Publications

May 2017
Case

ATH Technologies: Making the Numbers

By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard

An exercise that takes students through five stages of growth in an entrepreneurial start-up in the medical devices industry: 1) founding, 2) growth, 3) push to profitability, 4) relocation process, and 5) takeover by new management. At each stage, students must... View Details

Keywords: Balancing Innovation And Control; Performance Evaluation; Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Risk Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Profit; Geographic Location; Governance Controls; Innovation and Invention; Management Succession; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

December 2001
Case

Cybersettle

By: Michael A. Wheeler and Gillian Morris

Cybersettle's management faced a dilemma: How could they turn their company, which provided confidential online settlement services for insurance claims, into a profitable enterprise? Having started during the heady days of Internet "dot-com fever," the company now had... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Process; Conflict and Resolution; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Internet; Insurance Industry

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July 2008 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Affinity Plus (A)

By: Dennis Campbell and Peter Tufano

The executive team at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union has pushed the concept of members first deeply throughout the organization, empowering employees to put member-owners' interests ahead of either the organization's interests or their own interests. As a result of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Financial Institutions; Financing and Loans; Profit; Cooperative Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Strategy

February 2017
Case

Shang Xia: The Creation of a Chinese Luxury Lifestyle Brand

By: Anat Keinan, Sandrine Crener, Jing Xu, Janet Borgerson, Jonathan Schroeder and Zhiyan Wu

The case traces the birth of Shang Xia, a joint venture between the Hermès Group and Chinese designer Jiang Qiong Er. Launched in 2009 in Shanghai, the new brand's core mission is to revive and promote China’s 5,000-year-old cultural heritage and leverage Chinese... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Luxury; China

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Aluminum Smelting in South Africa: Alusaf's Hillside Project

With prices at all-time lows at the beginning of 1994, South Africa's sole primary aluminum producer--Alusaf--is considering building the world's largest greenfield smelter. Using cost estimates in this case, students can evaluate the relative cost position of this... View Details

Keywords: Metals and Minerals; Analysis; Markets; Profit; Capital; Industrial Products Industry; South Africa

November 2010
Article

Wealth and Jobs: The Broken Link

By: Nitin Nohria

This article discusses the weakening connections between business growth and job creation. The industrial economy of the 20th century ensured that growing firms would need to add workers, but the increasingly globalized and information-based economy of the early 21st... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Economic Growth; Jobs and Positions; Employment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; Value Creation

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24 Jun 2020
News

Reimagining Capitalism for a Broken World

28 Mar 2012
News

The good intentions that will kill your business

Research Summary

Do Vertical Mergers facilitate Collusion?

Joint work with Volker Nocke, University of Pennsylvania In this paper we investigate the impact of vertical mergers on upstream firms' ability to sustain collusion. We show in a number of models that the net effect of vertical integration is to facilitate... View Details

September 2022
Case

Proactive for Her

By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey

Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details

Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare; India; Start-up; Telehealth; Digital Platforms; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Health Industry; Asia; South Asia; India

January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
Case

IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

To transform IBM for the next technology wave, Ginni Rometty, who became CEO in 2012, led divestment of declining businesses, made acquisitions in digital innovation and cloud computing, formed partnerships with former competitors such as Apple and tech startups, and... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Technological Change; Artificial Intelligence; Data; IBM; Watson; Internet Of Things; Innovation and Invention; Management; Sales; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Transformation; AI and Machine Learning

January 1987 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Frito-Lay, Inc.: A Strategic Transition (A)

The setting is a food manufacturing company which has stumbled in terms of its historic growth and profit achievements. In trying to recapture its momentum, the president has used information technology as one element in his program of transition. The case focuses on... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

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03 Jul 2010
News

Hedge-Fund Lending Draws Scrutiny

02 Jun 2017
News

Britain was once a nation of shopkeepers – it must listen to them again to get Brexit right

12 Jan 2017
News

What Cancer Researchers Can Learn from Direct-to-Consumer Companies

October 2013 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Southwire and 12 For Life: Scaling Up? (A)

By: Jan W. Rivkin and Ryan Lee

Southwire, a leading maker of cable based in rural Georgia, has partnered with the local school system to staff a factory with at-risk high school students. The positive impact on student outcomes has been remarkable, and the factory makes a profit for the company. Now... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Production; Education; Business and Community Relations; Manufacturing Industry; Education Industry

2017
Working Paper

Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World

By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing

Mobile money systems, platforms built and managed by mobile network operators to allow money to be stored as digital currency, have burgeoned in the developing world as a mechanism to transfer money electronically. Mobile money agents exchange cash for electronic value... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Mobile Technology; Market Platforms; Developing Countries and Economies