Publications

Find at Harvard

March 2004 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Akamai Technologies

By: Benjamin Edelman, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Eric J. Van den Steen

As the leading content delivery network, Akamai helps Internet companies deliver Web site content to end users with fewer delays and lower costs. Describes the strategic management challenges facing Akamai in early 2004. The company is poised to offer its next... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure

December 2018 (Revised March 2021)
Background Note

Modern Automation (A): Artificial Intelligence

By: William R. Kerr and James Palano

This primer is meant to be a field guide to the late 2010s' surge in business use of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI), or enterprise software based in machine learning. First, it provides an overview of the key trends—digitization, connectivity, the continuation of... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Digitization; Connectivity; Computing; Future Of Work; Automation; AI and Machine Learning

August 1988 (Revised August 1989)
Case

Poletown Dilemma, The

By: Thomas R. Piper

Senior management of General Motors must select a site for a new assembly plant to replace two plants located in Detroit. The economics strongly favor a site in an adjacent state. However, a relocation would have substantial, negative impact on the existing work force,... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Offices; Management Teams; Restructuring; Economics; Auto Industry; Michigan

13 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

The Dark Side of Trust

Americans find it especially difficult to overcome trust barriers. Why did you look at this, and what were the results? A: Great business ideas can emerge anywhere in the economy. In fact, as we know from a long line of research, many great ideas are View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Service

September 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Claudine Deborah Madras

How do companies develop a strategy that is both low-cost and differentiated without becoming squeezed in the middle? Describes how Teva, Israel's first and largest multinational, achieved its globally dominant position in generic pharmaceuticals, an industry that has... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Emerging Markets; Rank and Position; Competitive Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; India; Israel

03 Jul 2013
What Do You Think?

What Are the Limits of Transparency?

given credit for fostering trust among members of an organization, building loyalty among employees, and generally creating better places to work. For many years we observed need-to-know policies (that may have had their origins in the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

many companies is that widespread salary cuts may not be workable because of existing employee agreements. Furloughs A furlough is a mandated unpaid leave of absence, utilized by private (such as General Motors during the 2019 United Auto... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

23 Jul 2018
News

Driving Digital Strategy to Reimagine Your Business

TeachingInterests

MBA Required Curriculum Marketing

Marketing

The objectives of this course are to demonstrate the role of marketing in the company; to explore the relationship of marketing to other functions; and to show how effective marketing builds on a thorough understanding of buyer behavior to create... View Details

16 Feb 2023
HBS Case

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

The impact-investment hedge fund Engine No. 1 made a big splash in May 2021 when it managed to get three nominees elected to the ExxonMobil board of directors. It was an open effort to prod the oil giant toward renewable energy and test whether activist investing could... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Financial Services

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

Find at Harvard

14 Apr 2020
News

Begin with Trust

September 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Esas Group: Investing Together, Staying Together

By: Christina R. Wing and Alpana Thapar

This case opens in June 2022, after Esas Group, one of Turkey’s largest family-owned investment firms, implements a series of changes to professionalize the business and help transition family members from operators to responsible investors. In December 2019, the Group... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Transition; Business or Company Management; Organizational Structure; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Turkey

22 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Componential Theory of Creativity

Keywords: by Teresa M. Amabile

01 Apr 2020
Blog Post

The Product Design Sprint - 5 Things I Learned in Launch Lab 1

Ventures, who invented the Sprint process, and popularized it in the book of the same name. Jake ran the first two days, then handed over to faculty co-chairs Alan MacCormack and Russ Wilcox. The pressure was on the teams to make progress, rapidly building prototypes... View Details

October 2003
Case

Henry Tam and the MGI Team

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Ingrid Vargas and Hillary Anger Elfenbein

Within a short time frame, seven diverse team members assemble to write a business plan for a new company and struggle to define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflict. Henry Tam, a second-year Harvard MBA student, who joins an aspiring start-up... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Business Plan; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Jobs and Positions; Leadership Style; Human Resources; Management Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Diversity