Publications

Teaching Interest

Digital Marketing Strategy

By: John A. Deighton

When the tools of marketing change, strategies change too. The focus of this course is on firms trying to navigate the transition from offline to online market-making and strategy development. Our concern is primarily with corporations that have products and... View Details

02 Feb 2021
Blog Post

Finding My Focus in Health care Amidst a Global Pandemic

decade, legislators have passed countless health care policies that impact how hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers deliver services to patients. Even more, the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has uncovered major... View Details

July 2022
Supplement

General Mills: Responding to the Killing of George Floyd (B)

By: Debora L. Spar and Alicia Dadlani

Jeff Harmening, CEO of General Mills, one of the world's largest manufacturers of breakfast cereals and packaged foods, was deeply disturbed and instantly aware that he and General Mills would need to respond. George Floyd, an African-American man who had been accused... View Details

Keywords: Race; Decisions; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Consumer Products Industry; Minneapolis; Minnesota; United States

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

How did the United States become the world’s center of business growth following its founding in 1776? Surely a number of nations had powerful natural resources, stable financial and legal institutions, and dynamic entrepreneurs over that same span. Why was American... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

OpenInvest

By: Shawn Cole, Boris Vallée and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolios to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapons manufacturers stocks or overweighting... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Impact Investing; Investment Portfolio; Customization and Personalization; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry

03 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Layoffs Can Be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff

as a company that has thought deeply about its relationship and obligations to employees. The French industrial giant, she says, sees the job offer as the beginning of a long-term relationship focused on mutual growth. Michelin vows “to... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Regina E. Herzlinger

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: insurance industry; insurance industry; insurance industry; insurance industry; insurance industry

Article

Control, Performance, and Knowledge Transfers in Large Multinationals: Unilever in the United States, 1945-1980

By: G. Jones

This article considers key issues relating to the organization and performance of large multinational firms in the post-Second World War period. Although foreign direct investment is defined by ownership and control, in practice the nature of that "control" is far from... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Governance Controls; Performance; Business or Company Management; Ownership; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

January 1999
Exercise

Seneca Systems (A): General and Confidential Instructions for C. Stevens, Vice President, Assembly Division

Seneca is a three-party negotiation-mediation simulation. The context is a product failure crisis in a manufacturing company with highly autonomous units. The heads of two divisions are in a dispute over who has responsibility for failures in a key product. The head of... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Participants; Business Divisions; Power and Influence; Manufacturing Industry

Web

Introduction – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

HBS Home HBS Index Contact Us A New Vision An Essay by Professors Michel Anteby and Rakesh Khurana Next Introduction The Human Relations Movement: Harvard Business School and the Hawthorne Experiments (1924-1933) In the 1920s Elton Mayo, a professor of View Details

17 Oct 2023
HBS Case

With Subscription Fatigue Setting In, Companies Need to Think Hard About Fees

sort of subscription offering, according to a new industry and background note coauthored by Harvard Business School Professor Elie Ofek. And they’re expected to multiply in the years ahead, with subscription billings by companies likely... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Information; Information Technology

January 1984 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Turning Around Alcan Europe (A): Patrick Rich's First Four Months as CEO-Europe

Faced with large losses in Alcan Aluminum (Europe), Patrick Rich takes the position of area general manager and slashes capital budgets, introduces new financial controls, and sets up mechanisms for increasing cooperation among the national subsidiaries. The focus is... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Manufacturing Industry; Europe

January 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Stonewall Kitchen

By: Myra M. Hart, Victoria Winston, Kristin Lieb, Kenna Wyllie Baudin, Alison Bell and Leslie Simmons

Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders of Stonewall Kitchen, started out in 1992 with a simple business selling jams and jellies at local farmers' markets. By 2004, they had grown the company into a $25 million organization with 250 employees. They expanded their... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Food; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States

Web

Curriculum - Case Method Project

colonial charters; voting rights and franchise requirements in the early United States; populism; industrialization and urbanization; Rhode Island; suffrage movement; Dorr Rebellion; President John Tyler Debt and Democracy: The New York... View Details

2008
Other Unpublished Work

Are Private Equity Firms Better Managed?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Performance Improvement; Manufacturing Industry; Asia; Europe; United States

Read Now

12 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

The Untold Story of ‘Green’ Entrepreneurs

In the 1920s, on pitch black nights in rural eastern Montana, the farmhouse owned by the parents of brothers Marcellus and Joe Jacobs stood out for one reason: it had light, although located far from power lines and gasoline supplies. It was a beacon in the dark that... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Overview

By: Willy C. Shih

Willy's research interests reflect the 28 years he spent in industry, during which he logged many questions on firm performance, relative competitiveness, and firm culture as an impediment to change. His primary interests today are in the drivers of industrial... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technology; Competitiveness; Competitive Dynamics; Supply Chains; Production; Operations; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Asia; Europe

2008
Working Paper

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

As the main producers of managerial elites, business schools represent strategic research sites for understanding the formation of economic practices and representations. This article draws on historical material to analyze the changing place of economics in American... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Business Education; Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Chicago

September 1983 (Revised October 1984)
Case

Boston Whaler, Inc.: Managing the Dealer Network

Mr. Joseph Lawler, newly-appointed president of Boston Whaler, Inc. (BWI), believes that better dealer management is the key to his company's continued growth. BWI manufactured a high-price, high performance line of power and other boats for the recreational,... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Product Marketing; Consumer Products Industry