Publications

SSRN

December 2012
Case

Chobani: Growing a Live and Active Culture

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew Preble

Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of the Greek yogurt company Chobani, Inc., was reflecting on what explained his young company's meteoric rise. The company held over half of the U.S. Greek yogurt market, and nearly 20% of the total yogurt market. The company's innovative approach to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Growth Strategy; Growth Management; Yogurt; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Agribusiness; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; Australia

December 2012 (Revised March 2015)
Case

AmTran Technology Ltd.

By: Willy Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Karen E. Robinson

As an original design manufacturer (ODM) of television sets and leading supplier to Vizio, a market leader in the U.S. for LCD flat panel TVs, AmTran Technology Ltd. uses what founder Alpha Wu describes as a "WE" model in which western companies perform sales,... View Details

2012
Working Paper

~Why Do We Redistribute so Much but Tag so Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

By: Matthew Weinzierl

Tagging is a free lunch in conventional optimal tax theory because it eases the classic tradeoff between efficiency and equality. But tagging is used in only limited ways in tax policy. I propose one explanation: conventional optimal tax theory has yet to capture the... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Framework; Policy; Taxation; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Efficiency; United States

SSRN

November 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Exercise

Breaking Through Action Plan

By: David A. Thomas and Karen J. Watai

The "Breaking Through Action Plan" is a developmental tool based on the book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America by David A. Thomas and John J. Gabarro. The Action Plan was originally designed as part of a facilitated session but... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Power and Influence; Trust

December 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

General Mills (A)

By: Raymond V. Gilmartin, Marco Iansiti and Bianca Buccitelli

General Mills is an 80-year-old company that specializes in consumer foods such as cereal, snacks, baking, and dinner products. Although General Mills is, on the whole, a very successful company, they have, in the recent past, had to face challenges as a result the... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Change Management; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry

August 2007 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Grand Central Publishing

By: Anita Elberse

In April 2007, Grand Central's publisher Jamie Raab and editor Karen Kosztolnyik were involved in a frantic bidding war for a proposed book on the life of cat Dewey, billed as the feline answer to the best-selling "Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Product Launch; Bids and Bidding; Product Development; Publishing Industry

April 2007
Case

Leadership Forum: Building Great Careers - Video

By: D. Quinn Mills and Carole Winkler

Leadership: Can I learn it, how do I do it, and how can I use it to advance my career? How is today's world different from the one our teachers entered years ago, and how does that affect me? The two videos on this DVD address these and other questions typically asked... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Leadership Style; Knowledge Dissemination; Teaching; Executive Education; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Style; Education Industry

June 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Siemens Medical Solutions: Strategic Turnaround

By: D. Quinn Mills and Julian Kurz

Describes how Siemens Medical Solutions (MED) accomplished a remarkable turnaround from a money-losing operation to one of Siemens' most profitable divisions. By late 1996, a challenging market environment in the health care industry as well as inefficiencies in the... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Globalized Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Transformation; Problems and Challenges; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

April 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Nghe An Tate & Lyle Sugar Company (Vietnam)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Frank J. Lysy and Carrie Ferman

In September 1998, Paul Cooper, Tate & Lyle's finance director for international investments, asked the International Finance Corp. (IFC) to consider lending up to $45 million to finance a $90 million sugar mill in northern Vietnam. Ewen Cobban, an IFC agricultural... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; Viet Nam

September 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Acer Group, The: Vision for the Year 2000

By: D. Quinn Mills and Richard C. Wei

In the early 1990s, Acer, Inc. set two goals: to be a top-five PC company worldwide in 1995 and to be a global consortium of companies by the year 2000. The company identified potential obstacles concerning capital, image, number of experienced international managers,... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Structure; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Experience and Expertise; Marketing Strategy; Production; Rank and Position; Business Strategy; Capital; Computer Industry; Japan

Find at Harvard

June 1990 (Revised November 1991)
Case

Morality and Consequences

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Consists mainly of excerpts from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. Mill explains what utilitarianism is and gives his rationale for accepting it as a moral philosophy. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Outcome or Result; Value

December 1984
Case

Expense Tracking System at Tiger Creek

By: Shoshana Zuboff

Mill manager Carl Adelman learns that a group of senior managers is soon to visit the Tiger Creek mill to learn more about the success of the newly implemented Expense Tracking System. The System had been installed on two paper machines to give workers real time cost... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Success; Cost Management; Technology; Pulp and Paper Industry

February 1984
Case

Megalith, Inc. -- Hay Associates (B)

By: D. Quinn Mills and George W. Baird

Describes Hay Associates Climate Survey Questionnaire and the eight dimensions of organizational climate. Rewritten by G.W. Baird, company partner. View Details

Keywords: Surveys; Organizations; Human Resources

August 1977 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc.

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Karen Gordon Mills and John P. Reed

Describes the technical, economic, and competitive trends in the metal container industry. The strategy of Crown Cork and Seal is then described in relation to these trends. Focuses on two immediate threats to Crown's strategy: the future of aerosol cans, given the... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Industry Structures; Environmental Sustainability; Trends; Manufacturing Industry

Research Summary

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Research Summary

Creating ‘Smart’ Policy to Promote Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Entrepreneurship is a key to unlocking innovation and fostering regional and national economic productivity. Extensive studies demonstrate that small and young firms contribute to innovation and employment growth. But which of the many types of small firms are... View Details

Research Summary

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream: How Technology Is Transforming Lending and Shaping a New Era of Small Business Opportunity

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream describes the needs of small businesses for capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been... View Details

Research Summary

Growth and Shared Prosperity