Publications

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April 2024
Supplement

RHI Magnesita (B): Brick by Brick—Diversification?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, David M Wagner, Oliver Gassmann and Jordan Mitchell

In Part A, as of April 2017, Austria’s RHI, a backward integrated refractory company is still within the midst of merging with the next biggest competitor, Brazil’s Magnesita, while weighing options for future growth. Should the company pursue organic growth options... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth and Development Strategy; Diversification

February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup

By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney

The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets

SSRN

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2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company, Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz, sought to reduce obesity and improve health outcomes. Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and interpretable... View Details

Keywords: Nutritional Information; Obesity; Weight Loss; App Development; Business Startups; Nutrition; Health; Information; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Entrepreneurship; Social Enterprise; Information Technology Industry; Health Industry

2008
Book

Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage

By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Joe Wheeler

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customer Ownership; Employee Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

October 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Ant Group (A)

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Feng Zhu, Susie L. Ma and Kerry Herman

In 2004, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba created Alipay, an app to facilitate payments on its e-commerce sites. As Alibaba grew, so did Alipay, until Alipay spawned its own ecosystem of financial technology products and services under the name of Ant Group. By 2020,... View Details

Keywords: Payment Systems; Information Technology; Value Creation; Network Effects; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Initial Public Offering; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

Program

Real Estate Management Program

succeed in a complex market by taking a holistic approach to real estate projects and addressing challenges from a cross-disciplinary perspective. As you examine sustainability goals, design considerations, financing strategies, industry... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Real Estate

October 2019 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Nehemiah Mfg. Co.: Providing a Second Chance

By: Michael Chu, Brian Trelstad and John Masko

In 2009, Dan Meyer and Richard Palmer, two veterans of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, founded Nehemiah Manufacturing to build FMCG brands while providing jobs to Cincinnati, Ohio’s beleaguered urban core. Two years later, the pair made their first... View Details

Keywords: Fast Moving Consumer Goods; Social Entrepreneurship; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Human Capital; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Social Marketing; Mission and Purpose; Prejudice and Bias; City; Urban Scope; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio; United States

December 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Studio Realty

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Bret J. Baird

Studio Realty created an "electronic open house" technology, by which home buyers sitting in a comfortable setting, could tour a home, viewing its rooms, its exterior, and surroundings, by clicking on digital images. Studio Realty attempted to sell or license its... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Failure; Innovation and Management; Market Entry and Exit; Real Estate Industry

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Faculty Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Hill is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. Hill is... View Details

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to reduce obesity and improve health outcomes. Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and interpretable... View Details

October 2016 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Misaki Capital and Sangetsu Corporation

By: Ian Gow, Charles C.Y. Wang, Naoko Jinjo and Nobuo Sato

Japan’s corporate culture has traditionally prioritized the interests of stakeholders such as customers, employees, and suppliers over those of shareholders. After a decades-long economic slump, Japan’s government has revitalized efforts to improve corporate governance... View Details

Keywords: Activist Investing; Constructivist Investing; Japan; Valuation; Stock Screens; Return On Equity; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Financial Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Japan

November 2008 (Revised January 2010)
Case

Stone Finch, Inc.: Young Division, Old Division

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Elizabeth Collins

CEO Jim Billings wants to attract energetic, entrepreneurial talent to Stone Finch, Inc., which comprises an older division that fabricates products like piping and tanks for water and wastewater processing plants, and a much newer division that develops biochemical... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Human Resource Management; Motivation; Business Growth; Motivation and Incentives; Leadership; Business Subsidiaries; Innovation Strategy; Resource Allocation; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Retention; Operations; Recruitment; Integration; Business Growth and Maturation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Unlocking Your Investment Capital

always the potential of a sort of death spiral taking place with these instruments if the market they're in turns sour? A: What I find more amazing is the extraordinary global progress that has been made over the past twenty-five years in... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

May 2006 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Codon Devices

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

In December 2005, 40-year-old John Danner was about to make his first presentation to the board of directors of Codon Devices, a one-year-old biotechnology start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a month as the company's CEO, Danner was prepared to lay out... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Intellectual Property; Governing and Advisory Boards; Genetics; Competitive Advantage; Science-Based Business; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Cambridge