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Fall 2021
Article

Strategy as a Way of Life: Businesses Must Root Strategy in Moral Purpose to Thrive in a Complex, Rapidly Changing World

By: Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi

Doing the ordinary things in life a little bit better every day elevates individuals. All of us gained mother's wisdom by living with her, by watching her from behind her, by being scolded by her, and being told over and over again, to be honest, not to tell a lie or... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Moral Sensibility; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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Trevor Fetter is a Senior Lecturer and the Henry B. Arthur Fellow on the faculty of Harvard Business School. He teaches two MBA required courses: Leadership and Corporate Accountability, and Financial Reporting and Control. At HBS he has also taught a Short... View Details

21 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

What Machine Learning Teaches Us about CEO Leadership Style

in the Strategy Unit at HBS; Columbia Business School professor Dan Wang; and doctoral student Natalie Carlson. The skills that a CEO needs to command a company are varied, but the ability to communicate effectively is near the top. “The... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Program

Competing in the Age of AI—Virtual

Summary Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way today's businesses compete and operate. By putting AI and data at the center of their capabilities, companies are redefining how they create, capture, and share value—and are... View Details

March 1991 (Revised July 1993)
Case

Kyocera Corp.

By: John P. Kotter

Examines the three factors critical to this company's remarkable success in the high tech field. The first factor is the founder, Dr. Inamori's powerful leadership. The second is the strong corporate culture or philosophy of the firm. The third element in Kyocera's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Information Infrastructure; Leadership Style; Management Systems; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Practice; Profit; Planning; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry

August 1983 (Revised June 1986)
Case

Johnson & Johnson (B): Hospital Services

By: Francis Aguilar

The main issue has to do with the lack of fit or incompatibility between the early environmental requirements for strategy and the cultural constraints on the organization. Describes the internal resistance to the proposed changes and top management's efforts to... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry

November 2004
Case

IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace

By: David A. Thomas and Ayesha Kanji

Explores how IBM incorporated diversity into its business strategy, making the case that workforce diversity is critical to marketing its products and services to its customers. In the early 1990s, Ted Childs, vice-president of Workforce Diversity, proposed to CEO Lou... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Diversification; Business Strategy; Integration; Global Strategy; Organizations; Markets; Information Technology Industry; United States

July 2005 (Revised September 2016)
Case

24 Hour Fitness (A): The Rise, 1983–2004

By: John R. Wells, Elizabeth A. Raabe and Gabriel Ellsworth

In October 2004, Mark S. Mastrov, CEO of 24 Hour Fitness, reflected on how far his company had come in just over 20 years. From humble beginnings in 1983 in San Leandro, California, 24 Hour Fitness had grown to become the largest privately-owned health-club chain in... View Details

Keywords: 24 Hour Fitness; Mark Mastrov; Health Clubs; Fitness; Gyms; Chain; Weight Loss; Exercise; Personal Training; Retention; Sales Force Compensation; Incentive Systems; Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Private Equity; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Nutrition; Business History; Employees; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Operations; Private Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Sales; Salesforce Management; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Information Technology; Internet; Technology Platform; Web; Web Sites; Capital Structure; Performance; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; United States; California; San Francisco

28 Nov 2016
Blog Post

Why We Recruit: Wayfair

internet sector since 1995 and have created a company culture deeply rooted in technology. Tech, data and analytics inform everything we do and are critical to our rapid growth and share gain. We are... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

August 2008 (Revised December 2010)
Case

AMD Dresden: Copy Inexactly!

By: Willy C. Shih

The establishment and growth of AMD's Dresden, Germany manufacturing site illustrates how processes develop in an organization and how those processes get institutionalized into a unique culture. Located in the Free State of Saxony in the eastern part of Germany (the... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Industry Clusters; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Semiconductor Industry; Europe; Dresden

12 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 12, 2006

Protection Agency (US EPA) program that encourages companies to self-disclose violations of environmental laws and regulations in exchange for reduced sanctions. We find that facilities are more likely to self-disclose if they were... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Gender and Free Speech at Google (A)

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Martha J. Crawford and Sarah Mehta

In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” which posited that innate biological... View Details

Keywords: Free Speech; Representation; Diversity; Gender; Race; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Labor; Employment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizational Culture; Technology Industry; United States; California

10 Nov 2015
Blog Post

Using an MBA for a Career Change

BrooklynSummer associate in International Strategy The company culture was everything it was hyped up to be. Quilts for curtains. Employee-led classes on how to watercolor greeting cards. But I missed... View Details

January 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Henry Luce and the American Century

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Logan Wilcox

Henry Luce, founder of the publishing company which produced Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, created the largest media company in the world by the mid-20th century. Luce's flagship magazine, Time, was able to gross over $20 million in sales during its... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Leadership Style; Emerging Markets; Publishing Industry; United States

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27 Sep 2017
Blog Post

Meet the Latino Student Association

Latin America and any student with professional or cultural interest in impacting the future of Latino leadership in the United States. We also promote the engagement of the Latino business community with Harvard Business School. We know... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

27 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

How Remote Work Changes What We Think About Onboarding

New-Employee Orientation Cultural Disharmony Undermines Workplace Creativity How New BofA Executives Learn its ’Deep Smarts’ What do companies not understand about onboarding? Share your insights below. View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg

January 18, 2024
Article

America's Top Talent Incubators Are Organizations Where People Want to Stay

By: Sarah Abbott and Boris Groysberg

Organizations like GE, IBM, and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have long been touted as the classic "academy companies." Academy companies produce first-rate executives who populate their own senior ranks and also go on to lead other companies. We wondered if academy companies... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture

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March 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

In September 2022, Yvon Chouinard, the iconoclastic founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia, announced a new ownership model for his company. Chouinard and his family had held complete control of the company's voting and non-voting stock since its founding 50... View Details