Publications

March 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Mercury Rising: Knight Ridder's Digital Venture

Captures the efforts of newspaper publisher Knight Ridder to create a digital venture. Knight Ridder proves to be a pioneer in digital publishing, launching the first online newspaper site; builds a network of newspaper sites called Real Cities; and invests in... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Business Growth and Maturation; Market Entry and Exit; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Newspapers; Innovation and Invention; Journalism and News Industry

March 2002 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Price of Light, The: Privatization, Regulation and Valuation in Brazil

Asks students to produce a valuation for Rio Light, a Brazilian power company that is state owned and to be sold in March 1996. If successful, the privatization would bring in over $2 billion to the Brazilian treasury. But success was far from assured. Members of the... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Energy Generation; Privatization; Corporate Governance; Energy Industry; Brazil

Find at Harvard

April 2001 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Moore Medical Corporation

Moore Medical is a medium-sized distributor of medical supplies to practitioners, such as podiatrists and emergency medical technicians. At the time of the case, it has relied on traditional customer channels such as catalogs, phones, and faxes to communicate product... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Information Technology; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Distribution Industry

February 2000 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Gray Security: Building a South African Services Firm

Describes Gray Security Services, an entrepreneurial South African firm that has recently gone through a financial restructuring with the help of Brait Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Gray provides complete security services to companies in South Africa, other... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Entrepreneurship; Equity; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; South Africa

2020
Working Paper

Why Do Firms Automate Production, and How Do They Adjust? Evidence from the Bell Telephone System over the 20th Century

By: Daniel P. Gross and James J. Feigenbaum

Over the course of the 20th century, AT&T's operating companies replaced telephone operators with mechanical switching and dial telephones. Yet it took AT&T 30 years from the invention of the technology to begin using it, and another 60 years to finish installing it... View Details

Keywords: Employment; Labor; Technology Adoption; Technology Networks; History; Telecommunications Industry; United States

29 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Super Bowl Ads for Multitaskers

masters of the genre like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Anheuser-Busch consistently show. On the other hand, says Teixeira, "if a good portion of your sales—or even a good portion of your communications—are online, you might get a better response from an action- or... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising; Sports

October 2016 (Revised November 2016)
Case

DO & CO: Gourmet Entertainment

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

This case is about a global catering, restaurant, and hospitality company, DO & CO, growing geographically with its existing businesses while also adding new brands to its portfolio. The company had $1 billion in revenues in 2015 from its three divisions: airline... View Details

October 2010
Article

The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman

Many of our largest and most successful companies today did not exist 50 years ago. During this same time interval, companies that ranked among top in the 1960s have disappeared, been merged out of existence, or become much smaller presences in the U.S. industrial... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Investment Funds; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Accountability; Management Practices and Processes; Infrastructure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Effectiveness; Nonprofit Organizations

Find at Harvard

August 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Medco Energi Internasional

In late 2004, Hilmi Panigoro, CEO of the publicly traded Indonesian oil company Medco Energi Internasional, is striving to regain majority control of the company his brother Arifin founded in 1980. The Asian financial crisis of 1999 led to a major restructuring that... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Family Business; Restructuring; Financing and Loans; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Indonesia; Singapore

10 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

High Commitment, High Performance Management

McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and Toyota, says Beer. Yet any company can change for the better, no matter the industry. GE, Becton Dickinson, Campbell Soup, IBM, and ASDA, a U.K. grocery chain, are examples of View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Learning in Action

Bean, the U.S. Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), AT&T's Bell Laboratories, the Timken Companies and General Electric's Change Acceleration Process (CAP). L.L. Bean has long relied on inquiry as a source of learning to... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

Program

Senior Executive Leadership Program—Middle East

Take advantage of resources for lifelong learning as a member of the global HBS alumni community Who Should Attend Senior executives, senior functional leaders, or general managers leading successful, established companies in the Middle... View Details

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Market for Babies

telegraph, the radio, and so forth) that had been every bit as radical in their time as the Internet had become in ours. I argued that all of these technologies had gone through cycles of commercial expansion and political response and... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

September 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth

By: Mark Egan

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working... View Details

Keywords: Inventory; Working Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financing and Loans; Apparel and Accessories Industry

January 2020
Case

Ninja: Which Platform Wins Esports' Biggest Star?

By: Anita Elberse and Michal T. Leszczynski

It is July 2019, and the business of esports and gaming is booming. Tyler Blevins—better known as Ninja—has risen to stardom playing the immensely popular shooter game Fortnite. He has become the most followed streamer in the world and, helped by his management company... View Details

Keywords: Esports; Platforms; Superstar; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Internet and the Web; Personal Development and Career; Decision Making; Digital Platforms; Video Game Industry; Technology Industry

February 2003 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Precise Software Solutions

When and how should a firm introduce an innovative new product? Introduce too early and functionality may not be there, too late and strong competition might appear. Precise Software Solutions, headquartered in Westwood, MA, is a small, growing company with a... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Product Launch; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Sales; Information Technology Industry; Massachusetts

15 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Rethinking E-Leadership

Chuang, CEO of Aquent, an employment services company headquartered in Boston. In roughly half of the new initiatives Aquent has invested in over the last few years, Chuang estimates, "we have gotten too excited about a new product... View Details

Keywords: by Melissa Raffoni

April 2011 (Revised July 2011)
Case

Renewing GE: The Africa Project (A)

By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie J. Creary

This case profiles the evolution of General Electric's African American Form (AAF), an employee affinity group, and its efforts to increase the company's involvement in Africa. The AAF formed in 1991 to help advance GE's recruitment, retention and development of black... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Africa; United States

2000
Chapter

Anticipating Greener Supply Chain Demands: One Singapore Company's Journey to ISO 14001

By: Michael W. Toffel

One major benefit of Jebsen & Jessen Packaging Pte Ltd (JJPS’s) implementation of ISO 14001 is that it acquired a third-party 'seal of approval' that will be used in its marketing efforts to meet the growing environmental concern of its customers within the electronics... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Standards; Environmental Sustainability; Singapore