Publications

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20 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Activist CEOs Are Rising Up—and Their Customers Are Listening

part of the individual, Toffel says. But it also signals the values and culture of the company the CEO heads. “If one of your company’s core values is equality, some CEOs believe they can’t be silent when a proposed government policy... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

30 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 30

expected. Developing an organization that supports a new strategy of application support for their customer base requires a change in culture and an evolving leadership challenge for the business. The most... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Mar 2004
Lessons from the Classroom

Mission to Mars: It Really Is Rocket Science

"derivative" projects that use existing (and proven) designs to deliver new science experiments to the surface. Of course, the cultural change required to do this would be significant. Building spacecraft to print is cheap, but... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

December 2019 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Mãe Terra and Unilever (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

The case concerns the sale of Mãe Terra, one of Brazil's leading brands for packaged organic foods, to the consumer goods giant Unilever in 2017. Working with Unilever management, Mãe Terra’s CEO Alexandre Borges must determine whether and how to keep Mãe Terra's B... View Details

Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Brand Management; Sustainability; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Culture; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Brazil; Latin America

July 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

By: Christina R. Wing and John Masko

For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Over the 2010s,... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; United States

16 May 2016
HBS Case

Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer

prided itself on avoiding artificial ingredients, opting instead to use a relatively short supply chain of local growers for many of its ingredients. That strategy just might have been part of its problem, says John A. Quelch, the Charles... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

03 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 3

in bringing their products to market, yet we know very little about the kinds of strategies they can employ to influence regulatory actor decision making. In this paper, we highlight a firm's strategic use of symbolic signaling in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 28

exercise a huge impact on management studies more generally, especially strategy and the study of entrepreneurship. Publisher's link: View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2025
Supplement

ZEISS: Commercializing Science

By: Maria P. Roche and Richie Zitomer

Spreadsheet Supplement for HBS Case No. 725-359. View Details

07 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 7, 2008

jurisdiction, and therefore protection, of the states involved. Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), whose members are states, represent an important attempt to span this abyss. IGOs are mandated variously to smooth economic transactions, facilitate global... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2020
Case

Voi Technology

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Olivia Hull

Voi Technology, a fast-growing start-up out of Sweden, is competing in the highly contested European e-scooter sharing market. With a presence in nearly 40 cities in Europe by February 2020, the firm is working hard to improve its unit economics to reach profitability.... View Details

09 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Andy Grove: A Biographer’s Tale

able to see it, illustrate it, through his life. His experience in Hungary became a how-not-to-do at university. You can look at Intel and Intel culture under Andy Grove as the opposite of a great deal of what he experienced in Hungary. I... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer

21 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 21

transparency while masking their true performance; other firms' disclosures, in contrast, are more representative of their environmental performance. What deters selective disclosure? We hypothesize that selective disclosure, a novel symbolic View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2024
Case

Edizione

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Dante Roscini, Elena Corsi and Hugo Etchegoyhen

This case study examines the diversification and transformation of Edizione, the Benetton family's holding company originally established to reinvest dividends from the Benetton clothing brand. Edizione expanded significantly in the late 1990s and early 2000s,... View Details

December 2024
Case

Tencent Games

By: Rebecca Karp, Billy Chan and Nancy Hua Dai

For years, Tencent Games, a division of China’s largest internet company, had taken the lion’s share of revenue in the global gaming market with blockbuster titles such as “League of Legends” and “PUBG: Battlegrounds.” These games defined the game genres that they... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Investment; Competitive Strategy; Video Game Industry; Europe; China