Publications

08 Jul 2021
Blog Post

Catching the Entrepreneurship Bug at HBS

ultimate team player and not at all as the type of person who would strike out on their own. I love getting dropped into new situations and diverse teams to solve new problems and this interest in View Details

August 2016 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Nirvana Vihar Rehabilitation Homes

By: Shawn Cole, Andreas Rotenberg and Thomas van den Aarssen

Kumar Builders (KUL) was finally nearing completion on the four luxury condominium towers that comprised the first phase of its bold vision for the redevelopment of more than 70 acres of prime real estate in downtown Pune, India. The Nirvana Hills development also... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Slum Redevelopment; Double Bottom Line; Economic Development; Partnerships; Partners and Partnerships; Development Economics; Urban Development; Business and Community Relations; Real Estate Industry; India

January 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Amanco: Developing the Sustainability Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Describes the challenges of using the Balanced Scorecard to implement a triple-bottom-line strategy for delivering excellent economic, environmental, and social performance. The owners and senior executive team of Amanco, a producer of plastic pipe and complete water... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Strategy; Construction Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Latin America; Brazil

March 2011
Case

United Cereal: Lora Brill's Eurobrand Challenge

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Carole Carlson

The case, set within the European organization of a giant multinational breakfast foods company, describes a launch decision for a new cereal product. As the case evolves, the decision has major strategic and organizational implications for Lora Brill, European VP. The... View Details

Keywords: Subsidiaries; Market Entry; Multinational Corporations; Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Managerial Roles; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Product Launch; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe

July 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

The Mozilla Foundation: Launching Firefox 1.0 (A)

Explores the Mozilla Foundation's decisions leading up to the launch of Firefox 1.0, including its default browser, managing corporate partnerships, managing product development, and moving toward a revenue-based model. Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Commercialization; Open Source Distribution; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology; Social Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; United States

September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

ZenRecruit: Sales Coaching and Performance Reviews

By: Mark Roberge

Amara Kaggwa leads the small but rapidly expanding sales team at ZenRecruit, a recruiting software application used by small businesses. Armed with six months of sales performance metrics, Kaggwa is preparing for her monthly performance conversations with two... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Sales

April 2018
Case

Ferrari

By: Stefan Thomke, Elena Corsi and Ashok Nimgade

Ferrari is among the world’s most powerful brands, but how the company operates has remained mysterious. The case reveals the inner workings of the company—the Ferrari Way—from the way it designs, produces, and markets its cars, to how its leadership team is driving... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Innovation; Technology Adoption; Product Design; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Operations; Management; Growth and Development; Auto Industry

February 2001
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.: Solaris Strategy

In the late 1990s, Sun Microsystems' Solaris has emerged as the dominant UNIX-based alternative to Microsoft for server operating systems. At the same time, the open source operating system Linux has appeared unexpectedly, and it is generating significant excitement... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Standards

Find at Harvard

July 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Mary Kay Inc.: Enriching Women's Lives while Embracing Change

By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Julia Kelley

In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at... View Details

January 2006
Case

Jack Strang at SequenceLabs

By: Mukti Khaire, John J. Gabarro and Lynda M. Applegate

How can entrepreneur manage his firm if things go wrong despite having a great idea, a solid team, and financial backing? Jack Strang founded a biotech firm with his friend Peter Evans, to develop molecular pathway-based "cures" for metabolic disorders. The idea was... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Growth and Maturation; Failure; Biotechnology Industry

Research Summary

Firm Performance, Senior Management, and Managerial Representation

While my work on strategic human capital studies how the characteristics of management shape performance, this work in effect focuses on the reverse: how performance shapes a key characteristic of the firm's management

Working with Professor David Thomas,... View Details

December 2022 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Iberdrola: Leading the Energy Revolution

By: Juan Alcácer and Emer Moloney

At the end of 2019, Ignacio Galán, the Chairman and CEO of the world's third largest utility, Iberdrola, reflected on his almost 20 years at the company. He managed a portfolio of three very different businesses, each with their own specific opportunities and... View Details

11 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

crucial, especially for managers trying to lead widely dispersed teams during difficult times, says Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Julian Zlatev. Many managers... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

10 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back

However, she does have concrete advice for hiring managers and supervisors: Hold male and female employees to the same standards. If an employee seems to miss the mark on an assignment, “it’s possible that we might get unfairly upset... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

Guhan Subramanian

Guhan Subramanian is the Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and the Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School. He is the first person in the history of Harvard... View Details

July 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Branding Citigroup's Consumer Business

By: Rohit Deshpande and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In Spring 1998, Citicorp and Travelers merged to create a financial powerhouse that united the bank with Travelers' consumer finance and brokerage businesses, including Salomon Smith Barney and Primerica. It was the first U.S. financial services company to combine... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Decisions; Asset Management; Investment Banking; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Relationships; Business and Shareholder Relations; Banking Industry; United States

June 2020
Case

RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

Professor Nolan earned his B.A. from the University of Washington in Production and Operations Research in 1962, and his M.B.A and Ph.D. in 1963 and 1966, respectively. Upon graduation in 1966, he joined Boeing Commercial Airplane Company as an Information... View Details

Keywords: aerospace; information technology industry; internet

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to reduce obesity and improve health outcomes. Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and interpretable... View Details