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11 Jun 2024
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2024

As the vacation season looms, Harvard Business School faculty members share recommendations for a little light reading. Spoiler alert: Lessons in Chemistry tops two of their beach-read lists. For those whose brains can’t—or won’t—turn off, HBS faculty also suggest some... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

February 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Institutional Neutrality, Restraint or Convenience?

By: Clayton S. Rose, Nicole Zelazko and Alexis Lefort

In the fall of 2023 and winter of 2024, college campuses across the U.S. experienced protests and encampments in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas, and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. These... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Governance; Leadership; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Adaptation; Disruption; Communication Strategy; Higher Education; United States

31 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why the Largest Minority Group Faces the Most Hate—and How to Push Back

Americans fled the harsh Jim Crow laws of the South between 1940 and 1965, they shared their experiences with white people in cities such as Chicago and Detroit. As that awareness spread, more Northern whites began to express support for... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

the purchase of the toothpaste company Pepsodent in 1944. Expansion into margarine followed with the purchase of a Chicago firm in 1948. The postwar years proved very disappointing for Lever Brothers, for a number of partly related... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case describes the development of the Boeing 737 Max airplane model and the events leading up to two tragic plane crashes, in which a total of 346 people died: the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Communication Strategy; Forms of Communication; Announcements; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Globalization; Global Strategy; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Leadership; Leadership Style; Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Management Systems; Risk Management; Time Management; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Supply and Industry; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Industry Structures; Operations; Product Development; Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Failure; Success; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Strategy; Transportation; Air Transportation; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; Africa; Ethiopia; Asia; Indonesia; North and Central America; United States; Seattle; Chicago

Research Summary

Overview

By: Charlotte L. Robertson

Professor Robertson conducts research on the history of financial markets. Her book manuscript and working papers shed light on the evolution of securities markets and the relationship between finance, governance, and society. Some of the topics she pursues include:... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sawyer’s research focuses on U.S. political economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concentrating on the development of competition policy and the administrative state. While the conventional history of U.S. competition policy portrays the... View Details

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

match what the US accomplished during this period? Friedman: For one thing, the US benefitted by its vast geographic scale, which allowed for waves of innovation to spread in clusters across the country. This is evident in New Bedford and the whaling industry,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

01 Mar 2023
What Do You Think?

How Much Does 'Deep Purpose' Matter to the Bottom Line?

Account of a Research Program Conducted by the Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, Chicago (Harvard University Press, 1939) Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership(Jossey-Bass, 1985) Your feedback to last month’s column... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

Minimum Wage Debate Is Really About Social Values

Suddenly, the minimum wage debate is on high boil. Perhaps spurred by growing concern over wealth inequality, minimum wage proposals are heating heat up in cities from Chicago to Albany, and in states from South Carolina to Florida.... View Details

Keywords: by April White; Retail; Manufacturing

19 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Is Wikipedia More Biased Than Encyclopædia Britannica?

theory, Zhu and Greenstein took a database of terms developed by University of Chicago economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro to examine newspaper bias. Gentzkow and Shapiro studied speeches in the 2005 Congressional Record to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Publishing

February 2011
Case

Jamie Turner at MLI, Inc.

By: John J. Gabarro and Colleen Kaftan

The case describes the evolution of an interpersonal mismatch between a previously successful manager, Jamie Turner, and his new boss, Pat Cardullo. Turner, a 32-year-old MBA graduate, has been recruited by Cardullo to be vice president of marketing and sales at Modern... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Interpersonal Relations; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Micro Organizational Behavior; Performance Management; Personal Strategy ＆ Style; Management Style; Conflict Management; Interpersonal Communication; Employee Relationship Management; Rank and Position; Performance; Communication Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Acquisition; Distribution Industry; Consumer Products Industry; San Diego; Chicago

24 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Distance Still Matters in Business, Despite the Internet

auto assembly, which shaped Detroit, while it also altered the pricing of airline tickets, which had big consequences for the headquarters of major air carriers, such as Chicago and Dallas and Atlanta. To give one more example, the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Transportation; Telecommunications; Shipping; Publishing; Technology

October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Rheaply: Circularity For Every Business

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In March 2023, Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based Rheaply, needed to demonstrate that Rheaply’s expanded vision could translate into building cash flows and metrics needed to raise a Series B and turn the business into a model for financial and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Entrepreneurial Finance; Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

31 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

Can a ‘Basic Bundle’ of Health Insurance Cure Coverage Gaps and Spur Innovation?

Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, conducted the research with Katherine Baicker of the University of Chicago and Mark Shepard, associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School.... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Insurance; Health

28 Jun 2022
Book

The Moral Enterprise: How Two Companies Profit with Purpose

How can government and business work together in this fractious political moment, when finding solutions to pressing problems like inequality and climate change are more urgent than ever? Rebecca Henderson, Harvard University’s John and Natty McArthur University... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

December 2022
Case

To Feed the Planet: Juan Luciano at ADM

By: Joshua D. Margolis, David E. Bell, Damien McLoughlin, Stacy Straaberg and James Weber

In December 2022, Juan Luciano, Chairman and CEO of agribusiness and nutrition giant ADM, considered the next phase of the historic company’s future. Beginning in 2011 when he joined as COO and moving into his tenure as CEO in 2015, Luciano led a transformation of ADM... View Details

January 2018
Case

John Rogers, Jr.—Ariel Investments Co.

By: Steven Rogers and Greg White

John Rogers Jr., the founder and CEO of Ariel Investments, an enormously successful finance firm with $12 billion of invested capital, is one of the few African Americans in the asset management industry. As one of the high profile leaders in the black business... View Details

Keywords: Advocacy; Diversity; Investment Management; Affirmative Action; Disruption; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Leading Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Problems and Challenges; Financial Services Industry; Chicago

February 1992 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Amelia Rogers at Tassani Communications (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Describes a conflict that has arisen between an account manager and a creative director at Tassani Communications, a Chicago-based advertising agency which is making the transition from entrepreneurial to professional management. The client, the marketing director of a... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Conflict Management; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Practice; Behavior; Creativity; Problems and Challenges; Advertising Industry; Chicago