Publications

June 1988 (Revised December 1991)
Case

An Tai Bao Coal Mining Project

By: W. Carl Kester and Richard P. Melnick

An Tai Bao is the world's largest open-pit coal mine and is located in China's Shanxi province. After eight years of planning and negotiating, Occidental Petroleum, the foreign partner in the deal, is about to sign an ownership and financing agreement for $475 million... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Agreements and Arrangements; Non-Renewable Energy; Equity; Partners and Partnerships; Negotiation Deal; Joint Ventures; Mining Industry; China

October 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Restructuring the U.S. Steel Industry

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Focuses on the competitive decline of the integrated steel producers in the United States from 1970 to 2002. Issues include: Should the U.S. government impose tariffs to try to protect the industry? What should labor unions do, if anything, to protect jobs and wage... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Jobs and Positions; Labor Unions; Wages; Business and Government Relations; Integration; Steel Industry; United States

November 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Rio Tinto and Mining in Mongolia: The Oyu Tolgoi Deposit

By: Eric Werker, Battushig Batbold, Kelsey Kennedy, Zanna McComish, Shaloo Savla and Nicole Shomair

In 2013, Rio Tinto was expected to begin commercial shipments from Oyu Tolgoi, a copper and gold mine in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Oyu Tolgoi was one of the last great unmined deposits in the world, and, once operations were in full swing, was expected to constitute... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Mining; Mining Industry; Mongolia

July 1998 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Anderson Steel Service, Inc.

By: John A. Davis

Explores the management of family and business issues and helps to identify a range of topics with which families in business wrestle. Describes a dilemma faced by sixty-eight-year-old Charles Anderson, the semi-retired founder of the company and the father of three... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Family Business; Problems and Challenges; Business or Company Management; Family and Family Relationships; Strategy; Steel Industry

August 1980 (Revised November 1987)
Supplement

Quaker Steel and Alloy Corp., Action Plan

By: John J. Gabarro

Supplements the case. Designed as an in-class handout. View Details

Keywords: Steel Industry

29 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines

Keywords: by Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr; Manufacturing

June 1981
Teaching Note

Steel Industry and Imports (B)--1978, Teaching Note

By: J. Ronald Fox

Keywords: Steel Industry

December 1980 (Revised September 1985)
Case

British Steel Corporation: The Korf Contract

By: John P. Kotter and John M. Stengrevics

Traces a complex resource allocation decision facing British Steel in 1975. Students study the influences on the various managers involved in making the decision. View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Decision Making; Management Teams; Metals and Minerals; Steel Industry; United Kingdom

November 2013
Supplement

Ilva Steel Taranto: Providing and Polluting (B)

By: Lena G. Goldberg, Vincent Dessain, Ottavia Pesce and Karol Misztal

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

example: the 2010 mine collapse in Chile that trapped 33 workers some 2,300 feet underground for 69 days. Here's Emondson's account.) The success of the now legendary mining rescue in Chile in 2010, while... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

November 2013
Supplement

Ilva Steel Taranto: Providing and Polluting (C)

By: Lena G. Goldberg, Vincent Dessain, Ottavia Pesce and Karol Misztal

January 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

U.S. Steel: Proposed Acquisition by Nippon Steel

By: Willy Shih

The case setting is the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, which elicited a great deal of controversy. The 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 operators... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business History; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Steel Industry; Steel Industry; United States

April 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Vale: Global Expansion in the Challenging World of Mining

By: Tarun Khanna, Aldo Musacchio and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

In 2009 the management of Vale, a Brazilian diversified mining company and the largest iron ore producer in the world, was under pressure from at least two fronts. First, the emergence of China as the most important consumer of iron ore in the last few years had... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Investment; Global Strategy; Risk Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy; Mining Industry; Brazil

10 Feb 2014
HBS Case

Stressing Safety in South Africa’s Platinum Mines

dark, it's dusty, and over your head is a mile of solid rock. Oh, and you are doing heavy physical labor for 12 hours. That's being in the mines." “You had white supervisors who grew up under apartheid... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

September 2008 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Columbus Tubing: Steel is Real

By: Daniel C. Snow, Gary P. Pisano, Elena Corsi and Gudrun Urfalino Kristinsdottir

Columbus Tubing must choose to improve an old technology (steel) or to develop a new material (carbon fiber). The decision must take into account a complicated context: increased demand for the "old" steel products made in Italy, increasing power of carbon fiber... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Resource Allocation; Production; Research and Development; Information Technology; Bicycle Transportation; Asia; Italy