Publications

08 Nov 2012
News

Ernest Shackleton's Lessons for Leaders in Harsh Climates

18 Apr 2022
Video

Professor Jay Lorsch: Listening

July 2024 (Revised May 2025)
Teaching Note

Leading Culture Change at Microsoft Western Europe

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Catherine Huang

This teaching plan is designed to be used in conjunction with the case study “Leading Culture Change at Microsoft Western Europe,” HBS No. 624-096, to help faculty deepen student understanding of psychological safety and organizational culture transformation through... View Details

Keywords: Culture Change; General Management; Psychological Safety; Leadership; Transformation; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Business or Company Management; Technology Industry; Europe

May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Airbnb During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Capitalism Faces a Critical Test

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Digital Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

06 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Are You a Level-Six Leader?

several options)? “Opportunists are the people who always ask, 'What's in it for me?'” Asking the question whom do you serve? is a powerful vector on which to build a useful typology of leadership. Based on this idea, I have constructed a six-level Purpose-Driven Model... View Details

Keywords: by Mitch Maidique

23 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Men Want Powerful Jobs More Than Women Do

New research from Harvard Business School reveals a stark gap in the professional ambitions of men and women. Having surveyed a diverse sample of more than 4,000 men and women, a team of social scientists reports a list of potentially... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 1999 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Chrysler and BMW: Tritec Engine Joint Venture

By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington

A gifted project leader lacks significant new product development experience. The case highlights the issues and procedures related to defining the project strategy: organizing senior management approvals and support for creating a "heavyweight" team; aligning the... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Joint Ventures; Projects; Business Strategy; Management Teams; Groups and Teams; Machinery and Machining; Design; Business Processes; Product Design; Product; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Auto Industry

June 2018
Teaching Note

The Transformation of Microsoft

By: C. Fritz Foley and F. Katelynn Boland

Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-048. In early 2015, Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, and the rest of the senior leadership team faced a set of fundamental choices. The firm had opportunities to serve customers in ways that would be associated with higher growth but lower... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Corporate Finance; Valuation; Growth Management; Communication Strategy; Transformation; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry; United States

04 Apr 2023
What Do You Think?

How Does Remote Work Affect Innovation?

team weren’t even on the ads team It was the culture that attracted . These five engineers . To the company in the first place. How would this story play out if Google had relied heavily on remote work at... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 2019
Supplement

Impax Laboratories: Executing Accretive Transactions (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Impax Laboratories was a technology-based pharmaceutical company that used a “dual platform” strategy to sell both generic and branded treatments. While Impax had grown organically for most of its history, it was beginning to use major acquisitions for growth. In the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Structure; Financial Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

October 2019
Case

Impax Laboratories: Executing Accretive Acquisitions (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Impax Laboratories was a technology-based pharmaceutical company that used a “dual platform” strategy to sell both generic and branded treatments. While Impax had grown organically for most of its history, it was beginning to use major acquisitions for growth. In the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Structure; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

04 Nov 2015
What Do You Think?

Why Does Gender Diversity Improve Financial Performance?

(Danielle); “Winning in this age requires more cross-disciplinary thinking... Women, in my experience, are better thought integrators.” (Allison S. A. Graves); “Many studies suggest that women tend to score higher on tests of social sensitivity than men do ... great... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Apr 2019
Interview

How to Build Psychological Safety, with Amy Edmondson

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Dave Stachowiak

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She has been recognized by the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers for many years and was honored with their Talent Award in 2017. Amy is the author of... View Details

Keywords: Psychological Safety; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness

2015
Chapter

Leading Proactive Punctuated Change

By: Michael Tushman, Charles O'Reilly and Bruce Harreld

This chapter focuses on leading proactive punctuated change. Based on the institutional and organizational change literatures and our extended involvement with IBM between 1999 and 2008, we suggest that proactive punctuated change can be effectively managed through an... View Details

October 2006 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games (A)

By: Christopher Marquis, Doug Guthrie and Yannis Katsarakis

Gianna Angelopoulous-Daskalaki led the bidding organization that secured the 2004 Olympics for Athens and then later the preparations for those Games. Tracks her leadership style and how she and her team won the bid. After substantial planning problems threatened to... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Bids and Bidding; Planning; Social Enterprise; Sports; Public Administration Industry

February 2004
Case

Aspire Public Schools

Set in the fall of 2003, covers managerial challenges facing the CEO and COO of Aspire Public Schools, a nonprofit charter school management company. In operation since 1999 and funded by prominent national foundations and venture philanthropies, Aspire operates 10... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business or Company Management; Expansion; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Education Industry; California

October 2009 (Revised December 2010)
Case

GE Money Bank: The M-Budget Card Initiative

By: Michael L. Tushman, Sebastian Raisch and Christian Welling

The M-Budget Card case study is about mastering the challenges of an exploratory strategic initiative in a context marked by time pressure and frequent change. M-Budget was the first of a series of highly successful projects that established GE Money Bank as a leader... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Credit Cards; Leading Change; Product Launch; Product Development; Groups and Teams; Banking Industry; Switzerland

October 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Supplement

Michael Ku and Global Clinical Supply at Pfizer Inc.: Bringing Hope to Patients (C)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

This case is the third installment in a series about the 10-year cultural and digital transformation of Pfizer’s Global Clinical Supply organization. In 2011, Michael Ku became Pfizer’s Vice President of Global Clinical Supply (GCS) after the company had undergone... View Details

Keywords: Clinical Supply Chain; COVID-19; Vaccine; Agile; Innovation and Invention; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Transformation; Leadership; Corporate Strategy; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Mission and Purpose; Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Digital Transformation