Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,929)
- Faculty Publications (775)
- January 2002 (Revised February 2002)
- Case
Postgirot Bank and Provment AB: Managing the Cost of IT Operations
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Nancy Bartlett
Describes a specific approach for measuring the efficiency of the groups of computers inside an organization and suggests ways this tool may be used to reduce the company's computing investment while maintaining service. It is a software-enabled industrial engineering... View Details
- January 2002
- Exercise
Socrates, Inc.
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman
Socrates, Inc., a provider of e-learning tools and technologies to educational institutions and, potentially, corporations, must decide which of several opportunities to pursue next and which priorities to focus on in terms of better structuring the firm's processes... View Details
- November 2001 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Smartix (A): Dancing with Elephants
By: Donald N. Sull, James K. Sebenius and Noam Wasserman
This case describes issues facing the founder-CEO of a high-tech start-up in Boston, as he negotiates with multiple large potential partners and investors. The negotiations include a potential business partnership with FleetCenter and Madison Square Garden, and a... View Details
- November 2001 (Revised April 2003)
- Case
Camp Dresser & McKee: Getting Incentives Right
By: Ashish Nanda
"If you try to use money to motivate behavior, you are in a powerful and dangerous place, especially with engineers and scientists," remarked Tom Furman, CEO of Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc. (CDM), a consulting environmental engineering firm. Historically, CDM had... View Details
- August 2001 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
NerveWire, Inc.
By: Nitin Nohria and Anthony Mayo
NerveWire, a management consulting and systems integration provider based in Newton, MA, was closing in on its second anniversary. In the beginning days of NerveWire, the major challenge was recruiting--finding the right people who embodied its values and business... View Details
- August 2001 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
Operations at the Donner Company
By: H. Kent Bowen
A small manufacturer of circuit boards faces product and operations-management problems. This case analyzes the production capacity at various stages and examines bottlenecks and product flow decisions. A detailed look at the problems and a discussion of the tools and... View Details
- May 2001 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Calpine Corporation: The Evolution from Project to Corporate Finance
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane
In early 1999, Calpine Corp.'s CEO Pete Cartwright adopted an aggressive growth strategy with the goal of increasing the company's aggregate generating capacity from approximately 3,000 to 15,000 megawatts (MW) by 2004. He believed there was a fleeting opportunity to... View Details
- April 2001 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Liz Claiborne China
By: Joseph L. Bower, Sonja Ellingson Hout and Fred Young
A new country manager builds the Shanghai office of Liz Claiborne into a powerful sourcing organization using local talent. She explains the nuts and bolts of transforming the office. View Details
- March 2001 (Revised December 2007)
- Case
Katharine Graham
By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Lisa M. Gunther and Dina R. Pradel
Details the career of Katharine Graham of the Washington Post Co., a pioneer in her field and one of the first high-profile women to lead a major public company. Her story is a unique example of how power and expertise are built over time, and differs from those of... View Details
- March 2001
- Article
Strategy and the Internet
By: M. E. Porter
Many of the pioneers of Internet business, both dot-coms and established companies, have competed in ways that violate nearly every precept of good strategy. Rather than focus on profits, they have chased customers indiscriminately through discounting, channel... View Details
- February 2001
- Case
PlanetFeedback: The Voice of One ... The Power of Many (A)
By: James L. Heskett
The management of PlanetFeedback in proposes a merger with Intelliseek. Their goal is to create a comprehensive C2B and B2B business focused on the generation and analysis for business clients of consumer feedback data via the Internet, Planet Feedback's board of... View Details
- February 2001 (Revised February 2002)
- Case
Estee Lauder and the Market for Prestige Cosmetics
By: Nancy F. Koehn
Opens with a brief history of the U.S. cosmetics market and its rapid development in the 1920s. Also recounts Lauder's initial involvement in the sector, making skin care products and selling them in Manhattan beauty parlors during the Great Depression. Pays particular... View Details
- February 2001
- Case
BarnesandNoble.com (C)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dickson Louie and William A. Sahlman
At the end of 1999, Steve Riggio, the vice chairman and acting CEO of barnesandnoble.com, wonders what his company should do next against Amazon.com, the online retailer who is the leading online book seller in the United States. While barnesandnoble.com has been... View Details
- December 2000 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
DoubleTwist, Inc.
By: Joseph L. Bower and Christina L. Darwall
John Couch, CEO of DoubleTwist, has transformed a software products company into an Internet application service provider, racing to provide databases and tools for those working to explore the human genome. Crafting strategy and building organizational capability are... View Details
- November 2000 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
Iggy's Bread of the World
By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Alexis Lefort
In January 1994, Igor and Ludmilla Ivanovic opened the doors of their bakery, Iggy's Bread of the World. This case describes their unusual mission statement and the way in which they try to bring a social consciousness mentality to a for-profit business. Six years... View Details
- November 2000
- Case
Reuters Greenhouse Fund
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Galvin
Reuters Greenhouse Fund had successfully invested in a portfolio of 79 companies working in areas relevant to Reuters Group's strategic interests. It had itself facilitated a powerful network among the companies and become a respected global venture capital firm.... View Details
- October 2000
- Article
The Equity Share in New Issues and Aggregate Stock Returns
By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler
The share of equity issues in total new equity and debt issues is a strong predictor of U.S. stock market returns between 1928 and 1997. In particular, firms issue more equity than debt just before periods of low market returns. The equity share in new issues has... View Details
- July 2000
- Background Note
Industry Transformation
By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin
One of the steepest challenges a strategist faces is to navigate his or her company through a period of industry transformation--an era of rapid and wholesale changes in industry structure. This note considers how periods of transformation typically unfold. It then... View Details
- May 2000 (Revised April 2003)
- Case
Contractual Innovation in the UK Energy Markets: Enron Europe, The Eastern Group, and the Sutton Bridge Project
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Peter Tufano
In December 1996, Enron Europe and The Eastern Group were on the verge of signing an innovative transaction in the utility industry. Eastern was going to buy a long-term option to convert natural gas into electricity from Enron, thereby giving it the economic right to... View Details