Publications

November 2011
Teaching Note

InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting (TN)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Michael W. Toffel

Keywords: Consulting Industry

19 Aug 2014
Talk

Sustainability in the Boardroom

By: Lynn S. Paine

October 1994
Background Note

Note on the Confrontation Strategy

Because of the emergence of the lean enterprise (a Japanese innovation), the nature of competition has changed. Competitive advantages are virtually impossible to sustain; instead of avoiding competition through creating sustainable competitive advantage, companies... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy

Web

Strategy - Doctoral

Strategy The doctoral program in Strategy encourages students to pursue multi-disciplinary research that utilizes multiple methodologies—quantitative, as well as qualitative—to study how companies and... View Details

October 2022 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress

By: Michael L. Tushman and Kerry Herman

CEO Francesco Starace is considering what is next for Enel SpA, one of world's largest energy companies. From 2014 to 2022, he has wrought a dramatic transformation at Enel, restructuring the company's business units; redeploying senior talent across functions and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership Style; Leadership Succession; Renewables; Energy; Transformation; Renewable Energy; Business Divisions; Digital Transformation; Restructuring; Organizational Structure; Energy Industry; Europe; Latin America; North America; Spain; Italy

Educators

December 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Developing the Materiality Matrix at Telefónica

By: Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim and Asun Cano-Escoriaza

Telefónica, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world and headquartered in Spain, has been issuing a corporate sustainability report since 2002. In its 2011 Sustainability report, the company included a "materiality matrix," and was one of only five... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainable Strategy; CSR; Corporate Social Responsibility; Communication Technology; Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Telecommunications Industry; Spain

Educators

09 Dec 2019
News

ESG Notebook: 6 Practical Approaches To Increasing Corporate Sustainability

2013
Book

Constructing Green: The Social Structures of Sustainability

By: Rebecca Henn and Andrew J. Hoffman

Buildings are the nation's greatest energy consumers. Forty percent of all our energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting, and powering machines and devices in buildings. And despite decades of investment in green construction technologies, residential and... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Green Building; Transition; Social Issues

June 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Course Overview Note

Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise

By: Willy C. Shih

This Module Note for Instructors outlines the structure and content of the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise MBA second year elective course at the Harvard Business School. The course focuses on giving students a solid grounding in the construction of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation

Program

Strategy: Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage

that you need to devise a successful strategy for your organization. It takes a deep dive into all aspects of successful strategy and its execution: scoping the competitive landscape, choosing where (and... View Details

23 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Strategy for Small Fish

Creation The first driver of an effective niche strategy is value creation. Specialize in unique capabilities. An effective niche strategy creates value by selecting a specialization that is truly different... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

19 Aug 2014
Keynote Speech

Sustainability in the Boardroom

By: Lynn S. Paine

Web

Operational Effectiveness vs. Strategy - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Strategy Strategy Strategy Explained Business Strategy Creating a Successful Strategy Corporate View Details

08 Jul 2011
News

Spotlight on Sustainable Investing

Keywords: pensions; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

10 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

Globalization: The Strategy of Differences

77 percent of its profits from outside North America. But Goizueta's strategy soon ran into trouble, due in large part to the Asian currency crisis. By the end of 1999, when Douglas Daft took the reins, earnings had slumped, and Coke's... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

07 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

4+2 = Sustained Business Success

success. A company that consistently follows this formula has better than a 90 percent chance of sustaining superior business performance. The 160 companies in our study—which we call the Evergreen Project—were divided into forty quads,... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson

Article

Integrated Strategy: Residual Market and Exchange Imperfections as the Foundation of Sustainable Competitive Advantage

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Dennis Yao

Market imperfections are central to understanding the mechanisms that permit firms to capture value. Many of these imperfections are competed away when firms struggle to attain and defend competitive advantages, making markets more efficient in the process. The... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Strategy; Nonmarket Strategy; Market Imperfections; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

2015
Chapter

Making the Business Case for Environmental Sustainability

By: Rebecca Henderson

Can a business case be made for acting sustainably? This is a difficult question to answer precisely, largely because there is no generally accepted definition of the term "sustainability." Is it acting sustainably to protect the human rights of the firm's workforce?... View Details