Publications

January 2010 (Revised February 2010)
Case

IBM Retail Business Assessment at Dillard's, Inc.: Managing Staffing Levels to Improve Conversion

This case illustrates the challenges associated with matching staffing levels with variable workload in retail stores and highlights how decisions related to staffing and scheduling affect operational performance and the quality of labor at the stores. The case... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Employees; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Retail Industry

August 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Swire Beverages: Implementing CSR in China

By: Christopher Marquis, G.A. Donovan and YiKwan Chu

Swire Beverage, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in China, recently created a corporate social responsibility (CSR) organization to oversee environmental, community, health and safety initiatives at the companies' nine bottling plants in China. The case considers... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Design; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Non-Governmental Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; China

March 2009 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Denmark: Globalization and the Welfare State

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich and Benjamin Kramarz

This case describes how Denmark has balanced the impacts of globalization, including outsourcing and movement of labor, with its social welfare offerings. Reforms implemented during the past two decades drove down unemployment, promoted new company formation, and put... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employment; Welfare or Wellbeing; Denmark

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

28 Nov 2023
Book

Economic Growth Draws Companies to Asia. Can They Handle Its Authoritarian Regimes?

case of China, businesspeople outside of China have found the regime’s efficiency and the country’s market size and innovation ecosystem attractive, and with good reason. But many people misunderstand how power is practiced in China. The... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 7

PublicationsTransnational Management: Text, Cases and Readings in Cross-Border Management Authors:Christopher A. Bartlett and Paul W. Beamish Publication:Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2011 Abstract Transnational Management focuses on the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Executive Education | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

The Program Experience HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL Taught by a team of faculty members from HBS and other graduate schools within Harvard University, our open enrollment and custom programs feature a wide range of management cases and... View Details

09 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 9, 2008

Nisan-Ronen conjecture, especially given that the classic scheduling algorithms are anonymous, and all state-of-the-art mechanisms for special cases of the problem are anonymous as well. Download the paper:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (B)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain founded in 1988 by brothers Marcus, Mikael and Fredrik Dahnelius. The company operated 84 stores, all company-owned, located mainly in the metropolitan areas of Sweden’s most popular cities: Stockholm, Gothemburg... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

December 2023
Case

Gabriela Santana Goldstein

By: Leslie Perlow and Hannah Weisman

Gabriela Santana Goldstein was pursuing her passion, working as the Head of Business for a telehealth startup, when her father went into sudden cardiac arrest and family duty called. The case discusses Goldstein’s difficult decision to leave her dream job, and her path... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Well-being; Work-Life Balance; Family and Family Relationships; Decisions; Health Industry; United States; Boston; New York (city, NY)

September 2015
Supplement

Luca de Meo Speaks at Harvard Business School

By: Linda A. Hill

A video supplement to the HBS case study entitled "Luca de Meo at Volkswagen Group." De Meo, Member of the Board at Audi AG and the former Chief Marketing Officer of Volkswagen Group, speaks about leading innovation and the automotive industry. Recorded at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Leadership; Auto Industry; Germany

January 2015
Case

Brentwood Associates: Exiting Zoës Kitchen

By: Joan Farre-Mensa and Stephanie Siu

The case discusses the trade-offs associated with the different exit options that private equity firm Brentwood Associates contemplated for its investment in Zoës Kitchen during the summer of 2013: an IPO, a sale to a strategic or financial acquirer, or waiting a few... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Entrepreneurship; Food and Beverage Industry; California

October 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Course Overview Note

Instructor's Guide to Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA)

By: Lynn S. Paine

To provide instructors with a roadmap to the Harvard Business School's required first-year MBA Course Leadership and Corporate Accountability. Describes the objectives of the course, as well as its structure, content, and guiding framework. A day-by-day synopsis,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Accountability

July 2003
Background Note

Expropriation in International Business

By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Meghan Gallagher-Kernstine

Covers several important expropriation cases in international business from the 20th century and highlights the legal and political difficulties these companies faced. Serves to explain expropriation, to stress the vulnerability of foreign direct investments to... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Global Strategy; Government and Politics; Common Law; Risk Management; Property; Risk and Uncertainty

November 2001 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Whirlpool Europe

By: Richard S. Ruback, Sudhakar Balachandran and Aldo Sesia

This case presents a capital budgeting problem. Whirlpool Europe is evaluating an investment in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that would reorganize the information flow throughout the company. Students derive the cash flows from working capital, sales,... View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Cash Flow; Investment; Capital Budgeting; Consumer Products Industry; Europe

January 2001
Case

Merck Global Health Initiatives (B): Botswana

By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and James Weber

The case series focuses on Merck's drug donation program and then raises new issues facing management about what to do about HIV/AIDS in Africa given the company's development of a new therapy. Describes collaboration among many parties including the Gates Foundation,... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Private Sector; Public Sector; Alliances; Problems and Challenges; Africa; Botswana

September 1993 (Revised August 2011)
Exercise

ExtendSim® Simulation Exercises in Process Analysis (A)

By: Roy D. Shapiro

First set of exercises meant to be used with ExtendSim, a simulation system created by Imagine That, Inc. of San Jose, California. These exercises allow students to investigate the impact of variable processing times on the performance of simple in-line processes.... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Business Processes; Performance; Mathematical Methods