; Specialization; Coordination; Field Experiment; Software Development; Agile; Scrum; Iteration; Iterative; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Value; Goals and Objectives; Integration; Applications and Software

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April 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Change at Whirlpool Corporation (A)

By: Jan W. Rivkin, Dorothy A. Leonard and Gary Hamel

In 1998, the CEO of Whirlpool Corp. decides to change the company's strategy significantly to escape an increasingly unattractive "stalemate" in the appliance industry. The change he proposes involves a fundamental shift in the company's focus--from manufacturing to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Competitive Advantage; Strategic Planning; Production; Brands and Branding; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; United States

2005
Working Paper

Wintel: Cooperation or Conflict

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and David B. Yoffie

We study the incentives of complementors (producers of complementary products) to cooperate vs. compete and how these interact. In a system of complements, like the PC, the value of the final product depends on how well the different components work together. This, in... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Price; Time Management; Product; Product Development; Research and Development; Conflict and Resolution; Motivation and Incentives; Value

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December 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

i2 Technologies, Inc.

By: Ananth Raman and Jasjit Singh

Describes the emergence and growth of i2 Technologies and the supply chain planning software industry. In December 1998, i2's market capitalization was in excess of $2 billion; the supply chain planning software industry had annual sales of approximately $1 billion and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Supply Chain Management; Production; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology Industry