Publications

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

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January 1991 (Revised March 1996)
Case

Profiling at National Mutual (A)

This case series describes a company grappling with organizational change through information technology. National Mutual Life Association vies for Australian insurance industry leadership with its long-time competitor. It has purchased an expert system called Client... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Insurance Industry; Australia

03 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Desperate for Talent? Consider Advancing Your Own Employees First

Job openings in the United States continue to hover at record high levels, exacerbated by the Great Resignation and a sputtering emergence from the pandemic. Competition remains fierce among companies struggling to find qualified workers. Yet many employers,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

March 2025
Case

Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work the Taylor Way

By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg

In 2013, guitar manufacturer Taylor Guitars’ co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug were considering several exit options including selling to a competitor or to a private equity firm. The co-founders decided, instead, to embark on a seven-year process to transfer 100%... View Details

January 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Metapath Software: September 1997

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Bill Wasik

In September 1997, John Hansen called together his board to debate an interesting choice that his company had to make. Hansen--the CEO of Metapath Software, a provider of software and services to wireless carriers--had two offers to describe. The first was an offer to... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Stocks; Public Ownership; Negotiation Deal; Telecommunications Industry; Information Technology Industry

Henry McGee joined the HBS faculty in 2013 after retiring as President of HBO Home Entertainment, the digital and DVD program distribution division of Home Box Office, the pioneering premium television company. A member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit,... View Details

Keywords: television; motion pictures; media; e-commerce industry; entertainment; broadcasting; distribution; health care; journalism; wholesale; arts; nonprofit industry

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

time compared to the support departments. We suggest that the burden of compensating for the disconnected internal supply chains fell to the service providers because they were the only department that had both the ability to translate... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why IT Does Matter

advantage. As a result, he said, companies should rethink how much they pay for IT given this reduced return on investment. HBR received a large number of positive and critical responses to Carr's piece including a letter we offer here... View Details

Keywords: by F. Warren McFarlan & Richard L. Nolan

22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

Thanks to the pioneering success of Toyota, the concept of a "lean" operating system has been implemented in countless manufacturing companies and even adapted for industries as diverse as insurance and healthcare. With its... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

other countries outside China such as Germany and Sweden before local contagion even started, allowing precious time to acquire personal protective equipment before it became scarce. Second, since the View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

16 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘The Strategist’

Editor's Note: Back in the day, crafting and owning the company strategy was at the forefront of a business leader's priorities. Over the years, though, more and more, the responsibility has tended to be outsourced to consultants armed... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia A. Montgomery

13 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

The Consumer Appeal of Underdog Branding

biography salient allows consumers to identify with a brand's projected passion and struggles rather than its size, and this effect may overpower any negative attributions associated with large size or a firm's top-dog status. People may have an easier View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Oct 2010
Lessons from the Classroom

Venture Capital’s Disconnect with Clean Tech

different from the historically well-funded Internet start-up industry. In the Internet start-up world, VCs can reasonably assume that a company can go from launching a product to getting acquired—or even going public—within a few years.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities; Financial Services

Jeffrey J. Bussgang

General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners

Former entrepreneur turned VC, HBS Senior Lecturer, author of three, dad of three, husband of one, civic leader, and fan of all Boston sports.

Jeffrey J. Bussgang is a Senior... View Details

Pietro Satriano

Pietro Satriano is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. He sits on the boards of CarMax, the largest omni-channel used car retailer in the U.S. and Metro, a large regional grocery retailer in Canada. Pietro advises a number of food-tech startups and acts... View Details

January 2022
Case

Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen

By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details

Keywords: Green Hydrogen; Energy; Climate Change; Supply Chain; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology; Projects; Alliances; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

20 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

How Partisan Politics Play Out in American Boardrooms

result. The findings by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Elisabeth Kempf come at a time of heightened political discord and polarization among Americans. The research sheds new light on how the same dynamics are unfolding in... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

November 2014 (Revised February 2016)
Case

DoubleDutch

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Matthew G. Preble

Lawrence Coburn and Pankaj Prasad, co-founders of the event solution startup DoubleDutch, have to make a significant decision about their young company's sales function. DoubleDutch's key product was a mobile application (app) and event management platform that... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Selling; Marketing Management; Strategy Implementation; Business Marketing; Sales Force Management; Salesforce Management; Marketing; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States; Europe; Asia