Publications

June 1992 (Revised August 1992)
Case

Parker-Spencer: The Legal Form of Joint Ventures

Parker Co., a U.S. based agricultural chemical company with $4 billion in sales, has agreed to a joint venture with Spencer, Inc., a smaller U.S. based company, to develop and market a new herbicide for corn. The two companies must consider marketing, tax, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Joint Ventures; Taxation; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

1984
Book

The Results and Interpretation of Three Field Trials of Lysine Fortification of Cereals

By: James E. Austin, Jean Pierre Habicht, Max Milner, Vernon Young and Linda D. Myers

Keywords: Food; Nutrition

June 1984
Case

Federal Trade Commission and the Shared Monopoly Case against the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Manufacturers

By: Thomas K. McCraw and Richard S. Tedlow

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Monopoly; Courts and Trials; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 1993 (Revised June 1996)
Case

C.K. Coolidge, Inc. (A)

Coolidge (CKC), a chemical manufacturer, is being sued for patent infringement. Plaintiffs are the patent holder and its sole licensee, who is also a CKC competitor. An analyst at CKC has done breakeven decision analysis from CKC's perspective, balancing going to court... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Chemical Industry

July 2006 (Revised July 2007)
Case

C.K. Coolidge, Inc. (Abridged)

Coolidge (CKC), a chemical manufacturer, is being sued for patent infringement. The plaintiffs are the patent holder and its sole licensee, who is also a CKC competitor. An analyst at CKC has done a breakeven decision analysis from CKC's perspective, balancing going to... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Courts and Trials; Patents; Analysis; Decision Choices and Conditions; Lawsuits and Litigation; Chemical Industry

October 1992 (Revised September 1996)
Case

McDonald's Corporation

By: David M. Upton and Joshua D. Margolis

McDonald's has over many years built an operating strategy based on consistency and quality through a limited product range. Competitive forces have drawn the company into a much wider variety of foods and services in order to maintain growth. Now, new competitors... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Problems and Challenges; Environmental Sustainability; Quality; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Integration; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 2006
Case

Organics: Coming Center Stage?

By: James E. Austin and Reed Martin

The organics movement has certainly come a long way. From hippie farming communes and a scattering of natural food stores in the 1960s, organics outgrew its origins as a counterculture curiosity of the 1970s to become the fastest growing segment of the food industry in... View Details

Keywords: Food; Supply and Industry; Consumer Behavior; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

December 2009
Teaching Note

Diageo and East African Breweries Ltd.: Tapping New Markets for Social Good (TN)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Matthew Bird

Teaching Note for [310010]. View Details

Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry; Kenya; United Kingdom

06 Aug 2018
Research & Ideas

Supersmart Manufacturing Tools are Lowering Prices on TVs, Bulbs, and Solar Panels

the boom in LED manufacturing, Chinese local governments would pay for 100 percent of the cost of the metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) tool used to make LEDs, so naturally what followed was a dramatic over-expansion of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing; Electronics

January 1996 (Revised October 1997)
Case

Americhem: The Gaylord Division (A)

By: David A. Garvin

The Gaylord Division of Americhem, a large chemical company, is in the midst of the first use of a new zero-base budgeting system. The general manager of the division leading the process is experiencing disagreement and conflict among the members of the senior... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges

February 1987 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Polysar Limited

By: Robert L. Simons

Canada's largest chemical company produces and markets butyl rubber in two divisions, each treated as a profit center. The new plant in the North American Division operates below capacity resulting in a significant volume variance and an operating loss. The European... View Details

Keywords: Loss; Profit; Financial Management; Volume; Performance Capacity; Financial Statements; For-Profit Firms; Market Participation; Chemical Industry; Chemical Industry; Canada

Elisabeth Paulson is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches the first year course on Technology and Operations Management in the required curriculum.
View Details

Keywords: agriculture; federal government; state government; grocery; nonprofit industry

01 Jul 2016
News

Working in Tension

August 2001
Case

Finnigan Corporation

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Barbara Feinberg

Finnigan Corp., headquartered in San Jose, CA, was the world's leading producer of mass spectrometers, holding a 45% market share of instruments used for chemical analysis in pharmaceutical product development, environmental testing, genetic testing, and other... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Financial Crisis; Machinery and Machining; Technology Industry; San Jose

December 2000
Case

Friona Industries, L.P.

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

As the food industry becomes more sophisticated, and as genomics and other factors provide for quality control from the producers to the consumers in the food chain, the beef industry has been one of the last commodity systems to organize the vertical systems to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Food; Management Systems; Supply and Industry; Performance Consistency; Quality; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry