Publications

April 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

GE and the Industrial Internet

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Kerry Herman

CEO Jeff Immelt considers whether GE is moving fast enough on its new Industrial Internet initiative. The undertaking includes building out an Industrial Internet, connecting machines and devices, collecting their data and operations, and providing services to clients... View Details

Web

Seen and Unseen | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

Skip to Main Content Contemporary Black Artists at Harvard Business School Search Baker Library Search Search Search Overview SEEN AND UNSEEN REPRESENTATIONS OF NATIVE AMERICANS IN ART, ADVERTISING, AND COMMERCE November 2022 - February... View Details

Web

The Intersection of Public Relations and Photography | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

industry to establish its own in-house public relations department, distinct from its marketing division. In 1936, the Pittsburgh-based corporation created a PR department headquartered at 71 Broadway in New York City, the burgeoning... View Details

01 Mar 2007
News

Security Chief

CEO, having first served six months as COO. Since 9/11, it’s hard to think of a business with more growth potential than security. Even before that fateful day in 2001, GE executives made the strategic decision to build from scratch a... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; technology-based security business; Management; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Management

26 Aug 2016
News

Under Armour's value to city overhangs TIF debate

01 Dec 2022
News

Built to Last

development and company values, like doing the right thing, attention to detail, and continuous improvement. “We’re building an organization to last for the long-term, and doing it in a way that allows workers to manage their lives with some sense of balance,” says... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; family business; leadershp; employee management; Machinery Manufacturing; Manufacturing

November 1986 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Kentucky Fried Chicken (Japan) Ltd.

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the internationalization of the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast food chain, focusing on KFC's entry into Japan. An entrepreneurial country general manager, Lou Weston, battles numerous problems to establish the business and is eventually highly successful.... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Market Entry and Exit; Strategic Planning; Agency Theory; Perspective; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan

November 2012
Article

The Organization of Firms Across Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Social Capital; Theory Of The Firm; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Business Economics; Management Of Technological Innovation And R＆D; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Technology Adoption; Multinational Firms and Management

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12 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

Does Your HQ Operation Fit With Corporate Strategy?

The specter of "headquarters" usually looms large in the business world's imagination, but few managers—and few CEOs, especially new CEOs—understand how size, structure, and performance of View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

01 Jun 2024
News

Firm Foundation

Courtesy Tracy Britt Cool Courtesy Tracy Britt Cool Tracy Britt Cool (MBA 2009) has been playing the long game as long as she can remember. The former Berkshire Hathaway executive grew up in a family business: Her father was a third-generation farmer in Manhattan,... View Details

Keywords: Janelle Nanos; private equity; Warren Buffett; career path; investment strategy; family business; Finance

15 Jan 2015
Video

Fernando Yunes of Whirlpool Latin America explains the value of FIELD

12 Sep 2017
News

Dream big like Jeff Bezos, and you just might land Amazon

2009
Working Paper

International Differences in the Size and Roles of Corporate Headquarters: An Empirical Examination

By: David J. Collis, David Young and Michael Goold

This paper examines differences in the size and roles of corporate headquarters around the world. Based on a survey of over 600 multibusiness corporations in seven countries (France, Germany, Holland, UK, Japan, US, and Chile) the paper describes the differences among... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Size; Organizational Structure; Culture; Japan; France; Germany; Netherlands; United Kingdom; United States; Chile

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September 2015 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Gap Inc.: Refashioning Performance Management

By: Joshua Margolis, Paul McKinnon and Michael Norris

In 2014, clothing retailer Gap Inc. rolled out a new performance management process for headquarters staff that did away with a traditional rating and ranking system. The new process involved informal monthly meetings between managers and their reports, and it more... View Details

Keywords: Performance Management; Retail; HR; Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Management; Human Resources; Performance Evaluation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry