Financial Product - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 1999
Exercise

Seneca Systems (A): General and Confidential Instructions for Dr. D. Monosoff, Vice President, Data Devices Division

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Participants; Business Divisions; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry

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January 1999
Exercise

Seneca Systems (A): General and Confidential Instructions for R. Thompson, Vice President, Marketing

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Participants; Business Divisions; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry

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Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

24 Jan 2024
Op-Ed

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

in design and production with its newest jumbo jet, the 787 Dreamliner. Such frequent, repeated crises point to a deeper issue than isolated engineering mishaps. The underlying cause of these issues is a leadership failure that has... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Air Transportation; Transportation; Aerospace

January 2006
Case

Jack Strang at SequenceLabs

By: Mukti Khaire, John J. Gabarro and Lynda M. Applegate

How can entrepreneur manage his firm if things go wrong despite having a great idea, a solid team, and financial backing? Jack Strang founded a biotech firm with his friend Peter Evans, to develop molecular pathway-based "cures" for metabolic disorders. The idea was... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Growth and Maturation; Failure; Biotechnology Industry

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Educators

January–February 2019
Article

Cracking Frontier Markets

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon

Executive Summary:
With emerging-market giants such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China experiencing slowdowns, investors, entrepreneurs, and multinationals are looking elsewhere. They’ve been eyeing frontier economies such as Nigeria and Pakistan with great... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Innovation and Invention; Development Economics

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14 Aug 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 14, 2018

examine the direct entry of platform owners into complementors’ product spaces. It finds that both the motivation and impact of such entries on complementors are multifaceted. The motivation behind platform owners’ direct entry goes... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

03 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Lehman Brothers Plus Five: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers went under—the largest bankruptcy in American history. But that was just the beginning of the story. What followed was the Great Recession, a gargantuan financial crisis that affected the entire world... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Financial Services; Financial Services; Financial Services; Financial Services

12 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

One Report: Better Strategy through Integrated Reporting

financial performance, such as through increased revenues for green products or decreased costs through greater energy efficiency? Which ESG topics represent risks and cause spending to protect against the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Bank of America (A)

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Ashok Nimgade

Describes how Bank of America is creating a system for product and service innovation in its retail banking business. Emphasis is placed on the role of experimentation in some two-dozen real-life "laboratories" that serve as fully operating banking branches and as... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Problems and Challenges; Innovation and Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Failure; Banks and Banking; Learning; Banking Industry

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Program

Succeeding as a Strategic CFO

Summary As capital markets and organizational strategies have evolved, so has the role of the chief financial officer (CFO). Today's CFOs are not just gatekeepers of a company's financial information; they... View Details

January 1999
Exercise

Seneca Systems (B): General and Confidential Instructions for R. Thompson, Vice President, Marketing

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Participants; Business Divisions; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry

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October 8, 2012
Column

Henkel's Culture Shift

By: Robert Simons

This case descriibes a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Execution; Culture; New CEO; Change; Performance Measures; Accountability; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Corporate Accountability; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Consumer Products Industry; Germany

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Faculty & Advisors | MBA

all. Paul Clancy MBA, Columbia University; BS, Babson College Paul has worked in the biotech industry for the last twenty-three years and spent fourteen years in the consumer products industry. He served as the Chief View Details

March 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Analog Devices, Inc.: The Half-Life System

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The company has committed to major improvements in quality, cost, and on-time delivery performance. Despite strong senior management support, however, the actual rate of improvement was disappointing until a new measurement philosophy was introduced. The new approach... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Performance Improvement; Earnings Management; Financial Reporting; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Business or Company Management; Cost Management; Measurement and Metrics; Management Teams; Semiconductor Industry

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11 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Politicians Benefited From Using Toxic Loans

Talk of the recent financial crisis often falls into a simplistic narrative of villainous banks, marketing toxic financial products to innocent customers who did not understand... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

March 2008
Supplement

Ujjivan: A Microfinance Institution at a Crossroads (B)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Pamela Freed

Case (B) of "Ujjivan: A Microfinance Institution at a Crossroads" addresses some of the actions Ujjivan, a microfinance provider in Bangalore, has taken with regard to issues raised in the (A) case, particularly regarding fraud and establishing financial... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Microfinance; Crime and Corruption; Accounting Audits; Product Development; Financial Services Industry; Bangalore

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2015
Working Paper

Business Groups Exist in Developed Markets Also: Britain Since 1850

By: Geoffrey Jones

Diversified business groups are well-known phenomena in emerging markets, both today and historically. This is often explained by the prevalence of institutional voids or the nature of government-business relations. It is typically assumed that such groups were much... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Business History; Economic History; Conglomerates; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Management; Organizations; United Kingdom

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June 2014
Article

The Capitalist's Dilemma

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Derek C. M. van Bever

Sixty months after the 2008 recession ended, the economy was still sputtering, producing disappointing growth and job numbers. Corporations seemed stuck: Despite low interest rates, they were sitting on massive piles of cash and failing to invest in new initiatives. In... View Details

Keywords: Capital Investments; Creating Markets; Evaluating Business Investments; Innovation; Emerging Markets; Investment; Economic Growth; Capital; Innovation and Invention

September 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

d.light

By: Michael Chu, Krishna G. Palepu and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

Kenyan off-grid-solar pioneer d.light can power entire homes in rural Africa but must now decide how to fund the growth of its asset-heavy business model. Ned Tozun and Sam Goldman founded d.light in 2006 to transform lives through solar solutions enabling access to... View Details