Publications

Web

Rock Summer Fellows - Entrepreneurship

both tracks. Students who desire greater structure and accountability should apply to Rock Accelerator. Rock Accelerator students will be held to additional mandatory weekly meetings and deliverables throughout the summer. Students... View Details

January 2017 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Sesame Workshop (A): Bringing Big Bird Back to Health

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Information Technology; Education; Media; Strategy; Education Industry

January 1985 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Turner Construction Co.

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In June, 1984, a vice president at Turner Construction Co. must decide whether to approve a construction project being considered by one of Turner's territorial offices and how to manage that territory general manager's apparent reluctance to pursue another account... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Projects; Market Entry and Exit; Integration; Contracts; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Business or Company Management; Business Offices; Geographic Location; Construction Industry

20 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Business Groups: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Growth of the Koç Group in Turkey

Keywords: by Asli M. Coplan & Geoffrey Jones

Research Summary

Fairness and Efficiency in Resource Allocation

In studying the relationship of fairness and efficiency, Professor Trichakis takes the novel approach of looking at varied industries for unifying factors, and he pays special attention to inequities by incorporating both quantitative work in social welfare and the... View Details

21 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 21, 2006

that future work should develop more precise and context-specific theories to help guide research and practice in disparate task and industry domains. Working paper not available. Why Do Firms Hold So Much Cash? A Tax-Based Explanation... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A) (Abridged)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Owens & Minor (O&M) performed lean inventory services for Virginia Mason (VM) as its Alpha Vendor, but the outdated industry pricing model created perverse incentives and could not capture O&M's costs. Together, O&M and VM created an activity-based pricing model: Total... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Partners and Partnerships; Activity Based Costing and Management; Business Model; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Motivation and Incentives; Asset Pricing; Cost Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Web

Enter Elton Mayo – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

take no account of human nature and social motives, so long may we expect strikes and sabotage to be the ordinary accompaniment of industry. Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Management, Harvard Business... View Details

September 1997 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Precision Controls, Inc.

By: James K. Sebenius and David T. Kotchen

Precision Controls is a Minnesota-based manufacturer of electronic control devices. To enhance its product line, Precision would like to establish an artificial intelligence research group, either through internal development or, preferably, by merging with or... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Valuation; Research and Development; Negotiation Process; Stock Shares; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Minnesota

07 Jul 2022
HBS Case

How a Multimillion-Dollar Ice Cream Startup Melted Down (and Bounced Back)

That shop is currently thriving. Lessons for those on the rebound About half of failed founders relaunch a new business within five years of a business closing, says Hyde. They often jump right back into the same industry and repeat the... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

June 2013 (Revised September 2016)
Supplement

Governance and Sustainability at Nike (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Nien-he Hsieh and Lara Adamsons

Two members of Nike's executive team must decide what sustainability targets to propose to Nike's CEO and to the corporate responsibility committee of Nike's board of directors. Set in 2012, the case traces the evolution of Nike's approach to environmental and social... View Details

Keywords: Nike; Hannah Jones; Mark Parker; Phil Knight; Philip Knight; Eric Sprunk; Jill Ker Conway; Phyllis Wise; Don Blair; Sustainable Business And Innovation; SB＆I; Flyknit; DyeCoo; Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Apparel; Athletic Apparel; Sustainability; Greenpeace; Detox Campaign; Dirty Laundry; Water; Water Use; Water Pollution; Water Resources; Corporate Responsibility Committee; Judgment; Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Footwear Industry; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Ethics; Fairness; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance; Alignment; Supply Chain; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Judgments; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Asia; China; United States; Oregon; Portland

2010
Article

The Strategic Use of Brand Biographies

By: Jill Avery, Neeru Paharia, Anat Keinan and Juliet Schor

We introduce the concept of a brand biography to describe an emerging trend in branding in which firms author a dynamic, historical account of the events that have shaped the brand over time. Using a particular type of brand biography, "the underdog," we empirically... View Details

February 2025
Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia

Web

Entrepreneurial Management - Faculty & Research

a fictional elevator company, invest a lot of money in reskilling its entire staff? The industry is moving from hardware to software in the form of smart, connected elevators. But instead of laying off legacy hardware staff and hiring new... View Details

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

nation's social enterprise organizations. Today, the United States has more than 1.4 million non-profit organizations, and they account for 5 percent of GDP. Annual contributions have grown faster than the economy for years, and experts... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

2012
Article

Journalists and the Stock Market

By: Christopher Parsons, C. Dougal, J. Engelberg and D. Garcia

We use exogenous scheduling of Wall Street Journal columnists to identify a causal relation between financial reporting and stock market performance. To measure the media's unconditional effect, we add columnist fixed effects to a daily regression of excess Dow Jones... View Details

Keywords: Media; Financial Reporting; Financial Markets