Publications

April 1998
Case

Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (C)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg

Jim Sharpe, president of Extrusion Technology, describes the first five years at the aluminum extrusion company he purchased. He begins with day one as he introduced himself to the employees in 1987 and assured them of the company's continuity. Over the next two years,... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Profit; Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Mining Industry

February 2005 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Phase Zero: Introducing New Services at IDEO (A)

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

Focuses on whether world-renowned product design firm IDEO's new customer service fits with the firm's strategic position and organization capabilities. Over the course of IDEO's 13-year history, an increasing share of revenues are a result of "Phase 0"... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Service Operations; Product Design; Infrastructure; Customer Focus and Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Service Industry; Boston; United States

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

began selling iron ore and coal to Germany and Great Britain in the early 1800s. When Sweden industrialized in the mid-1800s, Spar says, “it did so quickly and methodically,” adopting the most successful practices from established View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

March 2004 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Newell Rubbermaid: Strategy in Transition

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Rhonda Kaufman and Carole Winkler

Describes the transformation of a company's corporate-level strategy. Begins by laying out the strategy that brought the Newell Co. stunning success for nearly three decades. The highly integrated, internally consistent strategy was tailored for manufacturing and... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Problems and Challenges; Acquisition; Product Development; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

June 2001 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Spir-It, Inc. (B): Managing People

When Jack Sindler founded Spir-it, Inc. in 1934, he was the company's sole employee. By 1999, Sindler's firm more than survived its first 55 years. Employment was up to nearly 200, with facilities in two states and work done in three shifts. The product line--which had... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Production; Business Growth and Maturation; Interpersonal Communication; Logistics; Human Resources; Diversity Characteristics; Manufacturing Industry

Web

Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

result, there are meaningful externalities in the mutual fund industry due to cash management. A fund family may coordinate the liquidity management efforts of its funds in order to minimize volatility spillovers from fire sales. Related... View Details

22 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 22

occurred in the pharmaceutical industry over the past two decades. Since 1989, a number of major pharmaceutical companies (Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, etc.) have chosen to locate new laboratories in one or more major life science hotspots... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Teaching Interest

Strategy and Technology

By: Andy Wu

The Strategy and Technology elective course explores the unique aspects of creating effective strategies for technology-intensive businesses.

What strategies win in markets with network effects?
How can technology be... View Details

Das Narayandas

Das Narayandas is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His academic credentials include a Bachelor of Technology degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB), a Post-Graduate... View Details

Keywords: industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods; industrial goods

Web

The Women in the Relay Assembly Test Room – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

1930, quoted in Richard Gillespie, Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the Hawthorne Experiments . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 76. 5 Relay assembly room test operator in Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, "Shedding Light on the... View Details

Web

Leadership - Faculty & Research

organizations' behaviors in a given industry or sector, to efforts to change behaviors throughout a country, region, or even the world. Addressing the issue of power and influence in society in an MBA classroom is critical, especially at... View Details

August 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Haier: Taking a Chinese Company Global in 2011

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Phillip Andrews

In 2011, Haier, China's leading appliance manufacturer, had over $20 billion in worldwide sales and had just been named the leading refrigerator manufacturer worldwide. Describes Haier's rise over three decades from a defunct refrigerator factory in China's Qingdao... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Global Strategy; Expansion; Diversification; Emerging Markets; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; China

01 Jun 2024
News

Quantum Leap

“This is the first new kind of computer in 75 years,” says John Levy (MBA 1979), CEO of the quantum computing startup SEEQC. “And we’re building it on a chip!” Strolling through his company’s design and testing facility in Elmsford, New York, Levy looks less like a... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Chris Sorensen; quantum computing; innovation; leadership; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Web

Mid-US - Global

world’s largest manufacturers of motion and control technologies, did something unusual for an industrial company: it created a purpose statement. Even though it already had a clear business strategy and... View Details

28 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

types of work Cash rewards are best suited as a motivator for work that is measured quantitatively, Whillans says. Many studies of the service and sales industries show that cash rewards lead to increased sales and improved customer... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

The Best Person to Lead Your Company Doesn't Work There—Yet

within their own ranks. “What you really do need is knowledge of that specific industry, whether it's pharmaceutical or manufacturing or hospitality or rocket science.” The findings suggest an active market for CEOs, who are lured to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

18 Mar 2013
HBS Case

HBS Cases: LEGO

Out of work for a year following a serious illness in 1993, Kjeld appointed a five-person management team to help him run the company when he returned. The group focused mainly on driving growth. When a benchmarking study revealed LEGO's global name recognition was on... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Entertainment & Recreation

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

the emotional side of digital transformation Digital transformation can be bewildering and exhausting for leaders and employees alike. Emerging digital technologies are disrupting everything from supply chains and manufacturing to selling... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

August 2023
Teaching Note

Huawei: A Global Tech Giant in the Crossfire of a Digital Cold War

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 320-089. By 2020, Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, had transformed the small telephone switch manufacturer he founded in 1987 into a $120 billion telecommunications company poised to lead the lucrative rollout of fifth-generation (5G)... View Details

Keywords: Geopolitical Units; Business and Government Relations; International Relations; Communication Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; China