Publications

Research Summary

Overview

By: Feng Zhu

Professor Zhu’s research focuses on the design of platform business models and its impact on platform performance. Platforms have become central to our economy. A platform is a product or service that enables two or more customer groups to interact. For example,... View Details

January 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods: Getting Out Of The Gun Business (A)

By: George A. Riedel

Dick's Sporting Goods was one of the top five retailers of a range of firearms in the US. Over the last several years and specifically following the Parkland shooting of 2018, Ed Stack, the CEO and chairman, had wrestled with the question of their role as a leading... View Details

Keywords: Gun Policy; Gun Violence; Sporting Goods; Sport; Human Behavior; Violence; Ethics; Decision Making; Social Issues; Corporate Accountability; Sports Industry; Retail Industry; United States

19 May 2021
Op-Ed

Why America Needs a Better Bridge Between School and Career

Accomplishing that requires permanent, work-based learning programs that support educators’ degree-granting programs and employers’ hiring strategies. Closing the gaps and reducing the frictions between completing one’s education and starting a job offers massive... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph B. Fuller and Rachel Lipson

09 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

OneTen: Creating a New Pathway for Black Talent

“And we know that the style and the way in which people acquire skills nowadays in our society is very different than what it used to be. So, what we’re trying to do is shift the paradigm about aptitude from one that is based on a... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi E. Abdelal, Katherine Connolly Baden, and Boris Groysberg

January 2015 (Revised July 2015)
Case

Jimmy Choo

By: Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener

Jimmy Choo is a British luxury accessories brand, specializing in shoes, handbags, accessories, and fragrances. Founded in 1996 in London by couture shoe designer Jimmy Choo and Vogue accessories editor Tamara Mellon OBE, the brand enjoyed immediate success and rapidly... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Lawsuits and Litigation; Crisis Management; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Design; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Business Organization; Business Model; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Governance Compliance; Policy; Compensation and Benefits; Resignation and Termination; Laws and Statutes; Legal Liability; Business or Company Management; Risk Management; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Failure; Agency Theory; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Salesforce Management; Public Opinion; Banking Industry; North and Central America

June 2017 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Dennis W. Campbell, Susanna Gallani and Amram Migdal

Set in early 2017, this case examines widespread sales misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank. Wells Fargo's governance and controls are described in the lead up to the September 2016 announcement that Wells Fargo had settled with regulators for $185 million in... View Details

April 2020
Article

The Impostor Syndrome from Luxury Consumption

By: Dafna Goor, Nailya Ordabayeva, Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener

The present research proposes that luxury consumption can be a double-edged sword: while luxury consumption yields status benefits, it can also make consumers feel inauthentic, because consumers perceive it as an undue privilege. As a result, paradoxically, luxury... View Details

Keywords: Luxury Consumption; Luxury; Spending; Consumer Behavior; Perception

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29 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

How Organizations Create Social Value

the colloquium is to help leaders in businesses and society create social value for their communities, while in parallel strengthening their organizations. The study centered on forty organizations—twenty NGOs (non-governmental... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Wes Hall and the BlackNorth Initiative

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner and Reza Satchu

Wes Hall founded Kingsdale Advisors and built it into one of Canada’s leading shareholder services and advisory firms. Influenced by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and a series of social injustices—specifically the death of George Floyd in police custody—Hall... View Details

Keywords: Racism; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Race; Social Issues; Ethics; Canada; North America

01 May 2019
What Do You Think?

What Should the Leadership of YouTube Do?

littleny Can YouTube’s Users Help the Company Deal With Its “Moral” Problem?* This month’s mini-case described the dilemma faced by Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube: how far to promote “sustainability,” viewership, and (to some) free speech at the risk of losing what is... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

March 2010 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Malden Mills (A) (Abridged)

By: Nitin Nohria and Thomas R. Piper

CEO Aaron Feuerstein of Malden Mills decided to pay idled workers after a massive fire at his mill in 1995. Focuses on the decisions made post-fire and the rebuilding process and eventual bankruptcy of the company. Also outlines creditors' struggle to decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Employees; Leadership; Crisis Management; Social Issues; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts

04 Nov 2015
What Do You Think?

Why Does Gender Diversity Improve Financial Performance?

2015, accessed on www.mckinsey.com/insights. Women Matter: Gender Diversity, a Corporate Performance Driver, a joint study by the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and McKinsey & Company, 2007. View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovative Ways to Encourage Personal Savings

Putting together the money for everything from a short-term emergency to retirement is hard enough, a challenge that low- and moderate-income families endure every day. Yet as HBS professor Peter Tufano describes, new and old products targeted at people who haven't... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

May 2016 (Revised August 2022)
Case

RegionFly: Cutting Costs in the Airline Industry

By: Susanna Gallani and Eva Labro

RegionFly is a small, private airline specializing in ultra-premium services. Founded shortly after the "Golden Age of airline travel," RegionFly's financial performance had been strong for several decades. More recently, however, the results have taken a downward... View Details

Keywords: Recession; Downsizing; Profitability; Cost Management; Profit; Luxury; Competitive Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Divisions; Logistics; Decision Making; Strategic Planning; Air Transportation Industry

12 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

When Design Enables Discrimination: Learning from Anti-Asian Bias on Airbnb

rampant discrimination and sometimes physical violence. In that context, what happened on Airbnb in 2020 may be disturbing, but it’s not entirely surprising, Luca says. “Given the scapegoating that we've seen both within government and in View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds; Technology; Travel

November 1995 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Luna Pen (A)

By: Kathleen McGinn and Michael Wheeler

Discusses the negotiation of a possible trademark infringement involving a German conglomerate and a Taiwanese trading firm. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Law; Negotiation Tactics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Gender; Culture; Trademarks; Power and Influence; Germany; Taiwan

September–October 2020
Article

Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value

By: George Serafeim

Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create... View Details

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June 2018 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Facebook Confronts a Crisis of Trust

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

The case, “Facebook Confronts a Crisis of Trust,” starts with the crisis Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is facing in March 2018 over Cambridge Analytica’s accessing data from 87 million Facebook accounts in order to influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential... View Details