Publications

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May 2007 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Dollar General (A)

By: Willy Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman and Rebecca McKillican

Dollar General Corporation (DG) operates one of the leading chains of extreme value retailers in the United States. 2006 revenues reached $9.2 billion, making DG the 6th largest mass retailer in the country. With revenues growing at 9% annually over the five-year... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Family Business; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Retail Industry; United States

25 Jan 2019
News

Time for Happiness

Morningstar Misclassification

We provide evidence that bond fund managers misclassify their holdings, and that these misclassifications have a real and significant impact on investor capital flows. The problem is widespread - resulting in up to 31.4% of funds being misclassified with safer... View Details

February 2005 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Unilever in India: Hindustan Lever's Project Shakti--Marketing FMCG to the Rural Consumer

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Rohithari Rajan

With liberalization of India's economy and the opening up of markets to foreign multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever--Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL)--was under pressure to grow revenues and profits. HLL had a long and stellar record of... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Market Entry and Exit; Business Subsidiaries; Revenue; Profit; Market Participation; Programs; Rural Scope; Poverty; Multinational Firms and Management; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; India

11 Mar 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Return Migration and Geography of Innovation in MNEs: A Natural Experiment of On-the-Job Learning of Knowledge Production by Local Workers Reporting to Return Migrants

Keywords: by Prithwiraj Choudhury; Technology

22 Jan 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Why You Are Unhappy at Work

Blues A shockingly low 25 percent of employees feel connection to their company's mission. Bill George discusses fixes to rebuild purpose in their work. How Small Wins Unleash Creativity The most powerful tool managers have to motivate... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

few layoffs. Employees with whom I have spoken directly are generally positive about their company and their work. They see senior managers frequently and know and work with many of them in the stores. They seem to feel that they are part... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

22 Dec 2020
Blog Post

The Forward Fellowship Convinced Me That I Belong at HBS

Hi, my name is Heather Jackson, and I am not supposed to be at Harvard Business School. No, I don’t mean I was an ‘admissions mistake’ (though every single admit, myself included, has thought this countless times). I mean, by every possible statistic, I shouldn’t be... View Details

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

The book Capitalism at Risk first appeared in 2011. The problems it identified with social inequality, global trade strife, and environmental degradation have only accelerated by 2020. The new edition of Capitalism at Risk, subtitled How Business Can Lead, is expanded... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

16 May 2017
Blog Post

Making the Move into Digital Health and Software Engineering

We caught up with Andrea Coravos (HBS 2017) after a Q&A she did with the MBA Voices blog during her second year at HBS. Coravos reflects on her time at HBS and how she transitioned into digital health and engineering following a... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Health Care

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing, Cespedes, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, offers research-based insight and context, and presents sales productivity not only as a core way to increase... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

August 2019
Case

Bark Gift Shop Ltd.

By: Susanna Gallani, Jan Bouwens and Peter Kroos

This case describes a setting in which the CFO of Bark Gift Shop Ltd., a gift items retailer, discovers an undesired pattern in the performance data suggesting that her shop managers that perform well during the first part of the year, purposely reduce their effort in... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Employees; Behavior; Performance; Management; Goals and Objectives; Motivation and Incentives; Analysis

31 Jan 2014
News

How to really measure the value in health care

April 2012 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Capitalizing for the Future: HSBC in 2010

By: Anette Mikes and Dominique Hamel

Following the financial crisis of 2007/2008, HSBC CEO Michael Geoghegan saw a fundamental change in global opportunities and risks. With increasing regulation and fierce competition between banks, the Western hemisphere was going to be a tougher place to do business.... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Competitive Strategy; Control Systems; Finance; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Emerging Markets; Risk Management; Business Strategy; Banking Industry

December 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Parker's Biscuits, Inc.: Venturing into China

Carol Wittenberg's first major task as president of the Asia/Pacific business for Parker's Biscuits is to set up a joint venture to manufacture biscuits in China. The team that Wittenberg has put together to find a joint venture partner has narrowed the choice down to... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Decision Choices and Conditions; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; China

12 Jul 2019
News

The short but destructive history of mass layoffs

March 2016 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Tableau

By: Boris Vallee

Matrix Capital Management, a long-short equity hedge fund based in Waltham, Massachusetts, is assessing its investment in Tableau, a data visualization company. Tableau, which conducted an IPO a few years ago, has been experiencing substantial growth as it aims at... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Fund; Long-short Equity; Growth Investing; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment; Valuation; Technology; Technology Industry; Waltham

July–August 2013
Article

Six Ways to Sink a Growth Initiative

By: Donald L. Laurie and J. Bruce Harreld

The conventional wisdom about how best to pursue growth—launch a slew of initiatives in high-potential areas; appoint some promising young managers to lead them; locate them safely away from the established businesses—is a recipe for failure, according to the authors.... View Details

Keywords: Failure; Growth and Development Strategy