Publications

02 Mar 2023
Blog Post

Women, Work, and the "M" Word

what can leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. do to give the female workforce the tools to thrive during this important health journey? Let’s start with education: what is menopause, and how does it show up in the workplace? Right now... View Details

February 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

CVS Health: Prescription for Transformation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Tuna Cem Hayirli

In 2021, new CEO Karen Lynch (named the most powerful woman in business) considered the next transformation phase for CVS Health (a Fortune 5 corporate giant. The 2018 acquisition of Aetna insurance brought her to the company as part of its long evolution from a... View Details

Keywords: COVID; Caregiving; Healthcare; Access; Change; Retail; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation; Health Industry; Health Industry

January 2025
Case

Hebbia: Redefining Productivity for Knowledge Workers Using AI

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Minoshka Narayan

In early 2025, George Sivulka, founder and CEO of Hebbia, reflected on the company’s rapid ascent as a pioneer in GenAI-powered productivity tools for knowledge workers. With its proprietary technology, Hebbia had redefined information retrieval and analysis and earned... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Service Delivery; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

11 Feb 2021
Blog Post

Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." —Henry James As a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at the Harvard Business School, I teach courses in... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

26 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire

brain-tracking tools to determine why we prefer some products over others. "People are fairly good at expressing what they want, what they like, or even how much they will pay for an item," says Uma R. Karmarkar, an assistant... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

March–April 2024
Article

Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest

By: Jorge Tamayo

Paulo Ferreira, the president of Luna Brazil, has an ambitious plan to turn around the dismal performance of the plant he oversees in Campinas. The wrinkle is, he needs the buy-in of the powerful local union, which is still smarting from a 10-year-old labor conflict... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Layoffs; Manufacturing; Labor and Management Relations; Labor Unions; Negotiation Tactics; Conflict and Resolution; Performance Improvement; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Brazil

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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

Keywords: Strategy; Online Technology

2012
Case

Qingdao TGOOD Electric Corporation

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming, Chen Hao and Hong Zhang

Founded in 2004, TGOOD is now the largest specialized developer and producer of cubicle-type transformation and distribution equipment in China, with the main products of outdoor cubicle-type power equipment supplemented by indoor switchgear cabinets, offered mainly to... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Human Resource Management; Strategy; China; China

May 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Jan Carlzon: CEO at SAS (A)

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes Jan Carlzon's actions on assuming the CEO's responsibility at SAS in a time of financial and organizational difficulty. After tracing Carlzon's development as a manager, it focuses on the way in which he developed, then communicated a clear and motivating... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Financial Crisis; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge; Leadership Development; Crisis Management; Motivation and Incentives; Business Strategy; Aerospace Industry

10 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Learning Curve: Making the Most of Outsourcing

Radiologist Some parts of the teleradiology model closely resemble outsourcing in industries like electronics, business processes, or software development. The health-care customer—typically a hospital—sees the need for a service that is... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry; Health

January – February 2012
Article

How Managers Use Multiple Media: Discrepant Events, Power, and Timing in Redundant Communication

By: Paul Leonardi, Tsedal Neeley and Elizabeth M. Gerber

Several recent studies have found that managers engage in redundant communication; that is, they send the same message to the same recipient through two or more unique media sequentially. Given how busy most managers are, and how much information their subordinates... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Media; Information; Groups and Teams; Projects; Management Style; Power and Influence; Motivation and Incentives; Technology

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04 Feb 2022
Blog Post

Learning from the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence as a Harvard MS/MBA Student

there are an infinite number of ways to spend your time learning – each equally compelling but vastly unique and tailored to various learning styles. One of the most powerful ways of learning is through reflection, including through... View Details

June 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

L'Oréal: Global Brand, Local Knowledge

By: Rebecca M. Henderson and Ryan Johnson

Worldwide, and in the U.S. marketplace in particular, the French cachet of L'Oréal was one of its most powerful marketing tools. However, with the opening up of emerging markets, L'Oréal had to cater to a diverse customer base: an aging population in the West, ethnic... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Change Management; Sales; Emerging Markets; Segmentation; Innovation and Invention; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; France; United States

2012
Teaching Note

Qingdao TGOOD Electric Corporation (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming, Chen Hao and Hong Zhang

Founded in 2004, TGOOD is now the largest specialized developer and producer of cubicle-type transformation and distribution equipment in China, with the main products of outdoor cubicle-type power equipment supplemented by indoor switchgear cabinets, offered mainly to... View Details

Keywords: Human Resource Management; China; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Strategy; China

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from... View Details

Web

The Five Forces - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Bargaining Power of Suppliers Companies in every industry purchase various inputs from suppliers, which account for differing proportions of cost. Powerful suppliers can use... View Details

May 2022
Article

Variance Analysis: New Insights from Health Care Applications

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Susanna Gallani

We use a health care application to illustrate how variance analysis can be used to benchmark costs across similar service delivery sites. Variances for personnel costs, typically the largest cost component in service organizations, are calculated for price, quantity,... View Details

Keywords: Variance Analysis; Benchmarking; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Service Industry

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January 2009 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Responding to the Wii?

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hanna Halaburda

After years of gaming console industry leadership, how should Sony respond to the overwhelming success of competitor Nintendo's user-friendly Wii over Sony's high-tech PlayStation 3? It was August 2008 and Kazuo Hirai, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Two-Sided Platforms; Industry Structures; Competitive Strategy; Electronics Industry; Electronics Industry

October 2022 (Revised July 2025)
Case

Driving Decarbonization at BMW

By: Shirley Lu, George Serafeim and Michael W. Toffel

The case describes BMW’s electrification and decarbonization strategy, and how the company measured carbon emissions throughout the life cycle of its vehicles and used tools like carbon abatement cost curves to evaluate decarbonization opportunities. In mid-2022,... View Details