Publications

June 2015 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Uber and Stakeholders: Managing a New Way of Riding

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Daniel Fox

By 2015, technological innovations—the smartphone and the advanced data connectivity that enabled it—created new opportunities for people to move around cities quickly and conveniently without owning a car, via car-sharing services like Zipcar or new ride-sharing... View Details

Keywords: Uber; Ride-sharing; Sharing Economy; Transportation Network Company; Leadership And Change Management; Stakeholder Management; Managing Change; Leadership; Regulation; Smartphones; Web-enabled Application; Disruptive Technology; Startup Management; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Transportation; Mobile Technology; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry

24 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Small Businesses Deserve More Credit

study with Deniz Aydin, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis’s Olin Business School. Test case in Turkey To test how small firms manage and use their debt, Aydin and Kim turned to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services; Banking

May 2013 (Revised August 2013)
Case

McKinsey & Company

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kathleen Durante

In early 2013 the leaders of McKinsey & Co., were reflecting, as they did periodically, on the path forward for their firm. Founded in Chicago in 1926 by James O. McKinsey (Mac), with only a small staff in one office, the firm had grown to be a global company with more... View Details

Keywords: CONSULTING Firms; McKinsey; Professional Service Firm; Marvin Bower; Strategy; Governance; Consulting Industry

01 Jun 2002
News

Small Club, Big Impact

that can positively change their respective countries.” “We're a small club, but we try to have a big impact on the HBS community,” remarks Osawaye, a native of Benin City, Nigeria. “The conference is a forum that brings together some of... View Details

April 2013 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

By: David A. Garvin, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Liz Kind

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Business Policy; General Management; Human Resource Management; Management; Leadership; Human Resources

Article

Governments as Owners: State-Owned Multinational Companies

By: Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Andrew Inkpen, Aldo Musacchio and Kannan Ramaswamy

The globalization of state-owned multinational companies (SOMNCs) has become an important phenomenon in international business (IB), yet it has received scant attention in the literature. We explain how the analysis of SOMNCs can help advance the literature by... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Corporation; State-owned Enterprises; State Capitalism; FDI; Internationalization; Government And Business; National Oil Companies; State Ownership; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Subsidiaries; Acquisition; Pharmaceutical Industry; Energy Industry; China; India; Europe

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April 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Transitions Asia: Managing Across Cultures

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Dawn H. Lau

The director of an interim executive search firm, Chee Lung Tham, faced a clash of culture and management styles when his mainland Chinese client threatened to fire the American interim manager that Tham had assigned. The client, Wong Lung, ran a family-owned garment... View Details

Keywords: China; Cross-cultural Management; Management Style; Conflict Management; Family Business; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Service Industry; China

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

entrepreneurs are critical to innovation and the creation of the next companies like Google, they do not make up a large part of the small businesses community who are seeking loans. Lagace: How does the US... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

01 Nov 2019
News

It’s a Small World

Ming Chen (MBA 1998) is Chief Culture Office for the educational travel company EF Education First. In this video, she talks about her role in helping manage a large global business that strives to have a... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Management and Firm Dynamism

By: Nicholas Bloom, Jonathan S. Hartley, Raffaella Sadun, Rachel Schuh and John Van Reenen

We show better-managed firms are more dynamic in plant acquisitions, disposals, openings and closings in U.S. Census and international data. Better-managed firms also birth better-managed plants, and improve the performance of the plants they acquire. To explain these... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Business or Company Management; Performance Productivity

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January 2012 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Ctrip: Scientifically Managing Travel Services

By: David A. Garvin and Nancy Hua Dai

Ctrip is a $437 million Chinese on-line travel services company with a scientific, data driven approach to management. The case explores Ctrip's founding and early growth, its expansion into multiple market segments including hotel reservations, air ticketing, leisure... View Details

Keywords: Scientific Management; Data-driven Management; Management; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Market Entry and Exit; Mathematical Methods; Business Processes; Information Management; Travel Industry; China

June 2010 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Scientific Glass Incorporated: Inventory Management

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and William Schmidt

Scientific Glassware is a fast-growing, privately held company that provides specialized glassware for laboratory and research facilities. Excess inventory is tying up extra capital needed to fund the company's expansion plans. The newly hired Manager of Inventory... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Control; Inventory Management; Materials Management; Order Processing; Warehousing; Salesforce Management; Logistics; Operations; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Finance; Consumer Products Industry; Technology Industry

July 2013
Teaching Note

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

By: David A. Garvin

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Business Policy; General Management; Human Resource Management; Management; Leadership; Human Resources

15 Apr 2020
News

Millions Of US Small Businesses May Never Reopen

September 1996 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Monterrey Manufacturing Company

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

A small manufacturing company plans and budgets sales and expenses to ensure that its strategy is feasible. It must trace costs of manufacturing through work-in-process to finished goods and cost of goods sold, and project cash flows and income. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Business Earnings; Cash Flow; Sales; Budgets and Budgeting; Manufacturing Industry

October 2016 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company

By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million... View Details

Keywords: Lean Management; Operation Management; Service Management; Commercialization; Operations; Management; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Performance; Energy Industry; Europe

20 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

How Small Businesses Can Survive the Coronavirus Outbreak

from that experience in recent weeks as she helps government officials explore ways to shore up the 30 million small businesses that provide almost half of the country’s jobs. THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS More Business-Related Pandemic Coverage... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Service; Food & Beverage

December 2013
Article

How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management

By: David A. Garvin

High-performing knowledge workers often question whether managers actually contribute much, especially in a technical environment. Until recently, that was the case at Google, a company filled with self-starters who viewed management as more destructive than beneficial... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Human Resource Management; Managing Change; Organizational Change; Analytics; Management; Leadership; Human Resources; Talent and Talent Management

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March 2001 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Wilkerson Company

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The president of Wilkerson, faced with declining profits, is struggling to understand why the company is encountering severe price competition on one product line while able to raise prices without competitive response on another product line. The controller proposes... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Competition; Profit; Product; Consumer Products Industry