Publications

December 2021
Case

Danish Crown: Feeding the Future

By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

Danish Crown, one of the world’s largest exporters of pork meat and one of Europe’s top five producers of beef, faced increasing headwinds in 2021, making CEO Jais Valeur feel like the core of the meat business was under attack. As a cooperative and prominent player in... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Food; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Nutrition; Cooperative Ownership; Change Management; Transition; Leadership; Leading Change; Marketing; Product Marketing; Corporate Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Denmark

August 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Whole Foods: Balancing Social Mission and Growth

By: Christopher Marquis, Marya Besharov and Bobbi Thomason

In 2009, Whole Foods stands at a crossroads. Their incredible growth over the past 25 years has vaulted them into the ranks of the largest US supermarkets and they have arguably led to the widespread acceptance of natural and organic foods in the United States. Yet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; United States

14 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp, Boston University

03 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Downturn

retained and grown." At HBS, Rangan serves as cochair of the Social Enterprise Initiative (with Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard) and as faculty chair of the Executive Education program Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

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

September 2019 (Revised September 2020)
Case

SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

By: Herman Leonard, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the... View Details

Keywords: Open Innovation; Crowdsourcing; Prototyping; Navy; Entrepreneurship; Public Equity; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Administration Industry; United States

August 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Barbie: Reviving a Cultural Icon at Mattel

By: Elie Ofek, Ryann Noe and Sarah Mehta

The 2023 release of the live-action film Barbie, and its accompanying marketing blitz, incited a worldwide Barbie craze. Suddenly Barbie was everywhere, a celebrated icon reinstated at the forefront of cultural conversation. This goodwill stood in contrast to... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Media; Intellectual Property; Business Strategy; Entertainment; Gender; Public Opinion; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Retail Industry; United States

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

XTV: Xerox’s Attempted Recovery From “Fumbling the Future”

wagon, so what?" Fumbling the Future was published in 1988, and the impact of this book reverberated throughout Xerox, stimulating many responses. As the story was recounted in the business and financial press, PARC's technological... View Details

Keywords: by Henry Chesbrough

2013
Case

The COFCO Group

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming and Ziqian Zhao

COFCO was China's sole legitimate window for agricultural foreign trade before 1987. The reform of China's foreign trade system beginning in 1987 cost COFCO its monopoly position. Subsequently, the SOE giant capitalized on its foreign trade expertise to strategically... View Details

Keywords: China; Food; China

01 Sep 2023
News

In My Humble Opinion: Futures Investor

In the half-century since his graduation, Theodore Roosevelt IV (MBA 1972) has earned widespread respect as both a forward-thinking investment banker and an influential activist through his efforts to address climate change and preserve public lands. For much of that... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; climate change; investment banking; leadership; carbon tax

April 2021
Case

The Clean Network and the Future of Global Technology Competition

By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han

In May 2019, amidst of an ever-worsening trade war between the U.S. and China, President Donald Trump added Chinese telecom giant Huawei to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list,” essentially forbidding American firms from doing business with the company. Huawei,... View Details

Keywords: 5G; Telecommunications; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Trade; Competition; International Relations; Telecommunications Industry; China

2010
Working Paper

Conceptual Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan

David Norton and I introduced the Balanced Scorecard in a 1992 Harvard Business Review article (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The article was based on a multi-company research project to study performance measurement in companies whose intangible assets played a central role... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Balanced Scorecard; Management Systems; Performance Improvement; Strategy

Read Now

March 2006
Course Overview Note

International Finance: A Course Overview Note

By: Mihir A. Desai

Describes the International Finance course at Harvard Business School, which argues that the forces of globalization have fundamentally changed the scope and activities of firms, thereby altering the practice of finance within these firms. As a consequence of an... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Business Ventures; Integration; Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Risk Management; Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; International Finance; Capital Markets

14 Apr 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Economic Crisis and Medical Care Usage

Keywords: by Annamaria Lusardi, Daniel Schneider & Peter Tufano; Health

18 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

New at the Helm: A Talk with HBS Dean Light

Forty years ago, in September 1966, a young mission analyst named Jay Light left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and headed east to Harvard Business School. At JPL, Light used his undergraduate engineering physics... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Education

Arthur I Segel

View Details

Keywords: federal government; real estate

July–September 2012
Article

The (Un)Hidden Turmoil of Language in Global Collaboration

By: Tsedal Neeley, Pamela J. Hinds and Catherine D. Cramton

Companies are increasingly relying on a lingua franca, or common language (usually English), to facilitate cross-border collaboration. Despite the numerous benefits of a lingua franca, our research reveals myriad challenges that disrupt collaboration and contribute to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Loss; Spoken Communication; Performance Productivity; Research; Global Range; Problems and Challenges; Diversity; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

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February 2003 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Bombardier: Canada versus Brazil at the WTO

By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Laura Alfaro and Brett Laschinger

In less than a decade, Bombardier had grown from a medium-size Canadian company to a highly profitable global player largely on the strength of the introduction of a new generation of regional jet and successfully marketing its product to airlines around the world.... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Global Strategy; Five Forces Framework; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Business and Government Relations; Situation or Environment; Competition; Air Transportation Industry; Canada; Brazil