Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,204)
- Faculty Publications (962)
- August 2006 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Duane Morris: Balancing Growth and Culture at a Law Firm
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
After nearly 100 years as a mid-size regional law firm, Duane Morris entered a period of spectacular growth led by CEO Sheldon Bonovitz. Originally founded by Quakers, the firm had a distinct organizational culture featuring a number of unique or unusual business... View Details
- May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
IKEA's Global Sourcing Challenge: Indian Rugs and Child Labor (A)
By: Christopher A. Bartlett, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman
Traces the history of IKEA's response to a TV report that its Indian carpet suppliers were using child labor. Describes IKEA's growth, including the importance of a sourcing strategy based on its close relationships with suppliers in developing countries. Details the... View Details
- April 2006 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Dansko, Inc.
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Victoria Winston
For the past 18 months, Mandy Cabot had worried that the shoe business she had built into a thriving operation with $90 million in annual revenue and over 110 employees might instead be a "house of cards." The management philosophy that had guided Dansko's growth,... View Details
- April 2006 (Revised April 2020)
- Case
"The Case of Leadership Inertia"
The CEO of an international bank has raised the bank's performance by emphasizing a new culture of leadership that empowers people at all levels. Managers are rated both on their business results and their leadership—how they model new behaviors—but 12 senior managers... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised August 2006)
- Case
Putnam Investments: Rebuilding the Culture
By: Nitin Nohria and Charles Nichols
Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr. is promoted CEO of Putnam Investments after the firm was badly damaged by a series of improper trading practices. He is charged with the task of managing the crisis, repairing the company culture, and putting the firm back into a pattern of... View Details
- February 2006
- Case
Bumble and bumble: Building a Successful Business in Beauty and Fashion
By: Nancy F. Koehn and Erica Helms
Explores the creation and subsequent rise of Bumble and bumble, a trend-setting hair-care company. Analyzes the vision and achievements of the founding entrepreneur, Michael Gordon, and charts the evolution of the company within the $230 billion global beauty industry.... View Details
- February 2006 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
GE's Growth Strategy: The Immelt Initiative
Follows the actions of GE CEO, Jeff Immelt, as he implements a growth strategy for the $150 billion company in a tough business environment. In four years, he reinvigorates GE's technology, expands its services, develops a commercial focus, pushes developing countries,... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised February 2015)
- Case
Innovation at Timberland: Thinking Outside the Shoe Box
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ryan Raffaelli
Innovation was linked to Timberland's heritage. In 2005, CEO Jeff Swartz and COO Ken Pucker hoped the Invention Factory, an advanced concept lab, would develop new breakthrough products and reinvigorate the company's culture of innovation. Since the 1960s, Timberland... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised June 2008)
- Case
Lehman Brothers (A): Rise of the Equity Research Department
By: Ashish Nanda, Boris Groysberg and Lauren Prusiner
Under Jack Rivkin's leadership, Shearson Lehman's research department rose from relative obscurity to the highest ranking research department on Wall Street within three years. When Rivkin is promoted to head of equity, he wonders how to succeed in his new position. A... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
On the Origin of Shared Beliefs (and Corporate Culture)
This paper shows why members of an organization often share similar beliefs. I argue that there are two mechanisms. First, when performance depends on making correct decisions, people prefer to work with others who share their beliefs and assumptions, since such... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination
This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Leerink Swann & Co.: Creating Competitive Advantage
By: Boris Groysberg and Andrew N. McLean
In the spring of 2005, CEO Jeff Leerink has called a meeting of the executive committee to formulate Leerink Swann's growth strategy over the next five years so that it accomplishes three goals: expand into a new business, reinforce the firm's legacy businesses, and... View Details
- 2005
- Working Paper
Silent Saboteurs: How Implicit Theories of Voice Inhibit the Upward Flow of Knowledge in Organizations
By: James R. Detert and Amy C. Edmondson
This article examines, in a series of three studies, how people working in organizational hierarchies wrestle with the challenge of upward voice. We first undertook in-depth exploratory research in a knowledge-intensive multinational corporation in which employee input... View Details
- November 2005 (Revised November 2007)
- Case
Tad O'Malley: December 2004
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner, Ann Leamon and Sean Klimczak
Tad O'Malley, a second-year student at Harvard Business School, must choose among three offers from private equity firms. Each firm presents a unique combination of history, culture, and compensation. Traces Tad's strategy in obtaining these offers and lets students... View Details
- November 2005
- Case
Michael Ovitz and The Walt Disney Company (A)
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Alexis Chernak
Faced with the need to hire a new president, The Walt Disney Co. pursued Michael Ovitz, a founder of the Creative Artist Agency. Although initially disinterested, Ovitz engaged in negotiations with Michael Eisner, CEO of The Walt Disney Co., in the summer of 1995... View Details
- October 2005 (Revised September 2006)
- Case
Sapient Corporation (Abridged)
By: Rakesh Khurana and Joel Podolny
Describes the start-up, growth, organizational design, and operations over the first 10 years of a professional services firm. Focuses on the creative use of organizational purpose and values as an integral part of strategy and alignment of organizational activities. View Details
- October 2005 (Revised February 2006)
- Case
Reactivity: A Case of Re-Invention
By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper
By the time Glenn Osaka joined Reactivity as its new CEO in January 2001, the Internet bubble had burst, the financial markets had turned, and the company's core businesses were drying up. He was not hired to lead a turnaround, but Osaka found that the firm's future... View Details
- September 2005
- Case
Whitbread PLC (A)
By: Michael Beer and James Weber
Describes the change process Whitbread employed in transforming its organization and culture from a single underperforming business operating in a relatively stable environment to a multibusiness, high-commitment, and high-performance corporation operating in more... View Details
- July 2005
- Teaching Note
Utah Symphony and Utah Opera: A Merger Proposal (TN)
By: Thomas J. DeLong
Teaching Note to (9-404-116). View Details