Publications

August 2022
Case

Air Wars: Deregulating the U.S. Airline Industry

By: Tom Nicholas and James Weber

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. government assisted in the development of an airline industry by subsidizing the delivery of mail and allowing mail carriers to also fly passengers. Because the government awarded mail routes to the lowest... View Details

June 1995
Case

Polaroid Corporation: European Distribution System

By: Janice H. Hammond and Afroze A Mohammed

Describes distribution operations in Polaroid Europe. In the late 1980s, Polaroid senior management in the United States proposed moving from a system of 12 decentralized warehouses to a centralized distribution system in which all inventory for European retailers... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Operations; Risk Management; Distribution Channels; Logistics; Transition; Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Industry Structures; Consumer Products Industry; Europe; European Union; United States

August 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Technical Note

A Note on Compensation

By: Ethan Bernstein and Michael Norris

This note provides an overview of the important terms, concepts, and frameworks that a manager should know about compensation—whether it be their own or that of an employee. Because compensation in practice is fraught with pitfalls, this note presents an overview of... View Details

Keywords: Compensation Design; Benefits; Perks; Variable Compensation; Compensation and Benefits; Executive Compensation; Stock Options; Profit Sharing; Job Design and Levels; Labor Unions; Wages; United States

28 Oct 2009
Lessons from the Classroom

HBS Begins Teaching Consumer Finance

[HBS professor emeritus] Dwight Crane for the Credit Union Executives Society. It was a relatively short hop from there to develop the broader Consumer Financial Services (CFS) Executive Education program at HBS. To prepare for that, I... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Financial Services; Education

20 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Big Deal: Reflections on the Megamerger of American and US Airways

On February 14, US Airways and American Airlines put their names on a valentine to each other as they announced an $11 billion merger, a union that created the largest airline in the United States. For American, it was one more step in... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rosabeth M. Kanter & Stuart C. Gilson; Air Transportation

February 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Lina Khan at the FTC: Redefining Antitrust in the Age of Big Tech

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Susan Pinckney

In 2023 and 2024, the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice sued Google, Amazon, and Apple claiming antitrust violations. These lawsuits marked a shift in U.S. antitrust enforcement away from the Chicago School and towards the New Brandeis school of... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Government Administration; Lawsuits and Litigation; Monopoly; Technology Industry; United States; European Union; China; India

October 2020
Case

Fiscal Responses to COVID-19

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons and Galit Goldstein

For the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis seemed on the verge of spiraling out of control. The business world struggled to figure out what COVID meant for macroeconomics. Extended restrictions limiting human interaction meant an end to normal economic production,... View Details

Keywords: Fiscal Policy; COVID; COVID-19; Economic Analysis; Economic Downturn; Economic Conditions; Economic Governance; Economic Systems; Economy; Health Pandemics; Finance; Policy; United States; Germany; France; European Union

03 Oct 2012
What Do You Think?

Can We Bring Back the “Industrial Commons” for Manufacturing?

"over 20% in Germany and at good wages." Peter Sebregondi said that "the German government, companies and unions TOGETHER have defended the German Industrial Commons" in response to pressure from globalization and EU... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing

19 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Activist Board Members Increase Firm’s Market Value

shift too much power to unions and special interest groups, and that highly experienced directors might not want to serve on a board if they had to work alongside shareholder-sponsored candidates. In addition, shareholders would be... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

December 2013
Supplement

Bruce Allyn: Negotiating with the KGB (B)

By: James K. Sebenius

This case picks up (from the end of the "A" case) the detailed story of the KGB's high-pressure negotiations with Harvard doctoral student Bruce Allyn to recruit him as a secret asset for the Soviet spy agency. The "A" case describes how, at the tense height of the... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Bargaining; Hard Bargaining; KGB; Espionage; Spying; War; National Security; Alliances; Ethics; Negotiation Tactics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Offer; Cambridge; Moscow; Soviet Union

19 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Analyzing Institutions to Solve Big Problems

Development at the Base of the Pyramid" explores a 2012 sanitation initiative in which Indian Union Minister Jairam Ramesh advised women not to marry men whose houses lacked toilets. (As of the 2011 census, only half of households in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel & Anna Secino

25 Jan 2000
Research & Ideas

Strategic Alliances

frequently of paramount importance in the creation and development of cross-sector alliances. Strategic unions "need champions, or internal entrepreneurs (intrapreneurs), at high levels on both sides [who] largely determine the acceptance... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy O. Perry

21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

directors accountable to company owners." Major business groups lost no time denouncing the reform measures as vehicles for ceding enormous power to a small number of special-interest investors, namely, unions and public employee... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

2015
Report

Decoding the Iran Nuclear Deal: Key Questions, Points of Divergence, Pros and Cons, Pending Legislation, and Essential Facts

By: Gary Samore, Graham T. Allison, Matthew Bunn, Nicholas Burns, Shai Feldman, Chuck Freilich, Olli Heinonen, Martin B. Malin, Steven E. Miller, Payam Mohseni, Laura Rockwood, James K. Sebenius and William Tobey

On April 2, 2015, the EU (on behalf of the P5+1 countries) and Iran announced agreement on "key parameters" for a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran. The EU-Iran Joint Statement is buttressed by unilateral fact sheets issued by the U.S. and Iran, which provide... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; International Relations; Iran; United States; European Union

Read Now

18 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 18, 2007

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=408036 The Battle of Union Square Harvard Business School Case 208-036 Union Square Ventures, a private equity firm founded in 2003, filled a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2014
Case

Henry A. Kissinger as Negotiator: Background and Key Accomplishments

By: James K. Sebenius and Laurence A. Green

Following a brief summary of Henry A. Kissinger's career, this case describes three of his most pivotal negotiations: the historic establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, the easing of geopolitical tension with the Soviet Union,... View Details

September 2012 (Revised July 2013)
Case

Can the Eurozone Survive?

By: Dante Roscini and Jonathan Schlefer

The sovereign debt crisis that took Greece by storm in 2010 began to spread to other European markets. Within a few months Ireland and Portugal had also lost access to the sovereign debt markets and had to rely on supranational loans for their financing. The risk of... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt Crisis; Currency Areas; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Currency Exchange Rate; International Relations; Banking Industry; European Union; Germany; France; Italy; Spain; Greece; Portugal

05 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 5, 2009

two network surveys supported these hypotheses. Cases & Course MaterialsAFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A) (Abridged) Harvard Business School Case 309-101 Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2023
Case

JPMorgan Chase in Paris

By: Joseph L. Bower, Dante Roscini, Elena Corsi and Michael Norris

In 2019, Daniel Pinto, President and COO of JPMorgan Chase, has to make a recommendation to the bank’s Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, about where to physically locate the bank’s European trading operations after Brexit takes effect in 2020. The decision-making process... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Decisions; Banking Industry; Europe; European Union; France; United Kingdom; Paris