Publications
Publications
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(11,179)
- Faculty Publications (2,063)
- January 2025
- Technical Note
Get Cool: Air Conditioning Industry Background
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small
The “air conditioning paradox” is tied to climate change: the more the planet warms, the greater the need for cooling (due to the dangers of extreme heat as well as comfort within buildings), but the use of electricity-powered AC contributes to further warming. There... View Details
- January 2025
- Teaching Note
Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel and Stacy Straaberg
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 124-007. The Germany-based startup Vytal operated the largest digital-native reusable packaging-as-a-service network globally, having raised nearly €15 million, established a large network of restaurant partners, and prevented the use of... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Startups; Resource Allocation; Risk Management; Adoption; Strategy; Performance Productivity; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Supply Chain; Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Business Model; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Profit; Financing and Loans; Expansion; Green Technology Industry; Service Industry; Retail Industry; Germany; Europe
- January 2025
- Case
GE Appliances 2025: Energizing Change
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small
At the turn of 2025, Kevin Nolan, CEO of GE Appliances following its acquisition by Chinese appliance giant Haier in 2016, is reviewing progress toward his net zero carbon vision for homes, which would otherwise exacerbate the global warming climate crisis. An... View Details
- January 2025
- Case
Index and Active Investing: Vanguard and the New Frontier of Active ETFs
By: Marco Sammon, Luis M. Viceira and Jonathan Kanagasabai
This case explores Vanguard’s strategic decision-making process as it considers entering the growing market for actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Set in 2024, the case places students in the position of Rodney Comegys, Vanguard’s global head of the Equity... View Details
- January 2025
- Case
Redwood & Strong: The Value of a Consulting Engagement
By: David G. Fubini and Patrick Sanguineti
The board of Redwood & Strong LLP (R&S), the American branch of a large global law firm, is meeting to review the findings of a recent strategic initiative designed to identify potential merger candidates. The request for the engagement originated from Daniel Crawford,... View Details
- January 2025 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
From Neverkusen to Meisterkusen:* Building a Winning Organization at Bayer Leverkusen
By: Boris Groysberg, Brian L. Walker, Sascha L. Schmidt and Gamze Yucaoglu
This case follows Bayer Leverkusen football team through 2018-2024, as Fernando Carro takes the helm and makes organizational changes. Led by CEO Fernanda Carro, sporting director Simon Rolfes, and head coach Xabi Alonso, the Club becomes league champion for the first... View Details
- January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Mercado Libre: The Best Is Yet to Come
By: Krishna G. Palepu, Fernando Fragueiro, Carla Larangeira and Mariana Cal
In 2024, Marcos Galperín, CEO and co-founder of Mercado Libre, reflected on its 25-year rise as Latin America’s largest marketplace, fintech leader, and most valuable public company. With operations spanning 18 countries and a robust ecosystem combining e-commerce,... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Multinational Firms and Management; Recruitment; Compensation and Benefits; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Succession; E-commerce; Emerging Markets; Distribution; Logistics; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Business Strategy; Competition; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; Retail Industry; Latin America; Mexico; Brazil; Argentina
- January 2025
- Case
U.S. Steel: Proposed Acquisition by Nippon Steel
By: Willy C. Shih
The case setting is the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, which elicited a great deal of controversy. The real purpose of the case is to look at the history of the American steel industry since World War II and understand how the steel minimill... View Details
- 2025
- Book
Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves
We all struggle with difficult conversations, but we're often not very good at easy ones either. Though we do it all the time, conversation is one of the most complex, demanding, and delicate of all human tasks, rife with possibilities for misinterpretation and... View Details
Keywords: Interpersonal Communication
- December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
The Shouldice Hospital Today
By: James Heskett and Roger Hallowell
The leadership and staff of Shouldice Hospital in Toronto, Canada have, for 75 years, sought to do one thing better than any other hospital in the world, repair inguinal hernias. For some years, a possible second hospital in another market has been under consideration.... View Details
- December 2024
- Supplement
Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change (B)
The (B) case explores Northvolt’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on November 21, 2024, highlighting the company’s
struggles to scale operations amid a global EV market slowdown and internal production challenges. While the (A) case detailed
Northvolt’s ambitious... View Details
Keywords: Batteries; Electric Vehicles; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy; Green Technology; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Technological Innovation; Risk Management; Failure; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transportation; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Sweden
- December 2024
- Case
Tencent Games
By: Rebecca Karp, Billy Chan and Nancy Hua Dai
For years, Tencent Games, a division of China’s largest internet company, had taken the lion’s share of revenue in the global gaming market with blockbuster titles such as “League of Legends” and “PUBG: Battlegrounds.” These games defined the game genres that they... View Details
Keywords: Decisions; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Investment; Competitive Strategy; Video Game Industry; Europe; China
- December 2024
- Case
AC Milan
By: Anita Elberse
In April 2024, Giorgio Furlani is nearing the end of his first full season as chief executive officer of Italian soccer club AC Milan. A Harvard Business School Class of 2007 graduate with a finance background, Furlani was appointed by RedBird Capital Partners’ founder... View Details
- December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Strategy and CEO Succession at Starbucks
By: Krishna G. Palepu and David Lane
On August 13, 2024, Starbucks announced that Laxman Narasimhan who was appointed as the CEO only in September 2023, was stepping down as CEO and board director “with immediate effect.” Laxman would be replaced on September 9 by Brian Niccol, CEO since 2018 of Chipotle... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Management Succession; Cost Management; Labor Unions; Working Conditions; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Service Operations; Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resignation and Termination; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- December 2024
- Article
Can Activists Change Business for Good?
By: Hiske Arts, Geoffrey Jones, Sarah Soule and Lora Verheecke
Leading experts debate the ability of activists to successfully challenge unsustainable corporate behavior. Includes a discussion of the role of business leaders as actvivists. View Details
- November 2024
- Case
Meghna Modi at Revlon India: Leading with a Bold Purpose
By: Aiyesha Dey, Sarah Mehta and Sarah Sasso
This case is about Meghna Modi, the head of struggling cosmetics company Revlon India, as she tries to both turn the company around and implement her personal purpose at work. Influenced by her own life struggles, Modi feels compelled to empower her frontline... View Details
- November 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Precision Agriculture at AGCO
By: Rajiv Lal, Alicia Dadlani and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
In 2024, AGCO, a leading agricultural equipment manufacturer, sought to improve its customers net farm income by 20% over five years by becoming a comprehensive one-stop precision agriculture solutions provider and strengthening its dual channel sales approach—retrofit... View Details
- November 2024
- Supplement
AlphaGo (B): Birth of a New Intelligence
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
This case, the second in a three-part series, explores DeepMind's evolution from developing game-specific AI to more generalized learning systems. Following AlphaGo's 2017 victory over the Go world champion, DeepMind introduced two revolutionary systems that eliminated... View Details
- November 2024
- Supplement
AlphaGo (C): Birth of a New Intelligence
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
This case, the final of a three-part series, explores DeepMind's pivotal transition from mastering games to solving real-world scientific challenges. In December 2020, DeepMind's AI system AlphaFold 2 achieved a breakthrough by solving protein folding—a 50-year-old... View Details
Keywords: Autonomy; Deep Learning; Drug Discovery; Healthcare Innovation; Neural Networks; Scientific Research; Technology Startup; AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Business Model; Business Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Technology Industry; United States
- November 2024 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Cheerful Music
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Feng Zhu and Nancy Hua Dai
Established by Snow Jiang in 2019 in Shenzhen, China, Cheerful Music was a record label company that had created many hit songs in China. “Yi Xiao Jiang Hu,” its most famous hit song, gained billions of views on social media platforms in China and overseas as the... View Details