Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,152)
- Faculty Publications (315)
- September 2022
- Case
AllSpice: GitHub for Hardware Engineers
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Mel Martin
AllSpice, a software-as-a-service company that built a GitHub-like revision control tool for hardware engineers, was in the midst of preparing for rapid scale when the 2022 market downturn left them with big decisions to make. Cofounder and CEO Valentina Ratner had to... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Wasabi Technologies (A)
By: N. Louis Shipley and Mel Martin
After launching a successful hot cloud storage company, Founder and CEO David Friend is ready to scale the venture rapidly. Wasabi Technologies had focused primarily on direct sales, but an opportunity to pivot to channel sales was on the horizon. The company’s major... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions
By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan Zou
We exploit a unique feature of conference calls to study one type of interaction among executives—directly inviting colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions. We find that the frequency of initiating interaction is positively associated with an executive’s ability,... View Details
- April 2022
- Case
Mastercard: Creating a World Beyond Cash
In late 2021, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach and Chairman and former CEO Ajaypal “Ajay” Banga considered how Mastercard could best position itself for continued success in the years to come. Since Mastercard’s initial public offering in 2006, the company had grown and... View Details
Keywords: Technological Innovation; Leadership; Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Change; Change Management; Money; Cash; Credit; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Central Banking; Financial Instruments; Credit Cards; Financial Markets; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership Style; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Information Technology; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (state, US)
- April 2022
- Teaching Note
Publicis Groupe 2021: Changing Nearly Everything
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tonia Labruyere, Vincent Dessain and Catarina Martinez
After a leadership change at the French advertising company Publicis, new CEO Arthur Sadoun has to navigate changes due to digitalization and a pandemic. Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 322-050. View Details
- Article
Creating High-Impact Coalitions: CEOs Can Lead the Charge on Society’s Biggest Problems
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Tuna Cem Hayirli
Traditionally, responses to crises and societal problems—the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, racial inequities—are considered the responsibility of the public sector and NGOs. But addressing the world’s most critical problems requires leadership, resources, and... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
DaVita Responds to COVID
By: Susanna Gallani and David Lane
Early in August 2021, DaVita CEO Javier Rodriguez was assessing the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on his firm, which provided life-sustaining kidney dialysis to roughly 240,000 people. Effective infection control practices and information sharing had ensured... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Change Management; Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Retention; Wages; Working Conditions; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; United States
- March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Swvl: Smart Mobility for the Masses
By: Krishna Palepu, Esel Çekin and Menna Hassan
The case focuses on strategy and governance issues at Swvl, a tech-enabled mass mobility marketplace. It describes the journey of CEO and Chairman Mostafa Kandil on his journey from founding the company to its listing on Nasdaq. Since its founding in Egypt in 2017,... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Kimball International, Inc. (KII), led by CEO Kristie Juster, and its board of directors, chaired by Kim Ryan, faced critical questions about KII’s future in the spring of 2021. Two years earlier, the board had appointed Juster as the new CEO of KII, a publicly traded,... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Board Decisions; Board Dynamics; CEO Compensation; CEO Succession; Compensation Committee; Compensation Consultants; Compensation Design; Compensation Mix; Corporate Purpose; COVID-19; ESG; Furniture; Furniture Industry; Manufacturing; Midwest; Pandemic; Purpose; Spin Off; Strategic Change; Strategic Decisions; Strategic Evolution; Target-setting; Executive Compensation; Family Ownership; Governance; Restructuring; Strategy; Transformation; Manufacturing Industry; United States
- March 2022
- Supplement
Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Board Decisions; Board Dynamics; CEO Compensation; CEO Succession; Compensation Committee; Compensation Consultants; Compensation Design; Compensation Mix; Corporate Purpose; COVID-19; ESG; Furniture; Furniture Industry; Manufacturing; Midwest; Pandemic; Purpose; Spin-off; Strategic Change; Strategic Decisions; Strategic Evolution; Target-setting; Executive Compensation; Family Ownership; Governance; Restructuring; Strategy; Transformation; Manufacturing Industry; United States
- January 2022 (Revised February 2022)
- Teaching Note
Universal During COVID: The Future of Theatrical Windows
By: Hong Luo, Henry McGee and Carol Lin
The COVID-19 pandemic brought enormous disruption to the movie industry, closing theaters indefinitely by mid-March 2020, halting television and film production, and throwing theatrical release schedules into disarray. Shell had assumed the CEO position at NBC... View Details
- January 2022
- Case
Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen
By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar
In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details
- January 2022
- Case
Walmart USA—Searching for Growth
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Maria P. Roche
In 2022, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart, and his team looked back at a difficult but ultimately successful past year. The global pandemic had posed enormous challenges, but the company had weathered the storm successfully, raising same-store sales growth,... View Details
- December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details
- November 2021
- Case
Steve Schwarzman on Dealmaking I: “Becoming a ‘Friend of the Situation’” (A)
By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green
Blackstone Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, whom Forbes has called “Wall Street’s Greatest Dealmaker,” played a major role in the negotiations that transformed Blackstone from a fragile startup in 1985 with $400,000 in capital into a dominant... View Details
- November 2021
- Case
Steve Schwarzman on Dealmaking II: When They Hold All the Cards (A)
By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green
Blackstone Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, whom Forbes has called “Wall Street’s Greatest Dealmaker,” played a major role in the negotiations that transformed Blackstone from a fragile startup in 1985 with $400,000 in capital into a dominant... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Customer-Centric Design with Artificial Intelligence: Commonwealth Bank
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo
As Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) CEO Matt Comyn delivered the full financial year results in August 2021 over videoconference, it took less than two minutes for him to make his first mention of the organization's Customer Engagement Engine (CEE), the AI-driven customer... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Drug; Investors; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Executive Compensation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Legal Liability; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- September 28, 2021
- Editorial
A Guide to Implementing the 4-Day Workweek
By: A.V. Whillans and Charlotte Lockhart
As organizations continue to explore a variety of flexible work options, one promising avenue is the four-day workweek: The standard 40 hours per week is reduced to 32 hours, with the same pay and the same productivity expectations. Research suggests reducing hours can... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Francoise Brougher (A)
By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn
Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details