Publications

Find at Harvard

October 2002 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Starbucks and Conservation International

By: James E. Austin and Cate Reavis

Starbucks, the world's leading specialty coffee company, developed a strategic alliance with Conservation International, a major international environmental nonprofit organization. The purpose of the alliance was to promote coffee-growing practices of small farms that... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperative Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Alliances; Nonprofit Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

November 2007 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Control Data Corporation and the Urban Crisis

By: Tom Nicholas and Laura Gaie Singleton

Control Data Corporation is considering its response to the assassination of renowned civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Four months prior, William Norris, president of the Minneapolis-based computer firm had already committed to building a plant in a low-income... View Details

Keywords: Urban Development; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Urban Scope; Computer Industry; District of Columbia; Minneapolis

21 May 2014
News

Harvard Historian Nancy Koehn On The Cashless Society

16 Jan 2013
News

George Says Dell Going Private `Is a Stretch'

30 Aug 2018
Blog Post

My Difficult Decision to Leave Google for HBS

Thirteen months after starting at Google and my first product went live, I was simultaneously filled with excitement, anxiety, and relief. But most significantly, the product launch sparked a real reflection of my time and work at Google.... View Details

June 2025
Case

AI Wars in 2025

By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang

In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of months. The immediate spark—the quiet revelation that Google searches had dipped for the first time in 20... View Details

June 2013 (Revised February 2014)
Case

FanMode: Launching a Global Sports Venture

By: Shikhar Ghosh, William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Neven Murugan is developing FanMode, an app that allows sports fans all over the world to broadcast their reactions in real time into stadiums where their team is playing. It also provides social networking across sports fans. The company is growing, and its founders... View Details

Keywords: App Development; Location Choices; Structure Of The Firm; Global; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United Kingdom; South Africa

July 2019
Case

LaCroix Sparkling Water

By: Tomomichi Amano, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

Launched in 1981 as an “all occasion” sparkling water brand, LaCroix Sparkling Water has had a number of ups and downs as a brand. After being purchased by National Beverage in 1996, the brand was re-positioned as a new, colorful, fun alternative to the other sparkling... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Industry Structures; Food and Beverage Industry

February 2001 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Wipro Technologies (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Suma Raju

The new general manager of Wipro's software services division has been brought on board from General Electric to develop the division into a leading provider of software services to the world's largest corporations. A native of India who received management training in... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Transformation; Change Management; Human Resources; Software; Information Technology Industry; India

Find at Harvard

September 2013 (Revised February 2016)
Case

GlaxoSmithKline: Sourcing Complex Professional Services

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Silvia Hodges Silverstein

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) uses an innovative new approach to procuring outside legal counsel: it replaces relationship-based selection and law firms' traditional time-based billing with data-driven decision making and an online reverse auction. In... View Details

Keywords: Legal Industry; Procurement; Professional Service Firms; Pricing; Competition; Change Management; Supply Chain Management; Legal Liability; Business Processes; Legal Services Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

08 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Seven Negotiation Lessons from Amazon's HQ Disaster in Queens

disapprovingly asked why this incentive money shouldn’t be used for more urgent local needs. Yet most of the $3 billion package would come from reductions in future taxes to be paid by Amazon. So if the company bailed, there would be no... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius; Real Estate; Construction

July 2020 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Live Nation and Pharrell Williams

By: Anita Elberse and Kate Christensen

“We’re in business together, and whether we lose a few million dollars or make a few million dollars, let’s do this. If you think you can pull it off, I’m behind you.” Michael Rapino, chief executive officer of Live Nation, the world’s leading live entertainment... View Details

Keywords: Music; Entertainment; Superstars; Talent; Labor Economics; General Management; Music Entertainment; Media; Talent and Talent Management; Joint Ventures; Marketing; Strategy; Music Industry

June 2001
Case

AtomFilms

By: Bharat N. Anand and Taslim Pirmohamed

Examines the evolution of AtomFilms--one of the few companies that survived the spate of failures in digital entertainment in 2000--from the time of its founding in 1998 to its merger with Shockwave in December 2000. Within a short period of time, AtomFilms had built... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Resource Allocation; Brands and Branding; Organizational Structure; Problems and Challenges; Alliances; Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Find at Harvard

28 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

administration at Harvard Business School, and Tami Kim, assistant professor at University of Virginia-Darden, conducted the research. The findings come at a time when many companies are taking a hard look... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

28 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Film Rentals and Procrastination: A Study of Intertemporal Reversals in Preferences and Intrapersonal Conflict

Keywords: by Katy Milkman, Todd Rogers & Max H. Bazerman; Entertainment & Recreation

17 Jul 2013
News

For Global Drug Manufacturers, China Becomes a Perilous Market

15 Feb 2022
News

How Managers Can Build a Culture of Experimentation

10 Jul 2007
What Do You Think?

How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?

excites, and pushes the team or, you could say, choreographs an output that (moves) the company towards the vision." The mix of control, delegation, and theater employed by successful leaders depends on the View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

April 2006 (Revised June 2008)
Case

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Robert S. Huckman and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Considers whether New Balance, one of the world's five largest manufacturers of athletic footwear, should respond to Adidas' planned acquisition of Reebok--a transaction that would join the second- and third-largest companies in the industry. Highlights the unique... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Production; Supply Chain Management; Performance Improvement; Competition; Consolidation; Apparel and Accessories Industry