Publications

January 2001 (Revised May 2010)
Case

BP Amoco (B): Financing Development of the Caspian Oil Fields

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

British Petroleum and Amoco were the two largest members of the Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium (AIOC), an 11-firm consortium that was spending $10 billion to develop oil fields in the Caspian Sea. As of March 1999, AIOC had completed a $1.9 billion development... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Policy; Capital Budgeting; Project Finance; Emerging Markets; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financing and Loans; Financial Strategy; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; United Kingdom; Europe

30 Aug 2017
News

Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management?

August 1983 (Revised June 1986)
Case

Johnson & Johnson (B): Hospital Services

By: Francis Aguilar

The main issue has to do with the lack of fit or incompatibility between the early environmental requirements for strategy and the cultural constraints on the organization. Describes the internal resistance to the proposed changes and top management's efforts to... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry

January 2010
Case

DR Corporation

By: Roy D. Shapiro

DR Corporation is a manufacturer of major appliances. The traffic manager is facing a decision of selecting a carrier for the inbound movement of motors. The primary case decisions are 1) what factors are critical to the decision; 2) how to calculate the tradeoffs... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Managerial Roles; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Truck Transportation; Consumer Products Industry

September 1996 (Revised September 1999)
Case

Mobil USM&R (A): Linking the Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The CEO of the marketing and refining division of a major oil company is in the midst of implementing a profit turnaround. He transforms the strongly centralized, functionally-organized division into 17 independent business units and 14 internal service companies. The... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Measurement and Metrics; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Balanced Scorecard; Corporate Strategy; Mining Industry; Energy Industry

May 2007 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Maria Sharapova: Marketing a Champion (A)

By: Anita Elberse and Margarita Golod

In July 2004, a then 17-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, arguably the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. Max Eisenbud, Sharapova's agent at International Management Group (IMG), knew the championship would lead to a flood of new opportunities. What... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Gender; Product Marketing; Sports Industry

March 2006
Module Note

Financing Decisions within the Firm

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes a core module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. The module focuses on the financial and managerial issues that confront managers who make financial decisions within multinational firms: how subsidiaries should be financed and... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; International Finance; Taxation; Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Framework; Performance Evaluation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

September 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2002

By: Randolph B. Cohen

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) is an investment management firm that prides itself on basing its investment strategies on sound academic research. Many of the best-known finance research papers of the past two decades (especially those by Eugene Fama and Kenneth... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Research; Success; Investment; Financial Services Industry

Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management and Entrepreneurship. He founded and co-leads the school’s project, Managing the Future of Work, as well as the Harvard Project on the Workforce. He currently leads the FIELD Global Capstone... View Details

Article

Competition and Cost Accounting

By: V.G. Narayanan and Michael Smith

The central theme of Competition and Cost Accounting is that strategic considerations may make it desirable for a firm to have divisions and product managers internalize something other than their true costs. In the case of transfer prices, a high transfer price... View Details

Keywords: Cost Allocation; Transfer Pricing; Decentralization; Bertrand And Cournot Competition; Cost Accounting

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Oracle Corporation

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

Oracle Corp., the world's second-largest independent software company (behind Microsoft) was the world's dominant supplier of database software. Oracle also sold application software, such as the popular enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Innovation and Invention; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

April 2013
Article

Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner

By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

More and more organizations are turning to crowds for help in solving their most vexing innovation and research questions, but managers remain understandably cautious. It seems risky and even unnatural to push problems out to vast groups of strangers distributed around... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Research and Development

April 2010
Case

METRO Cash & Carry in China, 2010

By: Tarun Khanna and David Lane

International wholesaler METRO Cash & Carry in 2010 had little choice but to expand swiftly in Asia to facilitate growth beyond its increasingly mature markets in Western Europe. China was of particular note to MCC, but the company had broken even there only in 2008... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Strategy; Strategic Planning; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Retail Industry; China

Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work and consulting are focused on competitive strategy and the effects of digital technology on corporate... View Details

Keywords: media; professional services; manufacturing; advertising

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sherman's research has long focused on financial reporting, performance measurement/management, and financial literacy issues facing corporate management and Boards of Directors in global businesses. He also actively studies methods to improve productivity in... View Details

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Integrating Beam Suntory (A)

By: David G. Fubini, Rawi Abdelal and David Lane

The spring 2014 acquisition of U.S. alcoholic spirits maker Beam Inc. by Japan’s Suntory Holdings vaulted Suntory from 15th to third-largest international spirits company in the world. Yet Suntory had borrowed nearly the entire $16 billion purchase price, and relied on... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Communication; Borrowing and Debt; Globalization; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Retention; Leadership; Supply Chain; Organizational Structure; Ownership; Relationships; Conflict and Resolution; Integration; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; United States; Chicago

Samuel L. Hayes holds the Jacob H. Schiff Chair in Investment Banking Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. He has taught at the School since 1970, prior to which he was a tenured member of the faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He... View Details

June 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

The Decline of the British Cotton Industry (Abridged)

Supplements the general argument concerning the decline of the British economy by showing how vertical specialization, horizontal competition, and entrenched job control combined to create incentives for management to adapt to changing international conditions by... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Business Cycles; Organizational Structure; Consumer Products Industry; Great Britain