Publications

10 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Technology and COVID Upended Tipping Norms. Will Consumers Keep Paying?

mean there is change on the horizon? “We basically saw increases in e-commerce penetration among people happen in months that we expected to happen over 10 years. So I think any crisis that disrupts basic consumer behavior allows for... View Details

Keywords: by Anna Lamb, Harvard Gazette

December 2020
Case

XP: Dual Track Financing Alternatives

By: Marco Di Maggio, Pedro Levindo and Carla Larangeira

XP, an investment platform, was on the verge of defining whether to do an IPO or selling off a majority stake to Itaú Unibanco, Brazil´s largest financial conglomerate. Under the leadership of Guilherme Benchimol, XP´s co-founder and CEO, XP had risen to become the... View Details

Keywords: Financing Decisions; Expansion; Decision Choices and Conditions; Latin America; Brazil

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation

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2021
Book

Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere

By: Tsedal Neeley

The rapid and unprecedented changes brought on by COVID-19 have accelerated the transition to remote working, requiring the wholesale migration of nearly entire companies to virtual work in just weeks, leaving managers and employees scrambling to adjust. This massive... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Health Pandemics; Employment; Disruption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management

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22 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution

strategy is, it won't work forever. There will be booms and busts, customer preferences will change, competitors will introduce new products, and disruptive new technologies will emerge in unexpected places. This brings us to the final... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

April 2012
Case

Renesas Electronics and the Automotive Microcontroller Supply Chain (A)

By: Willy Shih and Margaret Pierson

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011 caused extensive damage to Renesas Electronics wafer fabrication facility, a critical link in the global automotive supply chain. Many OEMs sole-sourced customized microprocessors from the fab, so its... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Crisis Management; Supply Chain Management; Production; Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Auto Industry; Japan

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

growth. Central to Ferrari’s strategy is its response to disruptive changes in the automotive industry and their impact on the company’s products and brand. Purchase this case:https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/618047-PDF-ENG Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Web

Entrepreneurship - Faculty & Research

describes its co-founders' motivations and their strategy for disrupting an industry in the midst of dramatic structural change; and asks whether a16z's success to date has been due to its novel organization structure. a16z's 22... View Details

Web

Community College Report - Managing the Future of Work

disruptive automation, the nature of middle skills jobs is evolving much faster than educators’ abilities to change curriculum. Surveys of educators and employers reveal the disconnect behind this partnership’s underperformance and... View Details

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

jimkruger In the mid-1990s, Target was a discount superstore behemoth. The retailer had set itself apart from chief rival Walmart with a focus on more upscale but wallet-friendly fashion and lifestyle lines, spurring double-digit growth by double-digits each year for... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

04 Sep 2013
What Do You Think?

How Relevant is Long-Range Strategic Planning?

confronting large corporations facing innovative upstarts with disruptive ventures, the non-innovator's dilemma. But it also dealt with the challenges of achieving innovation in a world of entrenched ideas about how products are developed... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2021
Working Paper

Supply- and Demand-Side Effects in Performance Appraisals: The Role of Gender and Race

By: Iris Bohnet, Oliver P. Hauser and Ariella Kristal

Performance reviews in firms are common but controversial. Managers’ subjective appraisals of their employees’ performance and employees’ self-evaluations might be affected by demographic characteristics, interact with each other as self-evaluations are typically... View Details

Keywords: Performance Appraisals; Gender; Race; Performance Evaluation

Read Now

June 2016 (Revised November 2021)
Case

chotuKool: 'Little Cool,' Big Opportunity

By: Rory McDonald, Derek van Bever and Efosa Ojomo

In 2013, a team led by Gopalan Sunderraman, vice president of corporate development at Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.—one of the companies owned by Godrej Group, a large Indian conglomerate—was preparing to launch an innovative low-cost refrigerator. Developed expressly... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; India

26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

established brands are facing a loss of credibility as they are being disrupted by direct-to-consumer brands,” says Vettese, whose research project was guided by HBS professor Geoffrey Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Beauty & Cosmetics

Web

Skydeck - Alumni

ignores these lessons? A Creator in the Era of Disruption Lessons from an Indonesian entrepreneur aiming for impact, not exit The Camel and the Unicorn Why Silicon Valley is at risk of losing it startup dominance—and what that could mean... View Details

March 2011
Article

The New M&A Playbook

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising and Andrew Waldeck

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, yet the M&A failure rate is between 70% and 90%. Executives can dramatically increase their odds of success, the authors argue, if they understand how to select targets, how much to pay for them, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Integration

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July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed

This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details

Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East