Publications

January 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

General Electric Healthcare, 2006

By: Tarun Khanna and Elizabeth Raabe

In January 2006, Joe Hogan, head of General Electric (GE) Healthcare Technologies, prepared to step into William Castell's shoes as CEO of GE Healthcare, the world's leading manufacturer of diagnostic imaging equipment. In 2004, former CEO Jeff Immelt acquired Amersham... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Machinery and Machining; Global Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Product Design; Technological Innovation; Expansion; Value Creation; Business Subsidiaries; Health Industry; Health Industry

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

September 2011 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Hassina Sherjan

By: Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim and Pippa Eccles

Hassina Sherjan was born in Afghanistan but grew up and was educated in the United States. A trip to Afghanistan when she was an adult inspired her to move back to her home country with two missions. The first was to educate young women through a non-profit... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Innovation Leadership; Development Economics; Growth and Development; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry; Afghanistan; United States

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

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

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

held no competitive advantage. That's been a disaster, maintain Harvard professors Pisano and Shih, because today's low-value manufacturing operations hold the seeds of tomorrow's innovative new products. What those companies have been... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2003 (Revised December 2006)
Case

ZARA: Fast Fashion

By: Pankaj Ghemawat and Jose Luis Nueno

Focuses on Inditex, an apparel retailer from Spain, which has set up an extremely quick response system for its ZARA chain. Instead of predicting months before a season starts what women will want to wear, ZARA observes what's selling and what's not and continuously... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Spain

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

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

05 Jul 2022
What Do You Think?

Have We Seen the Peak of Just-in-Time Inventory Management?

distribution channel. Fluctuating demand at the retail level would generate exaggerated fluctuations—a “whipsaw” effect—in expected demand and inventory planning at the back end, or manufacturing level, in an effort to meet possible... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Manufacturing

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

Web

Entrepreneurship - Faculty & Research

describes its co-founders' motivations and their strategy for disrupting an industry in the midst of dramatic structural change; and asks whether a16z's success to date has been due to its novel organization structure. a16z's 22... View Details

October 1988 (Revised May 1990)
Case

Ford Motor Co.: The Product Warranty Program (A)

Raises powerful issues concerning product warranty policy as a strategic marketing variable. Also raises several exciting issues concerning the role of product policy in competitive battles, product line issues, interfunctional coordination issues, and some ethical... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Marketing Strategy; Insurance; Product; Policy; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

2018
Chapter

The Orphan Drug Act at 35: Observations and an Outlook for the Twenty-First Century

By: Nicholas Bagley, Benjamin Berger, Amitabh Chandra, Craig Garthwaite and Ariel Dora Stern

On the 35th anniversary of the adoption of the Orphan Drug Act (ODA), we describe the enormous changes in the markets for therapies for rare diseases that have emerged over recent decades. The most prominent example is the fact that the profit-maximizing price of new... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Laws and Statutes; Research and Development; Investment; Markets; Monopoly

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William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

16 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

As AI Upends Recruiting, Job Seekers Need a Waze App for Careers

Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work on a scale some predict will be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. It’s also exposing the yawning gaps in a fractured US employment system that many companies and workers... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology

September 2014 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Doing Business in Morocco

By: Jill Avery, Tonia Junker and Daniela Beyersdorfer

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. It highlights Morocco's ongoing economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2014 in the context of its historical, political, and cultural background. The case summarizes some of... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market; Emerging Economies; Africa; Global Strategy; Operations Management; Development Economics; Geographic Scope; Globalization; Business History; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Strategy; Auto Industry; Africa; Morocco

April 2008
Supplement

Ti-Tech (B)

By: Benson P. Shapiro and John T. Gourville

This case concerns the selection and scheduling of orders by a small industrial titanium fabricator that recently has been plagued by poor deliveries and a lack of capacity. At the time of the case, Ti-Tech must decide which of four orders to accept, with capacity... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Production; Performance Capacity; Marketing Strategy; Bids and Bidding; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States