Employee Ownership - Publications - Faculty & Research

May 2008 (Revised June 2008)
Case

Kenny Kahn at Muzak (A)

Founded in 1934, Muzak pioneered the industry of background music. Equipped with propriety technology and a vast music library, over the ensuing decades the Muzak franchise organization expanded geographically. Despite a history of innovation, by the late 1990s Muzak... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Design; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Franchise Ownership; Music Industry

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October 2024
Case

Reed Group and Succession in a Family Business: An Impossible Job to Fill?

By: Lauren H. Cohen and Tonia Labruyere

James Reed had taken over Reed Group, the recruitment and career services company his father had founded and built, in 1994. He was now reflecting on succession planning and other challenges that lay ahead: with no obvious choice among his family members, he needed to... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Succession Planning; Family Business; Values and Beliefs; Management Succession; Mission and Purpose; Family Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Family and Family Relationships; Recruitment; AI and Machine Learning; Employment Industry; United Kingdom; London

Citation

Educators

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

this book undertook major restructurings without being in a financial crisis. Compared to the rest of the U.S. airline industry, United Air Lines was in relatively strong financial condition when its employees agreed to almost $5 billion... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

15 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 15, 2008

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14087 Earnings Quality and Ownership Structure: The Role of Private Equity Sponsors Author:Sharon Katz Abstract This study explores how firms' ownership structures affect their... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

spectacular fashion. In Smith’s time, businesses shared none of the characteristics of modern enterprise—no separation of ownership and management, no professional managers, and no corporate bureaucracies. Smith could hardly have foreseen... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

January 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Rubbish Boys

By: Noam Wasserman and Rachel Galper

It looked like founder-CEO Brian Scudamore might not be able to pursue franchising as a growth option for his junk-removal business after all. Over the years, he had overcome many hurdles, including buying out his "too-fiery" co-founder, firing all of his employees so... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Problems and Challenges; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Franchise Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Canada; North America

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19 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 19, 2019

default for those who don’t make an active choice: pharmacy pick-up without insurance subsidies. Under this program, 42% of eligible employees actively choose home delivery, 39% actively choose pharmacy pickup, and 19% make no active... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 May 2010
First Look

First Look: May 11

Author:Louis T. Wells Publication:AIB Insights 10, no. 1 (2010) An abstract is unavailable at this time. Download the Paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/lwells/Insights.pdf Working PapersAgency Costs, Mispricing, and Ownership Structure... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

The Profit Power of Corporate Culture

concept," he says. "Its impact on profit can be measured and quantified." Heskett finds that as much as half of the difference in operating profit between organizations can be attributed to effective cultures. Why? "We know, for example, that... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

After a “reboot,” the fund was finally performing well, but investors often sought a longer track record before buying in, the authors note. Employees take ownership Brown’s “horizontal” investing approach... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

success is valued too highly to be interrupted by a hostile takeover,” thus fostering sustainability. If sustainability is such an important issue, how do we encourage it? A number of suggestions were put forward. Fizzinni proposed such things as efforts to encourage... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

19 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Company Loyalty

another manager's star employee most likely wants to transfer into their departments. 2. Design work with variety and autonomy. Jobs that provide variety and the freedom to make decisions and mistakes engender extensive loyalty, the... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Keller Johnson

09 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Five Steps to Better Family Negotiations

outcome. For example, if a father and his son are negotiating over the son's employee compensation, the negotiation space is likely to include (among others) the son's immediate boss, the son's coworkers, his sister (who is considering... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Davis and Deepak Malhotra

September 1995 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Apollo Hospitals of India (A)

Dr. Prathap Reddy has created India's first corporate hospital, Apollo Hospitals of Madras. The hospital is managed according to an integrated philosophy of customer service and support to employees. A new hospital, in the city of Hyderabad, has not performed as well,... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Franchise Ownership; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Strategy; Health Industry; India

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27 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

How the FBI Reinvented Itself After 9/11

organizational units, one for law enforcement and one for domestic intelligence, seeking what scholars call “structural ambidexterity.” Two, the FBI could have pursued “contextual ambidexterity” wherein senior management establishes simultaneous structures and... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

2010 terms, as a share of national income) were scheduled to revert to Colombian ownership in that year. The money to buy them for the new canal effort, then, would have gone to Bogotá instead of the shareholders in the moribund French... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

June 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Supplement

Hilti Fleet Management Video Supplements

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the construction industry by the premium power tools manufacturer Hilti in 2000. Following its customers’ needs, Hilti moved from selling power tools to leasing them as a service. The introduction of the new... View Details

Citation

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01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Organizing the Family-Run Business

As described in the first article in this series, the "Three-circle" family business system is composed of three overlapping subsystems: those employed in the business, the shareholders, and members of the family that has a controlling View Details

11 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 11, 2009

billions of dollars in bailout money converted into a 34% ownership stake for the U.S. government. Citigroup was worth less than $16 billion, having lost more than $250 billion in value from its peak. This case examines Citi's business... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2000 (Revised April 2000)
Case

StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jon K Rust

By the fall of 1999, StarMedia had sprinted to a sizable lead in the race to acquire Latin American Internet users. Its pan-regional, horizontal portal was the first to target Spanish- and Portuguese-language speakers on the Internet, registering 1.2 billion page views... View Details