Publications

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

March 2017
Case

Cantel Medical

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Cantel Medical Corporation provided infection prevention and control products and services for patients, caregivers, and other healthcare providers. In 2016, Cantel generated sales of $665 million and net profits of $60 million, double the levels of five years earlier.... View Details

Keywords: Cantel; Charles Diker; Furniture Industry; Matrix Organization; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Chemicals; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Business History; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Opportunities; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Information Technology; Biotechnology Industry; Chemical Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; New Jersey

September 2009
Article

The Technology Manager's Journey: An Extended Narrative Approach to Educating Technical Leaders

By: Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O'Donnell

Technology management poses particular challenges for educators because it requires a facility with different kinds of knowledge and wide-ranging learning abilities. We report on the development and delivery of an information technology (IT) management course designed... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Management; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Business Education; Multinational Firms and Management; Entertainment; Communication; Curriculum and Courses; Framework; Design; Goals and Objectives; Learning; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

Read Now

This ambitious volume sets out to understand how every company impacts public health and introduces a robust model, rooted in organizational and scientific knowledge, for companies committed to making positive contributions to health and wellness. Focusing on four... View Details

March 2017
Case

Swagbucks

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a competitor to Swagbucks, after the company’s... View Details

15 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox

Keywords: by Tobias Fredberg, Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote & Flemming Norrgren

July 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Salary Finance

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Asesh Sarkar, co-founder and chief executive of Salary Finance Limited, a London-based FinTech, faced tough choices. Sarkar had founded Salary Finance with Dan Cobley and Daniel Shakhani in 2015. The company’s value proposition was quite simple: partner... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Financing and Loans; Wages; Innovation and Invention; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Services Industry

Malcolm Salter has been a member of the Harvard Business School faculty since 1967. His teaching and research focus on issues of corporate strategy, organization, and governance.

In addition to teaching at HBS, he has held faculty positions at the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: arts; automobiles; energy; investment banking industry; retailing; venture capital industry

April 1995
Case

Montague Corporation (A)

By: Norman A. Berg and James Weber

The Montague Corp. is a small company started in 1987 and owned by David Montague, age 31, and his father. The company designs, manufactures in Taiwan, and sells through distributors worldwide a high-quality "bicycle that folds." The company offices are located in... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Financial Strategy; Financial Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Globalized Firms and Management; Family Business; Bicycle Industry; Taiwan; Cambridge

Find at Harvard

November 2019 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Grupo Éxito: Facing Colombia's Competitive Grocery Retail Industry

By: José B. Alvarez, Carla Larangeira, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Miguel Diaz Moreno

Grupo Éxito, a leading South American retailer, faced declining market shares in Colombia in 2019 with the arrival of low-cost competitors and emerging digital trends. Originally founded in Medellín, Éxito had over the course of its seventy-year history evolved from a... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Market Share; Information Technology; Trends; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Colombia; Latin America

March 2014
Case

Jurlique: Globalizing Beauty from Nature and Science

By: Geoffrey Jones and Andrew Spadafora

Considers the marketing and strategic challenges faced by natural beauty brands using the case of Australian-based Jurlique, which was acquired by Pola of Japan in 2011. The case opens two years later in July 2013 when Sam McKay, the chief executive officer, on a visit... View Details

Keywords: Australia; China; Environmental Strategies; Green Business; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; China; Australia; United States

18 Jun 2019
News

How to Scandal-Proof Your Company

June 2020
Teaching Note

Brand Storytelling at Shinola

By: Jill Avery, Giana M. Eckhardt and Michael Beverland

Detroit, Michigan, aka “The Motor City,” is known as the birthplace of most of the American classic automotive brands. It is a city filled with the rich history of the industrial age, the pride of American manufacturing, and of the soulful sounds of Motown music. It is... View Details

Keywords: Brand Storytelling; Brand Management; Brand Management Of Places; Luxury Brand; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Advertising; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; United States

November 2010 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Computerized Provider Order Entry at Emory Healthcare

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil, Andrew Katz, Michael Morgan and David LaBorde

The Computerized Provider Order Entry at Emory Healthcare case presents one hospital system's efforts to implement computerized provider order entry (CPOE) across all of its hospitals and the challenges they faced in doing so. Issues such as standardization of care,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Information Management; Management Systems; Standards; Service Delivery; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Projects; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Industry

26 Sep 2016
Blog Post

An Interview with Corporate Relations Director, Kurt Piemonte

roles in Asia. I also serve as the office liaison for the investment banks that seek to hire HBS talent. I worked in U.S. immigration law for many years before joining HBS so I provide basic immigration guidance to our international... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

30 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Where Could More Regulation Help Small Businesses? Online Lending.

With Donald Trump’s election, Washington’s policy debate on financial services shifted overnight. Recent signs such as the president-elect’s own words and those of GOP leaders point to renewed efforts to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act.... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

January 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Case

The Carlyle Group

By: Robert G. Eccles and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case describes the investment philosophy, organizational structure, management processes and culture of the largest private equity firm in the world measured in terms of assets under management ($89 billion). The Carlyle Group is distinctive in several ways,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Assets; Private Equity; Investment; Global Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Structure; Information Technology; Asia; Washington (state, US)

April 1986 (Revised May 1989)
Case

Alloy Rods Corp.

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In July of 1985 the managers of Alloy Rods (who recently purchased the company through a leveraged buyout arrangement) find that their chief competitor (a company more than 6 times as large as Alloy Rods) has introduced a new product clearly aimed at Alloy's most... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Business Strategy; Business or Company Management; Financial Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Development