Publications

September 2010
Case

Quanta Research Institute: Rainforest or Hothouse?

By: Willy C. Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Ho Howard Yu

Barry Lam, the CEO and founder of Quanta Computer (the largest notebook computer manufacturer worldwide), has recognized for many years that he had to transform the company to decrease its dependence on producing commodity hardware for other global brands and move the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Computer Industry; Taiwan

August 2009 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Pandora: Royalties Kill the Web Radio Star? (A)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Alex Curtis Rosenfeld

Joe Kennedy, president and CEO of Pandora, one of the largest and most popular web (Internet) radio broadcasters, had just received bad news. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) had announced its decision to increase the royalties required to be paid by the web radio... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Copyright; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Internet and the Web; Media and Broadcasting Industry

12 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 12

Abstract This book presents new research on the historical impact of globalization on Argentina and Chile. The authors focus on the role of entrepreneurs and firms. The Role of Venture Capitalists in the Acquisition of Private Companies... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Sep 2014
What Do You Think?

Who Should Choose Your Boss?

the world choosing a leader for an organization is a primary responsibility of a board of directors. But others tempered that judgment with a variety of cautions. Richard Belloff made the base case by saying "The Board should choose the View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Food & Beverage

06 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

The Trouble Behind Livedoor

Takafumi Horie, the thirty-three-year-old CEO of Livedoor, had become Japan's anti-establishment enfant terrible: rich, hard charging, willing to take big risks such as the ultimately failed attempt to acquire a controlling interest in... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Technology

27 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

IBM Finds Profit in Diversity

goals without providing the structures to educate senior executives in the specific challenges faced by various constituencies. In addition, these strategies often don't provide models that teach or encourage new behaviors. IBM has taken... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Thomas

Article

Is ‘Not Guilty’ the Same as ‘Innocent’? Evidence from SEC Financial Fraud Investigations

By: Eugene F. Soltes and David H. Solomon

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors learn about the investigation only if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Fraud; Corporate Disclosure; Performance; Outcome or Result

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February 2016 (Revised September 2020)
Case

T-Mobile in 2013: The Un-Carrier

By: John Beshears, Francesca Gino, Jonathan Lee and Sean (Yixiang) Wang

By 2013, the U.S. wireless industry was in the midst of a costly transition. As consumers began to embrace more sophisticated mobile devices, the industry's four main players spent heavily to improve their infrastructures for providing reliable high-speed data... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Positioning; Competition; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; United States

April 1994 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Frito-Lay, Inc.: A Strategic Transition (1987-1989)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

Describes the actions taken by the new CEO to return the company to profitability, to clarify the vision, and then to build the infrastructure (human, capital, and information) needed to support the long-term change in strategy and organization. Ends with senior... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Management Teams; Business Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry

February 2003 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Bombardier: Canada versus Brazil at the WTO

By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Laura Alfaro and Brett Laschinger

In less than a decade, Bombardier had grown from a medium-size Canadian company to a highly profitable global player largely on the strength of the introduction of a new generation of regional jet and successfully marketing its product to airlines around the world.... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Global Strategy; Five Forces Framework; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Business and Government Relations; Situation or Environment; Competition; Air Transportation Industry; Canada; Brazil

February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang

In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details

June 2021
Case

Acelero Learning

By: Mario Small, Kathleen L. McGinn, Amy Klopfenstein and Katherine Chen

In November 2020, Henry Wilde, co-founder and CEO of Acelero, Inc., must decide whether to change his company’s program model for delivering early childhood education to low-income children. One of the only for-profit Head Start providers in the United States, Acelero... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; Adoption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Operations; Education Industry; North and Central America; United States

November 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

The Big 3 Roar Back

By: William W. George

The "Big 3"—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler—were all headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Born between 1903 and 1928, they dominated the automobile industry in the U.S. for decades until they became complacent. In the 1970s they started losing share to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Industry Clusters; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

2013
Chapter

Who Chooses Board Members?

By: Ali Akyol and Lauren Cohen

We exploit a recent regulation passed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to explore the nomination of board members to US publicly traded firms. In particular, we focus on firms’ use of executive search firms versus allowing internal members (often... View Details

Keywords: Boards; Boards Of Directors; Executive Search Firms; Governance; SEC Regulation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Executive Compensation

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August 2009 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Tenova: Mining for Growth in an Economic Crisis

By: Gary P. Pisano, Elena Corsi and Elisa Farri

In December 2008, Gianluigi Nova, CEO of Tenova SpA, a technology and equipment supplier to the metals and mining industry, had to choose between two options. The first was to continue growing in the company's core business: equipment for the steel production. The... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Leadership; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Diversification; Industrial Products Industry; Mining Industry

November 2008
Case

The Hong Kong & China Gas Company Ltd.: Negotiating Joint Ventures in China

By: James K. Sebenius, Michael Shih-ta Chen and Medha Samant

To deliver 5-6 major new Chinese joint ventures annually, Hong Kong China Gas executives began extracting cross-border negotiating lessons from their 80 existing Chinese JVs. Chairman Alfred Chan and CEO Peter Wong knew that HKGC's growth strategy required significant... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Negotiation Tactics; Interests; Cooperation; Expansion; Utilities Industry; Hong Kong

16 Jul 2024
Op-Ed

Corporate Boards Are Failing in Their No. 1 Duty

Boeing CEO has focused on short-term earnings, increasingly at the expense of franchise value and safety. Will the company’s new CEO have the courage to return Boeing to its... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

27 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

Reputation is Vital to Survival in Turbulent Markets

of our clients who saw how we managed to overcome the crisis.” —Antonio Madero, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Sanluis Corporation (a leading Mexico-based automotive parts maker) Silverthorne: Was this focus on reputation development pushed... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Swvl: Smart Mobility for the Masses

By: Krishna Palepu, Esel Çekin and Menna Hassan

The case focuses on strategy and governance issues at Swvl, a tech-enabled mass mobility marketplace. It describes the journey of CEO and Chairman Mostafa Kandil on his journey from founding the company to its listing on Nasdaq. Since its founding in Egypt in 2017,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Growth and Development Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; Middle East; North Africa