Publications

March 1997 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Hospital Equipment Corporation

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Rory McDonald

Hospital Equipment Corp. is a very successful maker of hospital beds. Due to outstanding performance in new product development, it grew to dominate its primary market and is searching for other opportunities to grow through new product development. It discovers that... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Opportunities; Business Processes; Product Development; Technological Innovation; Expansion; Markets; Problems and Challenges; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

08 Sep 2020
News

Maintaining Organizational Soul While Onboarding In A Remote World

February 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Creating and Measuring Purpose at Viega

By: Ethan Rouen, Suraj Srinivasan and James Barnett

At its headquarters in Attendorn, Germany, Viega’s chairwoman Anna Viegener gathered the company’s leadership team to discuss their progress on formalizing purpose-driven leadership as a strategic driver within the organization. Viega manufactured and distributed... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Employee Relationship Management; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Expansion; Measurement and Metrics; Germany

10 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 10, 2017

beings grappled with and overcame material hardship, organized their political and economic communities, won great wealth and lost it, conquered and were conquered. The present volume, assembling some of the brightest lights in the field,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2022
Teaching Note

BTS & ARMY

By: Doug J. Chung and Kay R. Koo

Industry leaders must define a particular outcome of interest (i.e., an objective) to establish an organization’s strategy. BTS’s initial objective was to increase brand recognition and to acquire a solid fanbase. The proliferation of social network platforms... View Details

Keywords: Cultural Diversity; Brand Equity; Go-to-market Strategy; Social Network; Entertainment Industry; Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Music Industry

2008
Working Paper

Allocating Marketing Resources

By: Sunil Gupta and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Marketing is essential for the organic growth of a company. Not surprisingly, firms spend billions of dollars on marketing. Given these large investments, marketing managers have the responsibility to optimally allocate these resources and demonstrate that these... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods

Read Now

August 2018 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

By: George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked... View Details

Keywords: Facebook; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Social Media

08 Oct 2012
News

The case study: Henkel's culture shift

28 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, February 28

the start-up movement about how best to organize and execute new ventures as “business experiments.” These lessons from the “start-up garage” enable established corporations to make progress on new ventures in a disciplined, fact-based... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 1999
Case

Corbin Motors

By: John A. Davis

Explores the raising of capital to finance the growth of a spinoff business from Corbin-Pacific, a leader in motorcycle accessories. Also explores whether the culture of Corbin-Pacific can be infused in this new but very different kind of business. Finally, it asks the... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Capital; Governance Controls; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges

Find at Harvard

Nitin Nohria served as the tenth dean of Harvard Business School from 2010-2020. He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.

As Dean, building on... View Details

Web

Live from Klarman Hall - Alumni

pressure to look successful has never been greater. In organizations without psychological safety, these dynamics are exacerbated. This session will focus on ideas and practices for thinking about and learning from failure. Professor Amy... View Details

March 2020
Case

Cafe Kenya

By: Lynda M. Applegate and James T. Kindley

This case describes Café Kenya (CK), a Kenyan-based chain of casual quick-food restaurants. The chain was started in 2011 in Nairobi by Nekesa Kuria. Kuria started Café Kenya and grew it by reinvesting profits into company stores and through franchising. She also... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Kenya

23 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Break Your Addiction to Service Heroes

In their new book, Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business, coauthors Frances Frei and Anne Morriss maintain that it is possible for organizations to reduce costs while dramatically enhancing... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg; Service

September 2024
Case

Leadership for Stretch Goals: Inspiring Employees to Achieve the Impossible at Charter Next Generation

By: Ethan Rouen and Elisabeth Powell

In 2023, Kathy Bolhous, CEO of Charter Next Generation (CNG), set out to achieve an ambitious "Moonshot"—increasing profits by $100 million within three years, purely through internal innovations and efficiency gains, without layoffs or new revenue streams. After years... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Employee Ownership; Motivation and Incentives

November 2008 (Revised April 2010)
Case

The Bridgespan Group: Chapter 2

By: Allen S. Grossman, Naomi Greckol-Herlich and Cathy Ross

The Bridgespan Group was launched in 2000 by management consulting group Bain & Company as a nonprofit focused on strategy consulting for nonprofits and philanthropists. Over the next eight years, Bridgespan expanded its services to include executive search, knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Consulting Industry

May 2001 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Submarino.com (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Meredith Collura and Luiz Felipe Monteiro

Enables a thorough analysis of Submarino.com, a B2C e-commerce company with a presence in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, and Portugal. Examines the company's global operations as well as its organizational design and operating and management capabilities. Considers... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Globalized Firms and Management; Operations; Organizational Design; Strategy; Internet; Retail Industry; Portugal; Spain; Mexico; Argentina; Brazil

Carl Kester is a Baker Foundation Professor and the George Fisher Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Finance Unit. He served as Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs (2006-2010), Chairman of the... View Details

Keywords: asset management; banking; education industry; financial services; investment banking industry; pharmaceuticals; private equity (LBO funds)

October 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Bridgespan Group, The

By: Allen S. Grossman and John D. Kalafatas

Bain & Co., a consulting firm with a client list that ranges from entrepreneurial start-ups to global corporations, wanted to increase its involvement with nonprofit organizations. Rather than continuing to integrate the work into the existing organization, Bain... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Problems and Challenges; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Consulting Industry