Publications

October 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

American Connector Company (A)

By: Gary P. Pisano

American Connector Co. is forced to reexamine operations at its Sunnyvale plant when a Japanese competitor announces plans to build an "ultimate" plant in the United States. Case examines issues related to benchmarking a competitor's manufacturing capabilities and... View Details

Keywords: Production; Infrastructure; Competitive Strategy; Global Strategy; Policy; Strategic Planning; Performance Productivity; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Performance Effectiveness; Sunnyvale; Japan

Web

Global Activities 2020

with faculty research and engaging with local alumni and other business leaders. Bringing a Taste of Japan to the World At HBS, Yasu Sasago (MBA 2020) gained the business skills that have enabled him to pursue his dream of developing a... View Details

December 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

In the Eye of a Geopolitical Storm: South Korea's Lotte Group, China and the U.S. THAAD Missile Defense System (A)

By: Andy Zelleke and Brian Tilley

By late 2016 and early 2017, Lotte Group, a South Korean chaebol (large family-controlled business group) had become embroiled not only in the domestic political turmoil surrounding President Park Geun-hye, but also—uncomfortably—in a four-country geopolitical storm. ... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Politics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; National Security; International Relations; Decision Making; Government and Politics; Leadership; South Korea; China; Japan

Malcolm Salter has been a member of the Harvard Business School faculty since 1967. His teaching and research focus on issues of corporate strategy, organization, and governance.

In addition to teaching at HBS, he has held faculty positions at the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: arts; automobiles; energy; investment banking industry; retailing; venture capital industry

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

result or, at best, a multiplier of their impact. Another concern is that the policy focus on exports very easily leads to insufficient attention to domestically-oriented or more traditional sectors (services, agriculture). This creates economic costs like... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

chômage partiel, under which the government pays a portion of a company’s wages in times of economic distress to limit layoffs. During the 2008-2009 recession, furlough programs were estimated to have saved 395,000 jobs in Japan and... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

June 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Nissan's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Ananth Raman, William Schmidt and Ann Winslow

In January 2020, Ashwani Gupta took over as COO at Nissan Motor Corporation, and several weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nissan’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) had been key to the resilience of Nissan’s supply chain. It had enabled Nissan to recover from... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain Management; Health Pandemics; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Japan; India

September 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Othellonia: Growing a Mobile Game

By: Eva Ascarza, Tomomichi Amano and Sunil Gupta

In the summer of 2019, Yu Sasaki, Head of the Game Division of DeNA, a Japanese mobile gaming company, is evaluating various growth strategies for its recent game Othellonia. Sasaki needs to decide if he should focus on customer acquisition, retention, or monetization. View Details

Keywords: Targeting; Retention/churn; Freemium; Monetization; Customer Relationship Management; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Customers; Marketing Strategy; Retention; Acquisition; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Japan

May 2020
Case

M-Lab: Enabling Innovation at Mitsubishi Corporation

By: Krishna Palepu and Allison M. Ciechanover

M-Lab’s founding goals were to infuse an innovation mindset into Mitsubishi Corporation; to catalyze new business opportunities; and to enable a dialogue between Japanese business and Silicon Valley. M-Lab housed representatives from each of Mitsubishi Corporation’s... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Disruption; Transformation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Japan; United States

02 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

Why COVID-19 Probably Killed More People Than We Realize

100 percent excess deaths. On the low end, Japan and Bulgaria had few unexpected deaths. In percentage terms, the US ranked just below the middle of the pack, at 32 out of the 51 countries the researchers examined, with 9.5 percent excess... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Web

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Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea Korea (Democratic People's Republic of) Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao... View Details

18 Dec 2019
Book

6 Skills That Wise Companies Harness for World-Changing Innovation

As a boy, Soichiro Honda, the eventual founder of Honda Motor Co., was infatuated with airplanes. At age 10 he biked 20 kilometers to see American pilots performing aerobatics near his home in Japan, climbing a tree to watch the show. It would take about 70 more years,... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

07 Apr 2015
News

Warrior Spirit

business opportunity is that martial arts is the only sport in Asia with broad appeal and local relevance,” says Cui, noting that the Asian world as a whole (with the possible exceptions of Japan and South Korea) generally lacks the 24/7... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Technical and Trade Schools; Educational Services

16 Nov 2017
Cold Call Podcast

Language and Globalization: The Mandate to Speak English at Rakuten

Keywords: Re: Tsedal Neeley; Retail; Electronics

June 2021
Case

Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details

Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Crowdsourcing; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Mobility; Strategy; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; XPRIZE; Space Industry; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

period, they showed us how work was actually done in practice in dozens of plants. Kent and I went to Toyota plants and those of suppliers here in the U.S. and in Japan and directly watched literally hundreds of people in a wide variety... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

November 1986 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Kentucky Fried Chicken (Japan) Ltd.

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the internationalization of the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast food chain, focusing on KFC's entry into Japan. An entrepreneurial country general manager, Lou Weston, battles numerous problems to establish the business and is eventually highly successful.... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Market Entry and Exit; Strategic Planning; Agency Theory; Perspective; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan

18 Feb 2020
Blog Post

A Vision of Love@HBS in 2020

couldn’t tell her where I was going or when I would get there. Without prompting she said, “I will wait.” Seiko waited through three different carrier patrols totaling nine months of sea time, but for me the hardest waiting would come after I left the Navy. Four days... View Details

August 2001 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Sony AIBO: The World's First Entertainment Robot

By: Youngme E. Moon

The Sony AIBO is the world's first "entertainment" robot. Positioned as a household "companion," the $1,500 AIBO has become a smash hit in Japan, appealing to both the young and the old, including those with little technical expertise. In the United States, the AIBO is... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Entertainment; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Technology; Technology Industry; Japan; United States