Publications

March 2014
Teaching Note

Tesla Motors

By: Eric Van den Steen

In mid-2013, Tesla Motors was riding a wave of success: It had launched its first really mass-produced car—the model S—to rave reviews, had recently raised first-year production targets, and had started taking orders for its next car, the Model X. Tesla seemed to be on... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Production; Product Launch; Business Strategy; Auto Industry; United States

September 2023
Case

Breaking Barriers: How Brex is Shaping the Future of Financial Services for Startups

By: Marco Di Maggio, James Barnett and Susie L. Ma

In 2020, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, co-founders and co-CEO’s of the fintech company Brex, needed to determine how to balance their vision with the desires of their investors. They intended to expand Brex’s offerings to include other products that served... View Details

Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Services Industry

January 2006
Article

Hospital Integration and Vertical Consolidation: An Analysis of Acquisitions in New York State

By: Robert S. Huckman

Keywords: Integration; Health; Consolidation; Theory; Mergers and Acquisitions

Find at Harvard

Read Now

November 1990 (Revised November 1991)
Case

Apple Computer (A): Industry, Strategy, and Organization

Explores how the human resource (HR) function at Apple Computer can best support the company's strategy. Provides an overview of the company's history, industry, competitive position, strategy, and organization. Written at a time when the company faces a very... View Details

Keywords: Attitudes; Organizational Culture; Employees; Business Strategy; Computer Industry; United States

27 Jan 2016
News

MBA-Founded Student Loan ReFi Firms Take Off

Keywords: Finance

May 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Teradyne: Managing Disruptive Change

By: Joseph L. Bower

Three cases deal with the introduction of a new product to Teradyne's line of semiconductor test equipment. Teradyne: Managing Strategic Change provides historic and administrative background for the other two cases. Teradyne: The Aurora Project deals with the problems... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Disruption; Management; Market Entry and Exit; Product; Product Development; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technology

08 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

Solving an Economic Mystery Surrounding Argentina and Chile

of Buenos Aires’s population was foreign born, and it could be regarded as one of the world’s greatest global cities.” Today, the city is a decaying shadow of itself and Argentina as a whole has fallen prey to ineffective institutions, inconsistent government... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

November 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

In spring 2015, Dollar General's CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; United States

Web

Impact on Research & Curriculum | Baker Library

quote from “The Afro-American Student Union of HBS: A Salute to the Past, A Challenge to the Future,” 1994. 1 Over the years, HBS case research has fostered new areas of inquiry in ways that have deepened students’ and faculty understanding of complex View Details

03 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Fierce Competitors Apple and Amazon Became ’Frenemies’ Over eReaders

may have incentive to use competitors' software in their dashboards, provided they have asymmetric profit strategies (car sales vs. value-added services). "Firms' business models today are increasingly... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Information; Publishing; Technology

01 Oct 2020
News

Are You Really Innovating Around Your Customers’ Needs?

March 2011
Teaching Note

United Cereal: Lora Brill's Eurobrand Challenge (Brief Case)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Carole Carlson

Teaching Note for 4269. View Details

Keywords: Subsidiaries; Market Entry; Multinational Corporations; Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Marketing Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Market Entry and Exit; Organizational Structure

13 Dec 2021
News

Tom Eisenmann & The Other F Word (Failure)

01 Sep 2017
News

Ink: Miami’s Dark Neon Era, the Language of Success, and Getting Psyched Up

introduced English as the lingua franca Takeaway Two Things to Do Before Your Next Big Presentation (from left: photos by Russ Campbell) (from left: photos by Russ Campbell, Blaise Hayward) In his new book, Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You... View Details

Keywords: April White; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

April 2007 (Revised July 2011)
Case

The Tale of the Lynx (A)

By: Noam Wasserman

The founders of Lynx Solutions have survived major challenges within their board of directors, the firing of Lynx's founder-CEO and departure of its successor CEO, and a crisis sparked by media allegations that it had been spying on its users. Now that the company is... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Business Strategy; Computer Industry

May 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Progressive Corporation

By: Michael E. Porter and Nicolaj Siggelkow

Progressive is a leader in providing nonstandard (high-risk) automobile insurance to drivers across America, with a long record of extraordinary profitability. Progressive is facing a challenge in its segment from Allstate, the industry leader, and must decide how to... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Planning; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Insurance Industry; United States

17 Nov 2016
News

Rent the Runway Sets Up Shop at Neiman Marcus

110-year-old department store, which will see new Rent the Runway shops open inside of existing Neiman Marcus locations. (Rent the Runway opened its first physical store in New York City in 2014, and now has a total of seven locations.) The Journal offers some insight... View Details

2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel-dataset on firm hierarchies of large U.S. firms (1986-1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy