Publications

January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Royal DSM: From Continuous Transformation to Organic Growth

By: William W. George, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Amram Migdal

Royal DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma was pondering the challenges of shifting DSM’s global organization from the constant transformations of the past 100 years to creating organic growth. When Sijbesma took the helm as CEO in 2007, he further pushed and completed the company’s... View Details

Keywords: Organic Growth; Organizational Change; M＆A; Mergers And Acquisitions; Divestment; Business Ventures; Business Divisions; Business Growth and Maturation; Restructuring; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Transition; Engineering; Chemicals; Mining; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Food; Globalization; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Health; Nutrition; History; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Style; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Ownership; Public Ownership; Performance; Strategy; Adaptation; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Value; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Netherlands

2024
Book

The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell, and Create

By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers

We demystify the coming digital revolution, showing how NFTs will transform our online and offline interactions.

NFTs aren’t just pictures on the internet, or a fad that has come and gone. Rather, they’re a new technology for creating digital assets and... View Details

Find at Harvard

TeachingInterests

The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports (MBA)

By: Anita Elberse

This second-year MBA course is primarily designed for students pursuing a career in the entertainment, media and sports sectors -- including film, television, music, publishing, video games, the performing arts, sports, fashion, and advertising -- or who plan to work... View Details

Research Summary

Understanding the Drivers and Limits of Corporate Growth

By: Gary P. Pisano

Perhaps no issues garners more attention of senior executives and Boards of Directors than growth. Yet, the underlying factors shaping and limiting corporate growth are poorly understood. Empirically, we know that some corporations grow much faster than... View Details

Web

Geography of Care - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

dramatically improves outcomes and controls health care costs. By expanding strategically and integrating with community providers, those already renowned for innovation View Details

June 2016
Case

Aggressive Growth Plans For Zimmer Spine

By: Kevin Schulman and Miranda Shaw

Steve Healy, the President of Zimmer Spine, has to transform his organization into a market leader. Zimmer is a major medical device firm, but the Spine division has underperformed, and its core technology did not get the expanded FDA label that had been expected. The... View Details

Keywords: Medical Device; Organizational Innovation; Organizational Growth; Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

“Predictions are risky, especially about the future,” according to a popular expression. Still, business is inescapably about the future—that’s what managers’ decisions are about. In the current crisis, we have daily grand predictions about “new normals,” View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

March 2010 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Looking for Opportunity in Adversity: Iqbal Quadir and Grameenphone (A)

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti and David Lane

Iqbal Quadir, a former New York investment banker, set about to bring universal telecommunications to his native Bangladesh. He was convinced that, GSM, the same advanced wireless technology that penetrated developed countries in Europe was also the right solution for... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; Bangladesh

18 Jul 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Diversity and Inclusion at Mars Petcare: Translating Awareness into Action

Keywords: Re: Katherine B. Coffman; Food & Beverage; Health

November 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Advent International and Walmart Brazil's Deal

By: Victoria Ivashina, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

Advent International, one of the world’s leading private equity firms, must decide whether to acquire Walmart’s subsidiary in Brazil or not. Although Walmart Brazil is losing cash at a rapid pace, Advent thinks it has a solid plan to recover the company’s finances.... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Acquisition; Decision Making; Risk Management; Retail Industry; Brazil

March 2015 (Revised June 2015)
Case

Medalogix

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble

This case examines an exciting new approach to health care that will help care providers identify when hospice services are the appropriate type of care for patients. The company, Medalogix, already has a product on the market that uses a proprietary algorithm to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Entrepreneurship; Health Care Services; Implementing Strategy; Dissemination; Innovation; Market Selection; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing Strategy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Health Industry; United States

2021
Working Paper

Does Who Helps You Impact Your Behavior? Examining the Effects of Social Interactions on Knowledge Sharing in Online Communities

By: Eunkwang Seo, Frank Nagle and Sonali K. Shah

Online communities provide vibrant forums for knowledge sharing and are increasingly being used by individual users and firms to source knowledge and create and capture value. Yet, there is much to learn about how the actions of community members affect other members,... View Details

Keywords: Online Communities; Knowledge Development; Innovation; Reciprocity; Knowledge Sharing; Networks; Innovation and Invention; Interpersonal Communication

SSRN

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June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Home Nursing of North Carolina

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

In 2011, immediately after graduating HBS, Ari Medoff began a self-funded search for a small firm to buy and run as its CEO. After just three month of searching, he identified Home Nursing of North Carolina (HNNC), a home care agency based in Greensboro, NC, as a... View Details

Keywords: Small Firms Management; Acquisition; Negotiation Process; Investment; Small Business; Management; Personal Development and Career

2010
Working Paper

Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

By: Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca Henderson

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"—delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer-term investments—makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Performance Improvement; Competitive Advantage; Earnings Management; Management Practices and Processes; Revenue; Quality; Competency and Skills; Motivation and Incentives; Auto Industry; United States

Read Now

15 Feb 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting

Keywords: by Erik Stafford; Banking; Financial Services

17 Aug 2021
Op-Ed

Dispensing Justice: The Case for Legalizing Cannabis Nationally

Last month, US Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and senators Cory Booker and Ron Wyden introduced draft legislation to legalize cannabis federally. Some commentators say that by expunging federal,... View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda and Tabatha Robinson

2016
Working Paper

Notes on Developing a Strategy and Designing a Company

By: Kevin J. Boudreau

The practice and teaching of business strategy today exist largely as a set of alternative views and frameworks not entirely connected to one another. These notes contribute an integrated sequence of steps for creating or evaluating a strategy and associated company... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy