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- June 2007 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Thomas J. Watson, IBM and Nazi Germany
By: Geoffrey Jones, Grace Ballor and Adrian Brown
Considers the strategy of U.S.-owned IBM, then a manufacturer of punch cards, in Nazi Germany before 1937. Opens with IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson meeting Adolf Hitler in his capacity as President of the International Chamber of Commerce. IBM had acquired a German company... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Zoots - Financing Growth (A)
By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Todd Krasnow
Traces the genesis and founding of Zoots, the largest chain of dry cleaning establishments in the U.S. Founded by some of the founders of the very successful Staples chain, the company raises a very large amount of capital without fully proving its business model, and... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Lazard LLC
By: Guhan Subramanian and Eliot Sherman
Describes Lazard's situation in 2001, and supplies context for the subsequent negotiation between its Chairman and his hand-picked successor. In 2001 Lazard, the last of the great investment houses to remain both private and in the control of its founding family, is in... View Details
- June 2007
- Article
What Is the Impact of Software Patent Shifts? Evidence from Lotus v. Borland
By: Josh Lerner and Feng Zhu
Economists have debated the extent to which strengthening patent protection spurs or detracts from technological innovation. This paper examines the reduction of software copyright protection in the Lotus v. Borland decision. If patent and copyright protections are... View Details
- May 2007 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Netflix
By: Willy C. Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman and David Spinola
Reed Hastings founded Netflix with a vision to provide a home movie service that would do a better job satisfying customers than the traditional retail rental model. But as it encouraged challenges it underwent several major strategy shifts, ultimately developing a... View Details
- May 2007
- Article
Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer
Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of... View Details
- April 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Dr. Iqbal Survé at Sekunjalo Investment Group (A)
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker
Dr. Iqbal Surve, a self-described "medical doctor, philanthropist, and social entrepreneur," was born in 1963 and grew up in poverty, like virtually all non-white South Africans during apartheid. During the 1970s and 1980s, he served in leadership positions in the ANC,... View Details
- February 2007 (Revised August 2007)
- Case
Urban Video Game Academy: Getting in the Game
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Susan Saltrick
Urban Video Game Academy was founded to enhance the academic and career prospects of urban youth. How will its founder grow it into a sustainable business? Provides an opportunity to discuss the challenges of social entrepreneurship and how to create a sustainable... View Details
- January 2007 (Revised December 2007)
- Case
PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water
By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf and Marie Bell
Senior management at PSI, arguably the world's largest and most successful social marketer with impressive achievements in the field of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria prevention must determine what to do about their slow-to-take-off clean water initiative.... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised February 2009)
- Case
China Merchants Bank: Here Just For You
By: F. Warren McFarlan, GuoQing Chen, HengYuan Zhu, Bin Yang, Michael Shih-ta Chen, G.A. Donovan, Waishun Lo and Yan Yang
Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Prosper Marketplace, Inc.
By: William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth Kind
Describes a set of financial and strategic decisions confronting the founding management team of a new online financial services company. Prosper Marketplace is an internet-based market for individuals to borrow money from other individuals who wish to invest in such... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
By: Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, founders of Microsoft and Apple respectively, have revolutionized the relationship between the individual and computer technology. Once the exclusive domain of academia and research facilities, computers can now be found in every area of... View Details
- December 2006
- Article
Europe vs America: Institutional Hysteresis in a Simple Normative Model
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We show how the differences in US and European institutions can arise in a normative model. The paper focuses on the labor market and the government's decision to set unemployment benefits in response to an unemployment shock. The government balances insurance... View Details
- December 2006 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
Infosys in India: Building a Software Giant in a Corrupt Environment
By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Rafael M. Di Tella and Prabakar (PK) Kothandaraman
Shortly after Infosys was founded in 1981, its managers faced a major turning point when they made a decision to operate without giving in to the petty corruption rife in the Indian economy. Within just a few years, that decision had truly defined the company. Over the... View Details
- November 2006 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Goodyear and the Threat of Government Tire Grading
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Dennis A. Yao and Elizabeth Raabe
In the spring of 1977, Goodyear CEO Charles J. Pilliod Jr. was looking at an internal report on government and legal events relevant to the tire industry. Two items caught his attention. First, he noticed that an industry suit to block the government's proposed system... View Details
- September 2006 (Revised November 2008)
- Case
Supergrid
Supergrid is a mammoth wind-power development scheme for Europe, recently proposed by Airtricity. This firm, founded in 1997, is a fast-growing power-development company focused on wind. Already having built about 600 megawatts of wind turbines in Scotland and Ireland,... View Details
- August 2006
- Background Note
Analyzing Work Groups
By: Linda A. Hill and Michel Anteby
Work groups are the building blocks of organizations. They are found in all areas of an organization, from research and development to customer service, and at all levels, from the executive suite to the factory floor. Some are incredibly successful, while others are... View Details
- August 2006 (Revised October 2012)
- Case
Natura: Global Beauty Made in Brazil
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Explores the globalization strategies of Natura, Brazil's largest cosmetics company. Founded in 1969, Natura grew using a direct selling model. Led by its three founders, the firm made distinctive use of Brazil's diversity and became characterized by high ethical and... View Details
- August 2006 (Revised September 2008)
- Case
Duane Morris: Balancing Growth and Culture at a Law Firm
By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams
After nearly 100 years as a mid-size regional law firm, Duane Morris entered a period of spectacular growth led by CEO Sheldon Bonovitz. Originally founded by Quakers, the firm had a distinct organizational culture featuring a number of unique or unusual business... View Details
- August 2006
- Article
Extending the Faultline Concept to Geographically Dispersed Teams: How Colocated Subgroups Can Impair Group Functioning
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Brad Crisp, Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Jerry W. Kim
We theorize that in geographically dispersed teams, members' geographic locations are likely to activate "faultlines" (hypothetical dividing lines that split a group into subgroups) that impair team functioning. In a study of 45 teams comprised of graduate students... View Details