Publications

21 Feb 2005
Op-Ed

Is Business Management a Profession?

Repeated and, as of this writing, ongoing revelations of corporate wrongdoing over the past two years have eroded public trust in business institutions and executives to levels not seen in decades. A recent Gallup poll indicates that... View Details

Keywords: by Rakesh Khurana, Nitin Nohria & Daniel Penrice

Research Summary

Management of Succession

By: Joseph L. Bower

An outgrowth of the work on the corporate office has been a more focused study on the management of succession. This work identified the reasons why the management of CEO succession has proved so difficult for so many companies as well as the way the best companies are... View Details

2008
Working Paper

The Contingent Nature of Public Policy and Growth Strategies in the Early Twentieth-Century U.S. Banking Industry

By: Christopher Marquis and Zhi Huang

While effects of public policy are one of the foundations of organizational theory, less explored is how these effects may depend on other external environmental factors. We focus on how policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to understand the growth... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business History; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; United States

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June 2007 (Revised December 2007)
Case

AFL-CIO: Office of Investment and Home Depot

By: Rakesh Khurana and James Weber

Describes the AFL-CIO: Office of Investments activities in their campaign to improve governance at Home Depot by calling attention to Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation package and the company's poor performance. The AFL-CIO Office of Investments advocates... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Shareholder Relations

March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Supplement

From "BIG" Ideas to Sustainable Impact at ICL Group (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

In August 2023, Raviv Zoller, CEO of ICL Group, discussed his upcoming business trip to St. Louis with Eduard Croitoru, VP of ICL Corporate Initiatives, to commemorate the construction of ICL's new $400 million advanced manufacturing facility. In preparation for the... View Details

04 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Want to Make Diversity Stick? Break the Cycle of Sameness

that he was replacing a woman as opposed to a man affect his decision?” Most likely, yes. In studying the appointments of more than 2,000 federal judges and more than 5,000 corporate board members, Chang found that leaders have a strong... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 1996 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Cytec Industries' Spin-Off (A): Sink or Swim?

In the wake of market pressure to restructure, American Cyanamid spun off its poorly performing Chemicals Unit into a new publicly traded corporation, Cytec Industries. In addition to weak operations, Cytec inherited the bulk of Cyanamid's environmental and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Practices and Processes; Restructuring; Performance Improvement; Chemical Industry; United States

July 2004 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Opium and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century

By: Geoffrey Jones, Elisabeth Koll and Alexis Gendron

This case examines the role of Jardine Matheson, a trading company founded by two Scottish merchants, in the opium trade between India and China during the nineteenth century. The two Opium Wars fought between Western powers and China, which sought to stop opium... View Details

Keywords: History; Globalized Economies and Regions; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Trade; Social and Collaborative Networks; China; United Kingdom

September 2015 (Revised February 2017)
Case

MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?

By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble

Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015 to 200 stores by the end of 2016, and while the two believed that MOD could manage... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Service Industry; United States

February 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

The Children's Investment Fund, 2005

By: Randolph B. Cohen and Joshua B. Sandbulte

TCI, The Children's Investment Fund, is a London-based hedge fund. The firm donates a significant fraction of the fees it earns to a charitable foundation. In 2005, TCI took a large stake in Deutsche Borse, the stock exchange in Frankfurt. Its battle with management... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Financial Markets; Investment Activism; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Financial Services Industry; London; Germany

November 1985 (Revised April 1990)
Case

Signode Industries, Inc. (A)

Signode Industries' packaging division manufactures steel and plastic strapping. In 1981 the company underwent the largest leveraged buyout in U.S. corporate history. The case focuses on the packaging division's need to maintain high profitability in a declining market... View Details

Keywords: Price; Marketing Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry

2022
Book

Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies

By: Ranjay Gulati

This book offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent... View Details

Keywords: Purpose; Business And Society; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Performance Effectiveness; Organizational Culture

Find at Harvard

21 Jan 2021
Video

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, describes instilling a culture of entrepreneurial professionalism within the company, which was influenced by working with large companies and his formative exposures to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. View Details

2014
Working Paper

Bride Price and the Returns to Education

By: Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Nathan Nunn and Alessandra Voena

Traditional cultural practices can play an important role in development, but can also inspire condemnation. The custom of bride price, prevalent throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of Asia as a payment of the groom to the family of the bride, is one example. In... View Details

Keywords: Zambia; Indonesia

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February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Marvin: A Personalized Telehealth Approach to Mental Health

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Eshani Sharma, Andrew Nguyen, Thomas Arsenault, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Julia Kelley

More than one third of Americans were said to suffer some type of behavioral health ailment at some point in their lifetime, with many people requiring chronic therapy or intervention. Despite significant clinical needs, access to reliable treatment has been difficult... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Applications; Startup Management; Telehealth; Health Care Entrepreneurship; Health ＆ Wellness; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Applications and Software

Video

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), discusses how he re-organized and instilled a culture of cooperation among 40 CSIR laboratories starting with his “2001: Vision and Strategy” document. View Details

March 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Emerging Business Opportunities at IBM (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Lynne Levesque

By June 2003, IBM had made significant progress in changing the way it managed new, emerging businesses. Describes the development of a separate management program at IBM designed to identify, fund, and shepherd new businesses through growth. Traces the history of the... View Details

Keywords: History; Business or Company Management; Talent and Talent Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy

08 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Europe Lags in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech

Governmental, academic, and cultural differences are hurting Europe's chances of creating more competitive pharmaceutical and biotech industries—and not much hope is on the horizon, according to a panel of experts at the 2003 HBS European... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Biotechnology; Health; Pharmaceutical; Technology

2016
Working Paper

Credit Migration and Covered Interest Rate Parity

By: Gordon Y Liao

I document economically large and persistent discrepancies in the pricing of credit risk between corporate bonds denominated in different currencies. The discrepancies amount to 50-100 basis points on trillions of dollars of debt notional. I relate this violation of... View Details

Keywords: Market Segmentation; Debt Issuance; Covered Interest Rate Parity; Cross-currency Basis; Credit Risk; Financial Markets; Credit