Publications

April 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

TD Canada Trust (A): The Green and the Red

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

The case series illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Commercial Banking; Profit; Balanced Scorecard; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Banking Industry; Canada

November 2008 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke

By: Anthony Mayo and Shandi Onise Smith

As America struggled to regain its balance in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Maggie Lena Walker did her best to actively effect change by finding solutions to the social and economic problems facing blacks and especially black women. Taking charge of the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Ethnicity; Race; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Welfare; Business and Community Relations; Gender; Banks and Banking

December 2009
Case

Philips versus Matsushita: The Competitive Battle Continues

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the development of the global strategies and organizations of two major competitors in the consumer electronics industry. Over four decades, both companies adapt their strategic intent and organizational capability to match and counter the competitive... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Multinational Firms and Management; Restructuring; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry

12 Aug 2015
News

Alphabet--the Pros and Cons

Keywords: Google; Alphabet; business structure; technology

January 2025 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Gavi and the 'Next' Pandemic

By: Tarun Khanna and Kerry Herman

In 2025, CEO Dr. Sania Nishtar and her team consider the lessons the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunizations (GAVI) learned from the pandemic. GAVI successfully brought COVID-19 vaccines to large swaths of the undeveloped and under-developed world by pooling... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Success; Innovation and Invention; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Pharmaceutical Industry; Africa

February 2018
Case

Rosslyn Resource: Monetization and Sales Strategy

By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong

Rosslyn Resource identifies exploration targets (potential mineral deposits) in the mining industry and advances them until the project can be monetized, usually through sale to a larger mining company, in return for an upfront fee and a royalty on future revenues.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mining Industry

09 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time to Reset Decision-Making in Your Organization

insights and practices as pandemic recovery plans are developed. Consider these five elements of organizational decision-making: information gathering; strategy; combining long-term thinking with short-term... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

2005
Book

Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book examines the history of Unilever over the last half century. Managing such a firm in the era of globalization posed enormous challenges. The book covers the company's strategies and provides compelling evidence of its decision-making, marketing, brand... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Globalization; Transformation; Human Resources; Business Strategy; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention; Consumer Products Industry

Article

Technology, Identity, and Inertia: Through the Lens of 'The Digital Photography Company'

By: Mary Tripsas

Organizations often experience difficulty when pursuing new technology. Large bodies of research have examined the behavioral, social, and cognitive forces that underlie this phenomenon; however, the role of an organization's identity remains relatively unexplored.... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Culture; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Perception; Technology Adoption

July 2001
Case

Paula Evans and the Redesign of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (B)

By: Linda A. Hill, Kristin Doughty and Ellen Pruyne

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Strategy; Secondary Education; Restructuring; Leadership; Education Industry; Cambridge

Julie Battilana is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School and the Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, where she is also the founder and faculty... View Details

2022
Book

Purpose + Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World

By: George Serafeim

The roadmap and best practices to reap the enormous value that can emerge when your business prioritizes social and environmental goals—such as climate change, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability—right alongside the pursuit of profit.

We not only... View Details

Keywords: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Profitability; Business And Society; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Value Creation; Organizational Change and Adaptation

11 Jan 2017
Blog Post

Leadership and Diversity at HBS

After working in financial services for nearly six years, I realized that the skills needed to succeed for the next 20 years of my career were likely to be different than the ones required at the junior ranks. It was important that I further develop my leadership View Details

January–February 2013
Article

Golfing Alone? Corporations, Elites and Nonprofit Growth in 100 American Communities

By: Christopher Marquis, Gerald F. Davis and Mary Ann Glynn

We examine the link between corporations and community by showing how corporate density interacts with the local social and cultural infrastructure to affect the growth and decline of the number of local nonprofits between 1987 and 2002. We focus on two sub-populations... View Details

Keywords: Business and Community Relations; Civil Society or Community; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Business Growth and Maturation; Profit; Local Range; Welfare or Wellbeing; Business Processes; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Trends; Management Practices and Processes; United States

01 Jun 2023
News

Alumni and Faculty Books

diversification will help you navigate change and mitigate uncertainty; and, when—not if—your needs change, you can and should rebalance. In The Portfolio Life, Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

May 2007
Article

Location Strategies and Knowledge Spillovers

By: Juan Alcacer and Wilbur Chung

Given the importance of proximity for knowledge spillovers, we examine firms' location choices expecting differences in firms' strategies. Firms will locate to maximize their net spillovers as a function of locations' knowledge activity, their own capabilities, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; For-Profit Firms; Knowledge Management; Research and Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruptive Innovation; Five Forces Framework; Cost Management; Technology; Competition; United States

August 1997 (Revised June 1999)
Case

Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology (A)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey

A major trust company attempts to implement a major software system while simultaneously reengineering business processes. Providian Trust, a previously non-IT intensive organization, must completely reposition its management of technology to deal with IT's new... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Institutions; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Financial Services Industry