Publications

2012
Chapter

Institutional Pressures and Organizational Characteristics: Implications for Environmental Strategy

By: Magali A. Delmas and Michael W. Toffel

A broad literature has emerged over the past decades demonstrating that firms' environmental strategies and practices are influenced by stakeholders and institutional pressures. Such findings are consistent with institutional sociology, which emphasizes the importance... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Natural Environment; Business Strategy

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22 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution

Business leaders can't develop and execute effective strategy without first gathering the right information, says Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons. In his new book, Seven Strategy Questions: A... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

25 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Lean Strategy Not Just for Start-Ups

Lean start-up strategies aren't just for start-ups anymore. That was the key message that Intuit cofounder Scott Cook (HBS MBA '76) shared in a small seminar with Harvard Business School faculty recently.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

17 Jul 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Developing a Strategy for Digital Convergence

Following the dot-com bust at the turn of the century, the technology business went through a gloomy period, 2001-2002, when innovation dried up, MBAs looked for careers in finance, and investors put their funds in a holding pattern.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer; Education

Research Summary

Energy Strategy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Forest L. Reinhardt is writing cases and other materials on the strategic problems and opportunitites faced by firms in the energy industry. Significant economies of scale and scope, combined with rapid technological change, present firms in the industry with a... View Details

March 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Module Note

Corporate Strategy

By: Ashish Nanda

As a strategist, you must decide for your firm what products to produce, what customers to serve, what geographies to operate in, and what activities to perform. This note on Corporate Strategy, which introduces the fifth module of the RC Strategy course, offers a... View Details

Keywords: Scope; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration

Teaching Interest

Management of Technology: Strategies for the Digital Economy

Companies make decisions daily to compete in the digital age; some are laying strategic building blocks for the future while others are toiling away on tactical distractions or leading their organizations headlong down the path to obsolescence. The advent of digital... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technology Industry

2016
Book

Strategy Beyond Markets

By: John de Figueiredo, Michael Lenox, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Rick Vanden Bergh

Strategy beyond markets has been an active area of research inquiry since the early 1990s. Since its inception, the scholarship emanating from this research stream has grown substantially in quantity, quality, and breadth. Likewise, firms across the world have... View Details

Keywords: Strategy

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2012
Working Paper

No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events

By: Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

One of the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, it has been argued, is that they build up a reservoir of public good will, shielding companies in times of trouble. In this paper, we test the view that CSR provides protection from public ire by... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Crisis Management; Media; Newspapers; Business and Community Relations; Corporate Strategy

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March 2006
Module Note

Exchange Rates and Firms

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes a core module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. The module focuses on how firms identify, measure, and manage currency exposures. The cases first introduce students to foreign exchange exposures and the tools used to manage... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Currency Exchange Rate; Corporate Finance

Teaching Interest

Strategy

By: Jan W. Rivkin

The objective of this course is to help students develop the skills for formulating strategy, and provides an understanding of:

A firm's operative environment and how to sustain competitive advantage.
How to generate superior value for... View Details

December 2013
Course Overview Note

Digital Marketing Strategy

By: Thales Teixeira

Digital Marketing Strategy is the process by which firms employ, either partially or exclusively, digital tools, techniques, and tactics to create value for customers. View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Brands And Branding; Marketing

January 2015 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Omar Selim: Building a Values-Based Asset Management Firm (A)

By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Shannon Gombos

The sustainable investing market was a recent phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century. However, an increasing number of investors began to integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions. At Barclays Capital, Omar Selim... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Management and Firm Dynamism

By: Nicholas Bloom, Jonathan S. Hartley, Raffaella Sadun, Rachel Schuh and John Van Reenen

We show better-managed firms are more dynamic in plant acquisitions, disposals, openings and closings in U.S. Census and international data. Better-managed firms also birth better-managed plants, and improve the performance of the plants they acquire. To explain these... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Business or Company Management; Performance Productivity

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October 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

DLA Piper: Becoming a Global Firm

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Alexis Chernak

Focuses on DLA Piper, a global law firm resulting from the merger of the combined U.S. firm Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and the British firm DLA. At the time of the merger, the firms had similar strategies for the future and approaches to clients. While figuring out some... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Global Strategy; Leadership; Alignment; Expansion; Legal Services Industry; United States

04 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events

Keywords: by Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier & Felix Oberholzer-Gee

October 2017
Article

Elevating Repositioning Costs: Strategy Dynamics and Competitive Interactions

By: Anoop R. Menon and Dennis Yao

This paper proposes an approach for modeling competitive interactions that incorporates the costs to firms of changing strategy. The costs associated with strategy modifications, which we term “repositioning costs,” are particularly relevant to competitive interactions... View Details

Keywords: ＂Repositioning Costs; Strategy Dynamics; Strategic Interaction; Capabilities; Cost; Strategy; Change; Game Theory; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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January 2006 (Revised February 2006)
Case

E.ON Corporate Strategy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Sebastian Frankenberger

Examines the corporate strategy of German energy giant E.ON. The firm is vertically integrated, horizontally diversified across electricity and natural gas, and active in numerous countries in Europe as well as in the United States. Explores the costs and benefits of... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Vertical Integration; Corporate Strategy; Globalization; Energy Sources; Economics; Energy Industry; Germany; United States; Europe

February 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Shanghai Diligence Law Firm (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Catherine Zhang

Shanghai Diligence Law Firm, started in January 2006, is a rapidly growing law firm in China's burgeoning legal services market. In addition to the usual challenges facing all professional service firms (picking and retaining talent and building a desired client... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Legal Services Industry; China