Publications

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18 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask

development/coaching needs. He was someone who knew the company and its culture and thoroughly enjoyed the critical tasks the job called for. He was very effective, and this created more room for the CEO to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

December 1996 (Revised June 1998)
Case

Midnight Networks, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen and Marilyn Matis

Midnight Networks, Inc., is a small computer network validation company. This case describes how the five founders built their business from operations earnings and how they established "best practices" operational processes to run their firm successfully. Operational... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Operations; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Information Technology Industry; Massachusetts

Ashish Nanda is Senior Lecturer and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator at Harvard Business School. From 2018 to 2021, he was course head for the MBA Required Curriculum course in Strategy. Beginning in 2022, he is teaching an MBA Elective... View Details

23 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 23

high-tech venture with a staff of 35 experiencing explosive growth, or were the resignations symptomatic of bigger issues with CloudFlare's culture and management processes? After describing CloudFlare's early history, business model,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

experimentation from permeating the company’s culture. Instead, organizations might learn from the travel site Booking.com, whose leaders have forged a rigorous testing culture that has guided the company to... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

June 2023
Case

Grittiness at Convene

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Based in New York, Convene was founded in 2009 by Ryan Simonetti and Chris Kelly. Convene was founded on the question: “What if you ran an office building like a hotel?” The company offered a premium corporate events and workspace product. Convene initially took a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Hospitality Industry; Growth; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Change Management; Growth Management; Strategy; Leadership; Service Industry; United States

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (A)

By: Raffaella Sadun, Michael Beer and James Weber

In late 2015, CEO Vince Forlenza was reviewing Becton Dickinson’s transformation efforts designed to enable the company to innovate and grow in a changing environment. Becton Dickinson had been a successful medical device company for over 100 years. In recent years,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

Web

Accounting & Management - Faculty & Research

care delivery. April 2025 Case Setting a CEO Agenda: Ole Rosgaard at Greif By: Krishna Palepu and Kerry Herman Since taking over as CEO of industrial packaging giant Greif, Ole Rosgaard has focused on growing the company and improving the... View Details

30 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

‘Intrinsic Joy’ Sparks Ideas Better than Cash

Users typically share their innovations so that others may benefit. In the fast-moving world of machine learning, many breakthroughs rely on open source tools, including Python libraries, the authors write. More than 90 percent of Fortune 500 View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology

June 2020
Case

Breakthroughs at Blueprint Medicines

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Susie L. Ma

Precision medicine company Blueprint Medicines was building a successful track record for bringing drug therapies to market 40% faster than average. The company had spent $40 million dollars and two years building a compound library that became its drug development... View Details

Keywords: Precision Medicine; Cancer; Biotechnology; Drug Development; Strategy; Expansion; Science; Genetics; Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Management; Growth and Development; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; Cambridge; Massachusetts

21 Aug 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Under the Magnifying Glass: The Benefits of Being a Case Study

Back To Basics According to Coles, his company's training program is highly attuned to the case study method. Just the process of explaining and justifying company actions, Coles said, flies in the face of the educational View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Article

The Dark Side of Strategic Alliances: Lessons from Volvo-Renault

By: Robert Bruner and Robert Spekman

This article explores sources of failure in strategic alliances drawing on field research into one of the most prominent alliance collapses in recent years. The alliance of Volvo and Renault married the two largest enterprises in their respective countries for economic... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Alliances; Failure; Auto Industry; Europe

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12 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: Jan. 12

Joshua Weiss Abstract In the face of daunting barriers, the Abraham Path Initiative envisions uncovering and revitalizing a route of cultural tourism that follows the path of Abraham and his family some 4,000 years ago across the Middle... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2023 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Boortmalt: The Master Maltster

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B Alvarez, Damien McLoughlin, Lena Duchene and Emer Moloney

By May 2023, Boortmalt was the world’s leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of... View Details

15 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Businesses Beware: The World Is Not Flat

Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter. As he sees it, important realities dotting the landscape for business can be grouped into 4 basic areas: cultural, administrative/political, geographic, and economic. Discussions of globalization tend to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

June 2019
Case

Athena Bancorp

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Sarah Abbott

Athena Bancorp was founded in 2016 by Beth Daniels, a banking professional with 15 years of experience in the industry. Daniels took advantage of what she perceived as a gap in the market caused by recent industry consolidation, a decreasing industry focus on branch... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Strategy; Service Delivery; Banking Industry

January 15, 2019
Article

Is Your Company's Strategy Aligned with Your Ownership Model?

By: Josh Baron

The legacy of Vanguard founder John Bogle has brought attention to the transformative influence of ownership structures within the business world. Bogle's revolutionary insight into the limitations of active fund management led to the widespread adoption of index... View Details

Keywords: Ownership Type; Business Strategy; Organizational Structure; Strength and Weakness; Competitive Advantage

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