Publications

Article

Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that... View Details

Keywords: Platform Strategy; Repositioning; Cost-cutting; Intra-firm Learning; Multi-Sided Platforms; Cost Management; Product Positioning; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Journalism and News Industry

Linda A. Hill

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Faculty Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Hill is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. Hill is... View Details

November 1991 (Revised July 1995)
Case

Body Shop International

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the start-up and rapid growth of a company whose founder holds strong, non-traditional beliefs about the role of the corporation and its responsibility to society. After profiling Anita Roddick as a person, the case describes the anti-mainstream approach she... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Management Teams; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

02 Oct 2019
What Do You Think?

What Grade Would You Give Walmart CEO Doug McMillon?

ammunition in response to shootings in and around Company stores. None of those giving him low marks indicated they would stop shopping at Walmart. But if these same responses are any indication, efforts by... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

September 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Esas Group: Investing Together, Staying Together

By: Christina R. Wing and Alpana Thapar

This case opens in June 2022, after Esas Group, one of Turkey’s largest family-owned investment firms, implements a series of changes to professionalize the business and help transition family members from operators to responsible investors. In December 2019, the Group... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Transition; Business or Company Management; Organizational Structure; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Turkey

March 2023
Teaching Note

Ransomware Attack at Colonial Pipeline Company

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 123-069. On the morning of May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline Company became aware that the company had been the victim of a malicious ransomware attack that had stolen and locked up company data. The extortionists demanded 75 bitcoins (worth... View Details

December 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Zespri

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Mary Louise Shelman

Grower-owned Zespri is the sole exporter of New Zealand-grown kiwifruit outside of Australia and New Zealand. Facing growing international competition, Zespri invested in consumer branding and innovation, which has led to new types of kiwifruit that taste better and... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Globalized Firms and Management; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Brands and Branding; Cooperative Ownership; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; New Zealand

December 2011
Case

PepsiCo India: Performance with Purpose

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Rakesh Khurana, Rajiv Lal and Natalie Kindred

In 2010, PepsiCo India's management is working to translate PepsiCo's new mission, "Performance with Purpose," into practice in the India market. The mission calls for continued financial performance and market leadership, as well as greater emphasis on healthy... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Food and Beverage Industry; India

October 1990 (Revised April 1991)
Case

RU 486 (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Describes the factors faced by Roussel UCLAF, a French drug company, in deciding whether and how to market a controversial new drug, RU 486, which is often called "the French abortion pill." Roussel's decision involved its relations with the French government, its... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Ethics; Product Launch; Negotiation; Outcome or Result; Performance; Business and Government Relations; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; France; Germany; United States

Research Summary

Overview

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Professor Hsieh’s research concerns ethical issues in business and the responsibilities of global business leaders. His work centers on the question of whether and how managers ought to be guided not only by considerations of economic efficiency, but also by values... View Details

01 Jun 2010
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Social Reporting

greater clarity about the relationship between financial and nonfinancial key performance indicators; better management decisions; deeper engagement with the broad stakeholder community; and lower reputational risk. How Can Nonprofit... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

07 Mar 2023
HBS Case

ChatGPT: Did Big Tech Set Up the World for an AI Bias Disaster?

ChatGPT’s buzzy debut has made for a rough few months for Google. Close watchers of the tech giant say: It didn’t have to go this way. Essentially scooped by a competitor on its home turf, Google has scrambled to release its own artificial intelligence (AI) mega-system... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis; Technology

05 May 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Denial Endemic to Management?

Bullard suggested that "Ruthless realism is, itself, pathological . The professional pilot denies a crash is inevitable until a second before impact, and that ability to believe one can save the ship is critical to the attitude of actually saving it."... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

24 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 24, 2009

support the change, and evaluating the change implementation). We examine this relationship using data from 89 clinical managers at the United Kingdom National Health Service who implemented change projects between 2003 and 2004. Our... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2017
Working Paper

Business and Green Knowledge Production in Sweden 1960s–1980s

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Kristina Söderholm

This working paper contributes to the burgeoning historical literature that has transformed our understanding about the relationship between big business and the environmental regulation. Previously, it was believed that corporate managers resisted the extra costs... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Research and Development; History; Sweden

SSRN

Summer 2018
Article

CSR needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics

By: Thomas Lyon, Magali A. Delmas, John W. Maxwell, Pratima Bansal, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, Patricia Crifo, Rodolphe Durand, Jean-Pascal Gond, Andrew King, Michael Lenox, Michael W. Toffel, David Vogel and Frank Wijen

Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Communication; Policy; Business and Government Relations

September 2024
Supplement

Revenue Solutions, LLC (A)

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: Ari Wasserman and Nick esayian were both dissatisfied with their future prospects in their current careers. Wasserman,... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Partners and Partnerships; Ownership

Article

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

By: Marco Di Maggio and Marcin Kacperczyk

We study the impact of the zero lower bound interest rate policy on the industrial organization of the U.S. money fund industry. We find that in response to policies that maintain low interest rates, money funds change their product offerings by investing in riskier... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Easing; Money Market Funds; Reaching For Yield; Risk Taking; Fund Exit; Unconventional Monetary Policy; Investment Funds; Interest Rates

October 2010
Journal Article

The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies

By: Maria Guadalupe and Julie Wulf

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel-dataset on firm hierarchies of large U.S. firms (1986-1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Product; Markets; Competition; Organizational Design; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Rank and Position; Organizational Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Change; Trade; United States