Publications

May 2012
Case

BoldFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile Division

By: Michael Beer and Rachel Shelton

Roger Cahill has spent less than a year as head of the Mobile Division of BoldFlash, a flash memory component maker. On the corporate level, BoldFlash has adapted to an evolving and difficult marketplace, but the Mobile Division is struggling. The four groups within... View Details

Keywords: United States; Massachusetts; Morale; Human Resource Management; Technology; Leadership; Opportunities; Organizational Design; Conflict and Resolution; Product Development; Change Management; Information Infrastructure; Business Processes; Manufacturing Industry; Electronics Industry; Massachusetts

December 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Ben & Jerry's: Preserving Mission & Brand within Unilever

By: James E. Austin and James Quinn

In the months after Ben & Jerry's was acquired by Unilever, Ben & Jerry's head social mission faces challenges and opportunities unique in the company's history, including: how to manage employee morale; whether to include synthetic ingredients to meet consumer... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Problems and Challenges; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Value Creation; Corporate Governance; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; United States

June 2014
Case

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Kelly McNamara, Nora N. Khan and Elizabeth Legris

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal analyzes the turnaround and reconstruction of Starbucks Coffee Company from 2008 to 2014 as led by CEO and co-founder Howard Schultz. The case offers executives and students an opportunity to examine in depth how... View Details

20 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Here’s How Businessman Trump Is Likely to Approach the Presidency

perspectives might the wealthy businessman draw on as he transitions from CEO to commander in chief? To get a better sense of the months ahead, The Gazette asked Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty members how Trump’s nearly 50 years... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese

Nitin Nohria

Nitin Nohria served as the tenth dean of Harvard Business School from 2010-2020. He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.

As Dean, building on... View Details

21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

think CEOs are not paid too much. In corporate America there is a battle going on for control and power. Over the last two decades or so you've seen boards of directors gain... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

Ryan L. Raffaelli

Ryan Raffaelli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He created and teaches the MBA course "Leadership: Execution and Action Planning" (LEAP) and serves... View Details

Keywords: publishing industry; advertising; consulting; information technology industry; grocery; nonprofit industry; retailing; consumer products; federal government

30 Oct 2019
Video

María Emilia Correa

María Emilia Correa, co-founder of Sistema B, a Latin American organization promoting B Corporations and sustainability, discusses the sources of funding for purpose-driven companies in Latin... View Details

James E. Austin

Dr. Austin holds the Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. Previously he held the John G. McLean Professorship and the Richard P. Chapman Professorship. He has been a member of the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: agribusiness

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

What It Takes: Minorities in the Executive Suite

companies? In their recent book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (Harvard Business School Press), two HBS faculty members, Associate... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

March 2001 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Circon (A)

By: Brian J. Hall, Guhan Subramanian and Christopher A Rose

In 1996, U.S. Surgical launched a hostile takeover bid against Circon Corp. After building the company for 20 years, CEO Richard Auhll takes a defensive stand that includes inviting an old HBS friend (George Cloutier) to join the fight as a director of Circon. A... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

04 May 2023
Blog Post

Sustainability: Career Advice from HBS Career Coach Hillary Mann

Hillary Mann is a Corporate Relations Director in the Career and Professional Development Office covering Consumer Products, Retail & Luxury Goods, Hospitality, Agribusiness, and Sustainability. She enjoys helping students and alumni... View Details

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

With cross-sector collaborations on the rise, a new book exploring partnerships between business and social organizations in the Americas comes at just the right time. Social Partnering in Latin America: Lessons Drawn from Collaborations... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

Article

Laws versus Contracts: Legal Origins, Shareholder Protections, and Ownership Concentration in Brazil, 1890–1950

By: Aldo Musacchio

This article examines some of the institutional conditions that facilitated the development of equity markets in Brazil. A critical factor was the addition of protections for investors to corporate bylaws, which enabled relatively large corporations in Brazil to... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Equity; Financial Markets; Investment; Governance Controls; Business History; Ownership Stake; Brazil

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Fall 2017
Article

The Alternative Business History: Business in Emerging Markets

By: Gareth Austin, Carlos Davila and Geoffrey Jones

This article suggests that the business history of emerging markets should be seen as an alternative business history rather than merely adding new settings to explore established core debates. The discipline of business history evolved around the corporate strategies... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; History; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Developing Countries and Economies; Business History; Asia; Latin America; Africa

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October 2002 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Starbucks and Conservation International

By: James E. Austin and Cate Reavis

Starbucks, the world's leading specialty coffee company, developed a strategic alliance with Conservation International, a major international environmental nonprofit organization. The purpose of the alliance was to promote coffee-growing practices of small farms that... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperative Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Alliances; Nonprofit Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

November 2011
Article

Ownership Structure and Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Structural Estimation

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma and Yuhai Xuan

This article examines the impact of the divergence between corporate insiders' control rights and cash-flow rights on firms' external finance constraints via generalized method of moments estimation of an investment Euler equation. Using a large sample of U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Social Enterprise; Reputation; Cash Flow; Annuities; Investment; Investment Funds; Financial Reporting; Accounting Audits; Financial Services Industry; United States

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August 2010
Case

Flash Memory, Inc.

By: William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson

The CFO of Flash Memory, Inc. prepares the company's investing and financing plans for the next three years. Flash Memory is a small firm that specializes in the design and manufacture of solid state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for the computer and electronics... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Financial Management; Cash Flow; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; United States