Publications

October 1990 (Revised January 1991)
Case

AB Volvo: Organizational Development and Its Impact on Information Systems

By: Robert G. Eccles Jr.

Keywords: Organizations; Growth and Development; Information Technology; Auto Industry

December 1993
Case

Ford Motor Coompany: Changing the Dealer Culture

Confronted by increasing market emphasis on customer satisfaction coupled with the success of General Motors' Saturn Division with "no haggle" pricing, Ford Motor Co. examines the sales culture within its own dealers and considers how to implement policies that will... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Customer Satisfaction; Auto Industry; United States

April 1992 (Revised July 1993)
Supplement

Adam Opel AG (A), Supplement

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

Describes political and economic developments that completely change the assumptions on which the strategic options in the (A) case were based. This requires a fundamental reconsideration of the economic/political, strategic, and organizational dimensions and the... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Change Management; Strategy; Auto Industry; Germany

March 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Lada do Brasil

By: James E. Austin and Helen Shapiro

In an effort to capitalize on the entrepreneurial opportunity presented by the Brazilian government's trade liberalization, a Panamanian automobile trading company launched a business of importing the Russian made Lada cars into Brazil. The company confronts a complex... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Transformation; Economics; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Capital; Policy; Competition; Auto Industry; Brazil

November 1989
Teaching Note

The Poletown Dilemma and Poletown Dilemma: The Outcome, Teaching Note

By: Thomas R. Piper

Teaching Note for (9-389-017) and (9-390-068). View Details

Keywords: Auto Industry; Michigan

November 1989
Supplement

The Poletown Dilemma: The Outcome

By: Thomas R. Piper

Summarizes the outcome. View Details

Keywords: Auto Industry; Michigan

26 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way to Go to Market

Business School marketing professor V. Kasturi "Kash" Rangan in his new book, Transforming Your Go-to-Market Strategy. The auto industry, he says, is a stark example of why go-to-market strategies need high-level attention and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

28 Apr 2022
Blog Post

Climate Stories Episode #4: Erika Myers, World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

budgets have entered the EV space.” The ads, she noted, confirm the growing consumer interest in and target market for electric vehicles. Tesla’s boast that it delivered 1 million cars last year shows “that the technology is viable and that consumers want it.” Searches... View Details

21 Dec 2022
Blog Post

Climate Stories Episode #12: Vehicle to Everything - Claire Broido Johnson (MBA 2002), Chief Operating Officer of Fermata Energy

goals are two-fold: to help reduce auto emissions and make the fleet more climate friendly, as well as to “help boost driver recruitment.” Analysts said the Domino’s announcement is a reminder that corporate fleets are a key early driver... View Details

Profile

Ben Faw

more private-sector experience. Through a friend of a friend, he found an opportunity at Tesla Motors, where he worked on global supply-chain coordination. “I was impressed by what Elon Musk was trying to do to disrupt the auto industry... View Details

04 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 4

Harvard Business School Case 210-002 In 2005, Jane Bauer-Martin, a hedge fund manager, is considering what she should do with the fund's large investment in the publicly traded bonds of Delphi Corp., a financially troubled auto parts... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 1993 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Liability Management at General Motors

By: Peter Tufano

An analyst at General Motors charged with managing the structure of the automaker's debt must decide whether and how to modify the interest rate exposure of the firm's most recent debt offering. The analyst must take into consideration GM's liability management policy... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Financial Management; Interest Rates; Risk Management; Auto Industry; North America

October 14, 2023
Article

Will Consumers Buy Selfish Self-Driving Cars?

By: Julian De Freitas

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Ethics; Technological Innovation; Safety; Auto Industry

Register to Read

2021
Working Paper

Trade and the Single Car Market: The EC-Japan Elements of Consensus, 1985–1999

By: Grace Ballor

In 1991, in the midst of the program to create a liberal Single European Market and in the context of a new Joint Declaration for cooperation with Japan, the European Commission brokered a private deal to restrict Japanese imports into the European Community for nearly... View Details

Keywords: Market; Protectionism; Liberalization; Trade; Markets; International Relations; Auto Industry; Europe; European Union; Japan

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February 28, 2020
Article

How Tesla Sets Itself Apart

By: Lou Shipley

Tesla and its flamboyant, and sometimes erratic, innovator Elon Musk have turned the more than a century old industry upside down in a mere 16 years. Traditional automakers are ill prepared to compete in today’s software-centered world. Unlike nimble Tesla, they are... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Information Technology; Transportation; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Disruption; Auto Industry

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February 1979 (Revised August 1979)
Case

Fiat-Trattori

By: Thomas R. Piper and Ulrich E. Wiechmann

Keywords: Auto Industry

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 10 Variations on the Theme of Flow Production

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how technologies and organizations engaged in flow production evolve over time. To allow for an apples-to-apples comparison, I examine organizations using essentially the same physical technologies, making similar products, and... View Details

Keywords: Flow Production; Ford; General Motors; Competitiveness; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Production; Auto Industry

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February 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Honda Innovations: Leveraging External Insights to Accelerate Creation

By: Antonio Davila

Nick Sugimoto, CEO of Honda Innovations—the open innovation organization of Honda, has to decide how to extend his organization’s approach to innovation across the world. Honda Innovations dates back to 2000 when Honda created Honda Research Institute in Silicon... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Radical Innovation; Corporate Venturing; Corporate Innovation; Organization Structure; Management Control; Business Units; Disruption; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Auto Industry; San Francisco; Japan

June 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Renegotiating NAFTA

By: Laura Alfaro, Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason and Sarah Jeong

January 1, 2019 marked the 25th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Twenty-five years after the landmark trade pact was signed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, considerable debate surrounded it. Trade and trade agreements were a... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Negotiation; Agreements and Arrangements; Cost vs Benefits; Auto Industry; United States; Mexico; Canada