Publications

September 2002 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Environmental Power Corporation: Changing Manure Into Gold?

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Laure Mougeot Stroock

In 2002, Environmental Power Corp. (EPC), a small company developing renewable energy projects, was attempting to commercialize its "digester," a facility that extracted methane from manure, reduced manure's environmental impact, and generated electricity. The company... View Details

Keywords: Commercialization; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Investment; Projects; Wastes and Waste Processing; Corporate Finance; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry

03 Dec 2007
Research & Ideas

Authenticity over Exaggeration: The New Rule in Advertising

company. "An executive there told me that you can't buy this kind of publicity," says Deighton. The New Rules But what does this all boil down to for companies that want to be successful in this relatively new environment? In the working... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Publishing; Advertising

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rob Markey

Most companies' leaders declare their commitment to delivering value to customers. Many have adopted language such as "customer-centric" or "customer-obsessed." Companies that consistently earn top marks for customer loyalty in their industry deliver total shareholder... View Details

November 2011
Case

Comfort Class Transport: Does Customer Service Need an Overhaul?

By: Michael J Roberts and Paul E. Morrison

The general manager of a chauffeured limousine transport company is concerned about underperformance at the company's customer service call center. The eight-person call center handles almost all customer interaction including discussing company services with... View Details

Keywords: Capacity Utilization; Supply ＆ Demand; Operations Management; Customer Service; Management; Demand and Consumers; Service Operations; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Performance Capacity; Customer Satisfaction; Transportation Industry

November 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Haier Hefei Electronics Co. (A)

By: Lynn Sharp Paine

The Haier Group, the first mainland Chinese company to make the Financial Times list of Asia's "most admired companies," attributes its success in large measure to the new value system it has sought to instill throughout the organization. However, when Haier takes over... View Details

Keywords: Public Ownership; Business and Government Relations; Organizational Culture; Transformation; Ethics; Labor and Management Relations; Business or Company Management; Contracts; Electronics Industry; China

20 Jul 2021
Research & Ideas

Bankruptcy Spells Death for Too Many Businesses

a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit many companies hard—some to the point of considering bankruptcy—Antill’s research findings may help business leaders make important decisions to avoid the high price... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

October 1982 (Revised September 1988)
Case

Steven B. Belkin

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Richard O. von Werssowetz

Steven Belkin, 26 years old and 2 1/2 years out of HBS, has decided to leave a group travel company he has run for the last year to start his own similar business. In the course of several months he has written a business plan, attracted several partners and employees,... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Decisions; Equity; Investment; Personal Finance; Recruitment; Resignation and Termination; Failure; Partners and Partnerships

July 2024
Supplement

Pacific Lake Partners (B)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Pre-Abstract: Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.

Abstract: In 2009, Coley Andrews and Jim Southern endeavored to raise a private equity fund for investment solely in search... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition; Search Fund; Entrepreneurship; Private Equity; Investment Funds; Organizational Structure; United States

August 2019
Case

ClearScore, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In October 2017, Experian, one of the “Big Three” consumer credit reporting agencies in the United Kingdom made an offer to acquire ClearScore for a total consideration of £293 million. Founded by Justin Basini, Dan Cobley, and Nigel Morris in 2014, ClearScore was the... View Details

December 2008
Case

JBS Swift & Co.

By: David E. Bell and Cathy Ross

Brazilian meat packer JBS surprised many in the U.S. beef industry when it acquired Swift & Co.—a company more than five times its size—in 2007, then moved to acquire the U.S.'s fourth and fifth largest beef producers in 2008. The new JBS Swift slashed costs and... View Details

Keywords: Animal-Based Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Global Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; Brazil

February 2005 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Haier's U.S. Refrigerator Strategy

By: Pankaj Ghemawat, Thomas M. Hout and Jordan I. Siegel

Haier, the first Chinese consumer durable brand in the United States, succeeded in the compact refrigerator, freezer, and air conditioner markets and then built a U.S. factory to enter the full-size market. Issues include the value of a local entrepreneur to the Asian... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Market Entry and Exit; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; China; United States

October 2005 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Virginia Mason Medical Center

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Erika Ferlins

In 2000, Dr. Gary Kaplan became CEO of the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. The hospital was facing significant challenges: It was losing money for the first time in its history, staff morale had plummeted, and area hospitals presented ardent... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Production; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Competition; Seattle

15 Mar 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

More Than 900 Examples of How Climate Change Affects Business

This word cloud is composed of blog posts by more than 900 students describing how individual organizations are likely to be affected by climate change. Image by Patrick Clapp Last fall, first-year MBA students at Harvard Business School received a new assignment in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Green Technology

January 31, 2019
Article

The Backlash to Larry Fink's Letter Shows How Far Business Has to Go on Social Responsibility

By: Mark R. Kramer

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor with $6 trillion under management, evoked heated controversy with his remarks last week that his company would change its hiring and potentially its compensation structure to advance diversity and ensure that... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose

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21 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

What Machine Learning Teaches Us about CEO Leadership Style

CEOs are communicators. Studies show that CEOs spend 85 percent of their time in communication-related activities, including speeches, meetings, and phone calls with people both inside and outside the firm. Now, new research using machine... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2024
Working Paper

Design of Panel Experiments with Spatial and Temporal Interference

By: Tu Ni, Iavor Bojinov and Jinglong Zhao

One of the main practical challenges companies face when running experiments (or A/B tests) over a panel is interference, the setting where one experimental unit's treatment assignment at one time period impacts another's outcomes, possibly at the following time... View Details

Keywords: Research