Publications

October 1984
Case

NIKE (F): The Apparel Division

Deals with challenges confronting a new divisional manager of Nike's apparel division, David Chang. The teaching plan would focus on a diagnosis of the division's current strategy and what future strategic moves might be considered. View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Business Divisions; Management Teams; Business Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

30 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Market Makers Bid for Success

of FairMarket, which provides online auction services for a variety of merchant and community sites. Meakem is the founder and CEO of FreeMarkets, which creates business-to-business online auctions for industrial parts and suppliers.... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Web Services; Technology

01 Dec 2002
News

Bad Times for Business

while at the same time, a range of stakeholders can question, claim their share, or put up guardrails around that headlong rush toward change. I think all the attention being paid to the current problems — particularly by business itself — will help keep our system of... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

05 Sep 2023
Blog Post

Solving Climate Change Starts with an Idea

startups. I took one student’s interest area, modular homes in rural Texas, as my jumping-off point. The class took off from there. We started by asking about the biggest climate impacts of modular homes and got back a great list, progressed through the major View Details

March 1999 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Honda-Rover (D): The Changing Tide of the BMW-Rover Alliance

By: Ashish Nanda, James K. Sebenius and Ron Fortgang

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Joint Ventures; Alliances; Knowledge Sharing; Strategy; Contracts; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Tactics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Auto Industry; United Kingdom

December 2014 (Revised February 2016)
Case

Group Functions at the Maersk Group

By: David Collis and Matthew Shaffer

In 2014, seven years after he was appointed CEO of the Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Møller Maersk (the Maersk Group), Nils Andersen was reexamining the size and role of corporate headquarters in the company he had reshaped as a "premium conglomerate."... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; Business Units; Conglomerates; Decentralization; Core Business; Value Added; Synergy; Headquarters; Shipping; Petroleum; Oil And Gas; Drilling; Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Denmark

June 1995
Case

AT&T's Acquisition of NCR

Dennis R. Beresford, Chairman of the FASB, reflects on the AT&T and NCR merger and AT&T's desire to qualify the transaction for pooling of interest treatment, an accounting method allowing companies to record assets acquired in business combinations at historical cost... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Accounting; Telecommunications Industry

June 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Exercise

The Pacific Sentinel: Role for Alex Martinez

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Dina R. Pradel

A new publishing company has just purchased the Pacific Sentinel, a fictional West Coast newspaper. The new publisher is willing to invest $1 million in the future success of the paper and has asked the executive editor and advertising manager to develop a joint plan... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Acquisition; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry; Western United States

March 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Dixon Corporation: The Collinsville Plant (Abridged)

Specialty chemical company Dixon must decide whether to acquire Collinsville, a business in a new segment, and how much to pay for it. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Chemicals; Acquisition; Chemical Industry

February 2003
Article

The Geography of Opportunity: Spatial Heterogeneity in Founding Rates and the Performance of Biotechnology Rirms

Keywords: Opportunities; Performance; Business Ventures; Biotechnology Industry

Find at Harvard

August 1996 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Nicholson File Company Takeover (B), The

By: Thomas R. Piper

Management of a small hand tool company must decide on the terms and conditions of its sale to a "friendly" acquirer. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Negotiation Preparation; Negotiation Participants; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry

April 2019
Case

Boxed

By: Laura Huang, Andy Wu and Jiayi Bao

Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; E-commerce; Retail Industry

October 2013 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Ilva Steel Taranto: Providing and Polluting (A)

By: Lena G. Goldberg, Vincent Dessain, Ottavia Pesce and Karol Misztal

Nearly 27,000 people depended on Ilva Steel Taranto, the largest steel-making plant in Europe, for their livelihoods, but the plant's pollution fouled the environment and increased the incidence of tumors, respiratory illnesses, and deaths. In July 2012, faced with a... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Pollutants; Business Exit or Shutdown; Health; Decision Making; Steel Industry; Europe

November 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

AT&T Foundation, The

By: Diana Barrett, Cassandra Hanley and Sarah Aaron

Explores the corporate philanthropic activities at AT&T, formed in 1983. Addresses the difficulty of making centralized decisions after the break-up for the four new entities, each with a diverse and sometimes cross-competitive strategy. View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; For-Profit Firms; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Telecommunications Industry

Find at Harvard

October 2002 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., 2002

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and Masako Egawa

Carlos Ghosn, a former executive vice president of Renault, became the COO of Nissan Motor Co., a troubled auto company in Japan when Renault bought 38% of the company in 1999. This case deals with how Ghosn turned the company around. Examines in considerable detail... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Transformation; Globalization; Leadership Development; Problems and Challenges; Auto Industry; Japan

April 1984
Supplement

Johnson & Johnson (B): Hospital Services, James Burke, Video

By: Francis Aguilar

James Burke, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, discusses the decision to establish a hospital services company. The problem is that this new unit, created to serve 14 Johnson & Johnson companies, runs counter to the corporate culture where autonomy and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry

Article

Mergers and Competition in Book Publishing

By: David A. Garvin

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Books; Publishing Industry