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2002
Book

Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs

By: Rakesh Khurana

Corporate CEOs are headline news. Stock prices rise and fall at word of their hiring and firing. Business media debate their merits and defects as if individual leaders determined the health of the economy. Yet we know surprisingly little about how CEOs are selected... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Selection and Staffing; Personal Characteristics; Experience and Expertise; Investment Activism; Corporate Strategy

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18 Oct 2016
Op-Ed

Why Business Should Invest in Community Health

corporate attention than employee, consumer, and environmental health. In a survey of more than 80 companies attending the Building a Culture of Health conference at Harvard Business School in April 2016, a... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch, Howard Koh, and Pamela Yatsko; Health

September 2006
Teaching Note

Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation Series (LCA) (TN)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Aldo Sesia

Keywords: Food; Nutrition; Food and Beverage Industry

28 May 2012
Research & Ideas

A Pragmatic Alternative for Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

Thousands of large, profitable companies have all the right intentions of giving back to society—and yet a sizable number of them have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs that provide little benefit to either the community or... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

12 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Corporate Innovation Increasingly Benefits from Government Research

Business Administration and co-head of the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. Consider that between the 1950s and 1980s, Uncle Sam’s spending on research and development (R&D) rose fivefold from less than $20 billion to more than $100 billion a year, about... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

December 1993 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Manville Corporation Fiber Glass Group (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Sarah Gant

Manville Corp.'s senior managers must decide how to respond to a new scientific study suggesting that fiberglass, the source of 75% of the company's profits, may be another asbestos and must act under conditions of great uncertainty. In particular, when should a... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Health Disorders; Risk Management; Marketing Communications; Product; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Safety; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry

January 2003 (Revised May 2003)
Case

AngloGold - Corporate Responsibility for HIV/AIDS (A)

AngloGold, a South African gold-mining corporation, faces a decision to provide its workforce, 30% of which is infected with HIV, with antiretroviral treatment. View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Employees; Mining Industry; South Africa

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Forthcoming
Article

From Bupkis to Sechel in Health Care

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

Fifty years ago, famed economist Milton Friedman declared that “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This free market manifesto was adopted by the healthcare industry as well. But transactional has evolved into transformational with the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Customer Focus and Relationships; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry

22 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture

behaviors that other employees embrace. Others accomplish the same objective more positively. At Baptist Health Care, for example, managers constantly reinforce the culture by recognizing those whose actions exemplify its values, its... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser & Joe Wheeler

September 2013 (Revised May 2014)
Case

OdontoPrev

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Matthew Lingenbrink, Joshua Turnbull and Ricardo Reisen De Pinho

Brazil's largest dental insurer, a successful and innovative firm, has saturated the corporate market and faces stiffer competition. It must decide whether to enter a new market in Brazil or to expand into other parts of Central and South America. View Details

Keywords: Health; Business or Company Management; Market Entry and Exit; Insurance; Health Industry; Health Industry; North and Central America; Brazil

14 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

The Widening Rift Between Corporations and Society

Society is evolving and it is leaving business behind, say HBS professor Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin. In their new book, The Support Economy: Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism, they address... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

October 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

mPharma: Scaling Access to Affordable Primary Care in Africa

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo

mPharma hopes to scale up to create the largest pan-African healthcare company ever to provide much-needed primary care in retail pharmacies; a reliable, fairly priced supply of drugs; and micro-insurance for drugs. They must prioritize launching a telemedicine... View Details

May 2012 (Revised August 2014)
Case

McKesson

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

McKesson, a large, diversified drug distribution and health care IT company, is considering development of new business offerings to help private practice physicians remain independent. The company, with $122 billion in 2010 revenues, just made its first foray into... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Industry; Health Care Policy; Organizational Transformations; Health Services; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Service Operations; Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Policy; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States

August 2023
Case

Constellation Pharmaceuticals: Corporate Development at a Novel Therapeutic Company

By: Satish Tadikonda and Brad Prosek

Constellation Pharmaceuticals was a company focused on epigenetic therapies for cancer patients. Despite a promising start and an early deal with a leading biopharma company, the company weathered twin setbacks in the end of a major research collaboration and the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Goals and Objectives; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States