Publications

July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth

By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind

Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Growth Management; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America

June 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Takashimaya in Transition

By: Rajiv Lal, Masako Egawa and Chisato Toyama

Takashimaya, the largest department store in Japan, was suffering from declining sales. CEO Koji Suzuki had succeeded in instituting changes to cut costs. However, Suzuki needed to come up with a strategy to increase sales, particularly in apparel, which comprised the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Sales; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Japan

July 1993 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Block 16: Conoco's "Green" Oil Strategy (A)

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Susan E.A. Hall

Conoco's attempted to win an oil development contract in Ecuador's tropical rain forest. The case discusses government perspectives, environmental perspectives, and indigenous people's perspectives. Allows role playing in a "negotiating forum" set up by Conoco to get... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Contracts; Growth and Development Strategy; Negotiation; Practice; Business and Community Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Perspective; Culture; Corporate Strategy; Latin America

2017
Working Paper

Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance

By: Diwas S. KC, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino

How individuals manage, organize, and complete their tasks is central to operations management. Recent research in operations focuses on how under conditions of increasing workload, individuals can increase their service time, up to a point, to complete work more... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Productivity

SSRN

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December 2014
Article

The Discipline of Business Experimentation

By: Stefan Thomke and Jim Manzi

The data you already have can't tell you how customers will react to innovations. To discover if a truly novel concept will succeed, you must subject it to a rigorous experiment. In most companies, tests do not adhere to scientific and statistical principles. As a... View Details

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2010
Chapter

Business Groups in Historical Perspectives

By: Geoffrey Jones and Asli M. Colpan

Business groups-collections of legally independent firms interconnected by multiple economic and social linkages that exhibit widely diversified product portfolios-are viewed as the prototypical large-enterprise form in contemporary emerging economies. By exploring the... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Management Skills; Emerging Markets; Alliances; Groups and Teams; Competitive Advantage; Great Britain

14 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need

environments where candor is expected and where employees can speak up without fear of retribution. When employees feel psychologically safe, they’re empowered to iterate and take risks—leading to better team performance. “You no longer... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

August 2021
Article

Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds

By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun

We provide evidence that bond fund managers misclassify their holdings, and that these misclassifications have a real and significant impact on investor capital flows. In particular, many funds report more investment grade assets than are actually held in their... View Details

Keywords: Mutual Funds; Economics; Finance; Measurement and Metrics; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

September 2011 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Hassina Sherjan

By: Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim and Pippa Eccles

Hassina Sherjan was born in Afghanistan but grew up and was educated in the United States. A trip to Afghanistan when she was an adult inspired her to move back to her home country with two missions. The first was to educate young women through a non-profit... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Innovation Leadership; Development Economics; Growth and Development; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry; Afghanistan; United States

09 Feb 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future?

Keywords: by Annissa Alusi, Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson & Tiona Zuzul

Research Summary

Competing on a Common Platform

Why have over 100 firms joined the Eclipse Foundation to collectively produce an open source platform and tools for software application development? What are they trying to accomplish? This research analyzes IBMs divestment of the Eclipse Java Integrated Development... View Details

29 Mar 2016
First Look

March 29, 2016

answering one key question: How are leaders successfully managing competitive companies in the 21st century? Today's constantly changing business environment presents challenges and opportunities that are more dynamic and complex than... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

$15 Billion in Five Years: What Data Tells Us About MacKenzie Scott’s Philanthropy

of gifts over time. So many in the nonprofit and philanthropy world wondered how Scott’s nonconforming principles would be expressed in her actual giving. Scott, whose net worth has been estimated to top $40 billion, established the organization Yield Giving in 2022 to... View Details

Keywords: by Matthew Lee, Brian Trelstad, and Ethan Tran

July 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Lenovo: Building A Global Brand

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Announced in December 2004, the $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM's PC division by Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, made headlines around the world. A relative upstart in the business, Lenovo acquired the division of IBM that invented the PC in 1981. While Lenovo was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Information Infrastructure; Global Strategy; Acquisition; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry; China

May 2007
Article

Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Performance; Motivation and Incentives; Perception; Practice

Research Summary

Investment and marketing strategies of American multinationals in Argentina (1890c-1939)

Andrea Lluch is undertaking a major research project on American business expansion in Argentina up to the beginning of World War II. The first part of the project focuses on the American companies investment strategies. The second part analyses of the evolution of... View Details

2022
Case

Charting a Course for Boston: Organizing for Change

By: Lisa C. Cox, Mitchell B. Weiss and Jorrit De Jong

Michelle Wu had been elected on the promise of systemic change, but four days after her November 2021 election and just eleven days before taking office as mayor of Boston, she was still considering how best to staff and manage a range of over-arching priorities.... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Selection and Staffing; City; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Boston

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14 Jun 2013
News

Auto-Repair Shops Tend to Overcharge Women, Except When They Don't

March 2003 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Sustainable Development at Shell (A)

Describes the complex and challenging process by which social and environmental concerns are integrated into the existing strategy of a large, multinational firm. Details the circumstances leading up to a large-scale effort to transform Shell's strategy to take into... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Energy Industry