Publications

January 2009
Case

When Supply is of Public Interest: Roche & Tamiflu

The case focuses on the challenges of Roche maintaining a supply network for a global influenza pandemic response initiative based on its antiviral drug Tamiflu. The Roche group is a 40 billion CHF company consisting of a pharmaceutical division and a diagnostic... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Health Pandemics; Distribution; Logistics; Production; Supply Chain Management; Performance Capacity; Pharmaceutical Industry

November 2000 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Pokemon: Gotta Catch 'Em All

Pokemon, the colloquial name given to a collection of 150 fantastic, animal-inspired creatures with organic powers and the capacity to evolve, are the stars of video games, trading card games, and TV cartoons. Conceived in Japan in 1996, Pokemon quickly became that... View Details

Keywords: Age; Entertainment; Ethics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Brands and Branding; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Japan; United States

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Throwing Your Opponent: Strategies for the Internet Age

instantaneously," the Internet has created a world in which competitive advantage can appear and disappear overnight. Yoffie and Cusumano use the term "judo strategy" to encompass the combination of capabilities that competing on Internet time demands—speed,... View Details

Keywords: by Daniel Penrice

June 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Pokemon: Gotta Catch 'Em All (Abridged)

By: Youngme E. Moon

Pokemon, the colloquial name given to a collection of 150 fantastic, animal-inspired creatures with organic powers and the capacity to evolve, are the stars of video games, trading card games, and TV cartoons. Conceived in Japan in 1996, Pokemon quickly became that... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Age; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Copyright; Video Game Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Japan; Asia; United States

November 2001
Case

Sigma Networks, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Christina L. Darwall

Sigma Networks, a venture capital-based telecommunications start-up, provides metropolitan area networks (MANs) that use fiberoptic lines to connect local Internet service providers (e.g., ISPs, hosting firms) with a long-haul ("backbone") network. MANs represent a... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customers; Capital Budgeting; Venture Capital; Strategic Planning; Technology Networks; Telecommunications Industry

Find at Harvard

June 2025
Case

TagHive: Edtech Pricing and Distributor Decisions

By: Isamar Troncoso, Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg

Education technology (edtech) company TagHive, founded in 2017, used a direct sales team and third-party distributors to sell its Class Saathi hardware and software solution to 300 clients, mainly primary and secondary schools in India. The product aimed to improve... View Details

2020
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 6 The Value Structure of Technologies, Part 1: Mapping Functional Relationships

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

Organizations are formed in a free economy because an individual or group perceives value in carrying out a technical recipe that is beyond the capacity of a single person. Technology specifies what must be done, what resources must be assembled, what actions taken in... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Information Technology; Organizations; Value Creation

SSRN

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February 2019 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Electric Car Wars, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Electric cars had long been championed by environmentalists as a superior solution to the internal combustion engine (ICE), but, despite large government incentives and strong pioneering efforts by a few automakers over the years, electric and hybrid cars and light... View Details

December 2011
Case

Bergerac Systems: The Challenge of Backward Integration

By: David A. Garvin and Sunru Yong

Bergerac Systems is a small, rapidly growing manufacturer of diagnostic instruments used in veterinary practices. The company introduced the OmniVue chemistry analyzer, which enables veterinarians to run a wide range of blood and blood chemistry tests on their animal... View Details

Keywords: Financial Analysis; Manufacturing Strategy; Strategy; Production; Supply Chain Management; Vertical Integration; Performance Capacity; Financial Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

September 2024
Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details

16 Feb 2016
First Look

February 16, 2016

link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50591 Do Incentive Plans for Exemplary Employees Lead to Productive or Counterproductive Outcomes? By: Deller, Carolyn, and Tatiana Sandino Abstract—Using data from a retail chain, this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2021
Case

Brown Capital Management

By: Luis M. Viceira, Emily R. McComb and Sarah Mehta

Set in July 2021, this case looks at several growth strategies under consideration at Brown Capital, the second-oldest Black-owned asset management firm in the U.S. Since its 1983 founding, Baltimore-based Brown Capital has specialized in small company growth... View Details

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; insurance industry; medical devices; retailing; digital health

February 2020
Supplement

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (B)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum Industry; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

February 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Managing Blackout at Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Gamze Yücaoğlu and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe... View Details

Keywords: Aluminum; General Management; Cultural Change; Change Management; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Organizational Culture; Safety; Leadership; Emerging Markets; Bahrain; Middle East

06 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 6, 2007

imminent. ViaGen CEO Mark Walton needs to develop different business plans to commercialize cloning technology in pigs, cattle, and horses, all of which have a different industry structure. At the same time, he must consider what to do if... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Growing as a Purposeful Leader

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

Leaders today have to lead in the context of extraordinary changes and challenges. The demands of today's stakeholders have risen significantly, and what is expected of senior leaders is quickly evolving in terms of their mission (more than profit),... View Details

December 2023 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Boortmalt: The Master Maltster

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B Alvarez, Damien McLoughlin, Lena Duchene and Emer Moloney

By May 2023, Boortmalt was the world’s leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of... View Details