Publications

18 Dec 2013
HBS Case

Lessons from the Lance Armstrong Cheating Scandal

had been swirling around the cyclist for years. And yet, there was still something shocking about the admission. At the peak of his career, Armstrong was one of the most celebrated athletes in the world, earning $28 million a year from... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports

01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

to realize there wasn’t much they could do with me,” Miller says. “At 14 or 15 years old, I would come home at 2 a.m. or not come in at all. My parents didn’t give up on me, but they didn’t know what to do,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

January 2020
Case

Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd.

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2019, Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (Lead) was the largest supplier of lithium-ion rechargeable battery manufacturing equipment in the world. Based in Wuxi, China, the company generated RMB 3.9 billion ($557 million) in revenues in 2018, up from RMB 175... View Details

Keywords: Lithium-ion Batteries; Electric Vehicles; Government Subsidies; Industry Dynamics; Markets; Change; Strategy; Decision Making; Manufacturing Industry; China

February 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Securicor Wireless Networks: February 1996

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Bill Wasik

Securicor Wireless (SWN) sold software products to wireless telephone carriers. The company was incorporated in January of 1995 as a 40%-owned subsidiary of Securicor Telesciences (STI), itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of British security giant Securicor PLC. Just... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Subsidiaries; Nationality; Business Conglomerates; Applications and Software; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Culture; Business Startups; Business and Shareholder Relations; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; United States

23 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Sam Walton: Great From the Start

increased more than 45 percent to $105,000 in his first full year of ownership. The following year, sales were up another third to $140,000. The year after that he surpassed... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Retail

03 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Top Ten Legal Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs

these war stories with the prospective entrepreneurs, in the form of a list of "top ten" legal mistakes often made by the unsuspecting. In addition, Bagley teaches the second year elective course, "Legal Aspects of... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

January 2018
Supplement

BeiGene Supplemental PowerPoint

By: Willy C. Shih and Jimmy Zhang

BeiGene was a biopharmaceutical company founded on exploiting a temporal regulatory policy discontinuity. Because of regulatory challenges in China, most innovative new drugs launched there four to six years after their initial U.S. launches. This gave BeiGene a window... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Pharmaceutical Company; Pharmaceuticals; China; Regulatory Environment; Business Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Situation or Environment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; China

31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

years later another colleague relies on Amazon for delivery of dog food to a remote location in Maine at a price comparable to the local supermarket.) There is no question that Bezos has built a retailing juggernaut, one that is capturing... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

November 2017
Case

BeiGene

By: Willy Shih and Jimmy Zhang

BeiGene was a biopharmaceutical company founded on exploiting a temporal regulatory policy discontinuity. Because of regulatory challenges in China, most innovative new drugs launched there four to six years after their initial U.S. launches. This gave BeiGene a window... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Pharmaceutical Company; Pharmaceuticals; China; Regulatory Environment; Business Strategy; Business Startups; Innovation Strategy; Situation or Environment; Pharmaceutical Industry; China

September 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Blackstone's Investment in Intelenet

By: Josh Lerner, Sandeep Bapat and Rachna Tahilyani

Three years had passed since Blackstone's investment in Intelenet Global Services, their third largest investment in India. Great progress had been made, but now a new challenge loomed. Globank, a large global bank, was Intelenet's largest customer. Intelenet's... View Details

Keywords: India; Blackstone; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; India

07 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

wages. For companies, that represents a savings of 14 percent in compensation for each employee they can move up into a phony management position, so to speak, Cohen and his co-authors report. And companies apparently believe that... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

possessed, first, strong capabilities in branding and marketing. It understood local markets, and it knew how to market to them. It was at the frontier of market segmentation strategies in packaged consumer products. It opened up new... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

01 Jun 2007
What Do You Think?

How Should Pay Be Linked to Performance?

Summing Up Pay for performance: Why do we assume so much and know so little? Pay for performance is an important element of good management, judging from responses to this month's column. The question of what kind of pay for what kind of... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

01 May 2019
What Do You Think?

What Should the Leadership of YouTube Do?

2014, facing the task of bolstering the Company’s growth and financial performance. Two years earlier she had come up with the controversial insight that a more profitable business model for YouTube should... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

November 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Marcus by Goldman Sachs

By: Rory McDonald, Samir Junnarkar and David Lane

Five years on from the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs remained wounded. Revenues at the global investment bank had stagnated below pre-crisis levels, and the firm had yet to rebound from a substantial decline in securities-trading revenues. Marcus by Goldman... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

February 2024
Case

Tony Elumelu Foundation: Democratizing Luck Across Africa

By: Paul A. Gompers and Samir Saxena

Founded in 2010, The Tony Elumelu Foundation is Africa’s leading philanthropy working to support entrepreneurs in Africa with access to seed capital, business management training, mentorship, and access to networks. Through a $100 million commitment but its founder,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation Leadership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Mission and Purpose; Education Industry; Nigeria; Africa