Publications

September 2020
Teaching Note

TransDigm in 2017: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 720-422. TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increase ten times,... View Details

11 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

The IBM PC

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin; Computer

May 2023
Case

Legacy Partners

By: Royce Yudkoff and Richard S. Ruback

Stephen Holbrook and Austin Pulsipher (both HBS '19) had been leading Nutrishare since acquiring the company six months earlier in mid-2021. The company, based in Sacramento CA, was a compounding pharmacy serving Total Parenteral Nutrition ("TPN") patients nationwide.... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business or Company Management; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2019 (Revised October 2020)
Case

GENTERA: Facing the Digital Age

By: Michael Chu and Carla Larangeira

After long dominating Mexican microfinance, Compartamos Banco faces the emergence of fintech, just as for the first time its loan portfolio and clients have declined. Enrique Majós, CEO of GENTERA, the bank´s parent company, is keenly aware of the profound changes... View Details

Keywords: Micro Finance; Base Of The Pyramid; Fintech; Microfinance; Disruption; Innovation and Management; Competitive Strategy; North America; Mexico

June 2018
Supplement

Amil and the Health Care System in Brazil (B)

By: Regina Herzlinger, Ana Maria Malik, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

Brazilian Managed Care Organization Amil faces a series of challenges while trying to redefine the terms of its relationship with hospitals and clinics and to implement a new health care model based on primary care and family medicine. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Brazil; Managed Care; Innovation; Health Care Industry; Health Care and Treatment; Health; Cost Management; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; Brazil

April 2013
Case

The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King (Abridged)

By: Michael G. Rukstad and David J. Collis

The first ten pages of this case are comprised of the company's history, from 1923 to 2001. The Walt years are described, as is the company's decline after his death and its resurgence under Eisner. The last five pages are devoted to Eisner's strategic challenges in... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Vertical Integration; Corporate Strategy; Boundaries; Brands and Branding; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market

By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Jyun-Cheng Wang

The term "white box" is often used to describe products without a brand name. Such products are assembled from standardized parts, and they became a very popular category of desktop PCs. Hsinchu, Taiwan based MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company that unleashed a... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Competitive Advantage; Wireless Technology; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

July 1996
Case

Williams-Sonoma, Inc.--1990

By: Nancy F. Koehn and Michael Dearing

Howard Lester, chairman and CEO, has just completed a second offering of common stock in Williams-Sonoma, Inc. ($218.2 million 1989 sales). Having targeted $500 million in retail sales, Lester's challenge is to: 1) prioritize growth investments in five existing catalog... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Alignment; Customer Value and Value Chain; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry

Find at Harvard

05 Apr 2016
First Look

April 5, 2016

politicians in the years after its publication. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50916 Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production By: Gross, Daniel P. Abstract—Though... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthlorne

02 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Disruptors Sell What Customers Want and Let Competitors Sell What They Don’t

industry he sees as vulnerable is television and cable, with joint risk of decoupling and unbundling. While they may have won the battle against Aereo, their business model, which forces customers to buy programming by the bundle rather than a la carte, leaves cable... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2020
Case

The Reinvention of Kodak (A) Multimedia Case

By: Ryan Raffaelli

This case includes links to case supplement videos for students to view with the written case before class, and also supplement videos for faculty to use exclusively during class. View Details

Keywords: CEO; Leadership; Asset Management; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy

April 2011
Teaching Note

Cork'd: Building a Social Network for Wine Lovers (TN)

Teaching Note for 911026. View Details

Keywords: Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web; Competitive Strategy; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2010 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Hewlett-Packard Company: CEO Succession in 2010

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Krishna G. Palepu and Melissa Barton

Mark Hurd resigned as the CEO of Hewlett Packard in 2010 after the board discovered that he had misfiled expense reports and paid an H.P. contractor for unsubstantiated work. After Hurd left H.P., he joined Oracle, an H.P. competitor. Soon thereafter, the H.P. board... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership Development; Management Succession; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry