Publications

Program

Leadership for Senior Executives

innovator, change agent, and architect) Evaluate your leadership style and how you give and receive feedback Understand and leverage your leadership strengths Maximize talent in your organization Apply strategies for leveraging and retaining talent Create an View Details

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

can increase creativity within a firm, they also aid in the diffusion of creative knowledge to other firms through personnel and knowledge transfer. Firms that operate within small worlds such as in Silicon Valley long ago learned to manage invention in an View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Get In Touch | About

Business & Environment Initiative +1.617.495.6886 bei@hbs.edu Business History Initiative +1.617.495.1003 bhi@hbs.edu Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard +1.617.496.8274 d3@harvard.edu Entrepreneurship Rock Center for... View Details

Program

Finance for Senior Executives

Balance profit, growth, and control in dynamic environments Implement restructuring strategies Understand the implications of financial reports Establish optimal systems for management and control Develop successful and realistic... View Details

05 Jul 2023
HBS Case

What Kind of Leader Are You? How Three Action Orientations Can Help You Meet the Moment

Ron Johnson as chief executive officer of JCPenney. Johnson joined from Target and previously worked for Apple, where he’s credited with developing the Apple Store concept. “The trap is when you rely too heavily on one orientation, the View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

Article

Strategic Orientations in a Competitive Context: The Role of Strategic Orientation Differentiation

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Amir Grinstein and Elie Ofek

Strategic orientation studies often provide 'best practice prescriptions' for firms in a given context—matching orientations to environmental conditions. While this perspective has value, empirical results are equivocal, and an important reality has been overlooked:... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Change Management; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions

Find at Harvard

22 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Dynamic Effects of Bundling as a Product Strategy

Keywords: by Timothy Derdenger & Vineet Kumar; Video Game

2018
Working Paper

The State of Open Source Server Software

By: Shane Greenstein and Klaus Ackermann

The study assembles new data to construct a census of worldwide web server use across the globe. We document a large concentration of investment in the United States, and a wide dispersion across scores of countries. We find tens of billions of dollars of unmeasured... View Details

Keywords: Internet; Open Source; Internet and the Web; Policy; Open Source Distribution; Internet and the Web; Global Range

Read Now

November 2007 (Revised December 2008)
Background Note

China Rising: An Economic Snapshot

"China Rising: An Economic Snapshot" provides readers with an overview of China's economic transformation, relying on economic data from a variety of sources. It is organized into three sections: (1) "The Big Picture" explores macroeconomic indicators, as well as those... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Local Range; Globalized Economies and Regions; Business and Government Relations; China

May 2021 (Revised September 2021)
Case

CPE and SUS Environmental: You've Got to Know When to Hold 'Em

By: Josh Lerner and Franko Jira

In July 2016, Di Yang and Grace Guo of the leading Chinese private equity group CPE faced a dilemma—a happy dilemma, but a challenge nonetheless. CPE’s investment in the waste-to-energy firm SUS Environment had proved to be exceedingly successful. This success had... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment Return; Growth and Development

Research Summary

Meaningful Work as a Process of Imagination, Narrative, Self-Efficacy and Enactment

I am particularly concerned with the elicitation of images as they represent, in their association and amplification, the fullness of cognition in its affective, rational and behavioral dimensions. Careers may be conceptualized as a reciprocal interaction of... View Details

2016
Working Paper

Signaling without Certification: The Critical Role of Civil Society Scrutiny

By: Susan A. Kayser, John W. Maxwell and Michael W. Toffel

In response to stakeholders' growing concerns, companies are joining voluntary environmental programs to signal their superior environmental management capabilities. In contrast to the literature's focus on certification programs that require a third-party audit, we... View Details

Keywords: United Nations; Labor Standards; Supplier Relationship; Procurement; Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Quality And Safety; Risk; Globalization; Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance; Working Conditions; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Quality; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Reputation

SSRN

Read Now

February 2009
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals: The Venture Debt Question

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

The CEO of a promising biotech company must decide how to respond to the macro-economic slump of late 2008. He had planned to pursue an aggressive schedule, moving the firm's Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease imaging compounds through clinical trials and into the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital; Financial Management; Investment; Health Testing and Trials; Expansion; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Cooking Down a Storm: Changing Culture at Pasta Serafina (A)

By: Susanna Gallani, Francesca Gino and Raffaella Sadun

Plant management at Pasta Serafina, a pasta producer in the south of Italy, is struggling to contain employee absenteeism. While the misbehavior is concentrated in a minority of the workers, its effects impact not only the plant’s performance, but also the climate and... View Details

Keywords: Absenteeism; Moral Hazard; Employees; Behavior; Problems and Challenges; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employee Relationship Management; Performance Productivity; Decision Making

January 2009
Case

Supersonic Business Jets

By: Dennis A. Yao and Julia Rozovsky

In the fall of 2002, Brian Barents, ex-CEO of Galaxy Aerospace, faced an important decision: whether or not to enter the supersonic business jet (SSBJ) industry. Supersonic flight-flight faster than the speed of sound-had long tantalized leaders of commercial aerospace... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Governance Compliance; Market Entry and Exit; Business Strategy; Cooperation; Aerospace Industry

August 2002 (Revised December 2002)
Case

AOL Europe vs. Freeserve (A)

By: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak

AOL Europe must decide how to respond to Freeserve, a free Internet Service Provider (ISP) that has signed up 1.6 million British customers in its first six months. After becoming the leading ISP in the United States, AOL has formed a joint venture with Bertelsmann to... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Internet; Web Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry; France; Germany; United Kingdom; United States

08 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

Black Employees Not Only Earn Less, But Deal with Bad Bosses and Poor Conditions

the groups weren’t large, they remained consistent across Zhang’s research models. “We saw consistent racial differences when it comes to the level of amenities in the workplace,” Zhang says. What’s causing work environment inequities?... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2025
Working Paper

Navigating Choppy Waters: How U.S. Trade Policy Uncertainty Affects Small Businesses

By: David Atkin, Zoë Cullen and Ebehi Iyoha

This paper explores the impact of recent changes in the US trade policy environment on small businesses. Drawing on a survey of more than 4,000 small businesses conducted between March 22 and 31, 2025, we examine firms’ knowledge, expectations, and decisions during... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Risk and Uncertainty; Government Legislation; Globalization; International Relations; Small Business