Publications

September 2002
Case

Seattle Public Schools, 1995-2002 (A): The Freedom Agenda

Describes efforts in Seattle Public Schools, under the leadership of Superintendent Joseph Olchefske, to replace the district's centralized budgeting process with school-level budgets. Olchefske's decentralization effort, referred to locally as the Freedom Agenda,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Practices and Processes; Operations; Education; Education Industry; Seattle

27 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Managers, Your Employees Don’t Want to Be Facebook ‘Friends’

colleagues and managers online, fearing that the connection could come with career risks, according to a recent study in the Academy of Management Journal. The study—OMG! My Boss Just Friended Me: How... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Kim Raczka

2008
Chapter

Artistic Methods and Business Disorganization

The idea that artists' work can usefully inform business practice has gained support in recent years. Managers have long described some business activities as "more art than science," but usually they've meant by this that they don't understand the activity and can't... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Creativity

February 2003 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Yahoo!: Becoming a Competitor in the Career Listings Space (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Nicole Nasser

In late 2001, Yahoo!'s new executive leadership team faces a decision. With online advertising revenues significantly off, the company has decided to explore new strategic businesses, including online recruiting. The team must decide whether to make a bid for... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decisions; Recruitment; Management Teams; Negotiation Deal; Employment Industry

July–August 2013
Article

Six Ways to Sink a Growth Initiative

By: Donald L. Laurie and J. Bruce Harreld

The conventional wisdom about how best to pursue growth—launch a slew of initiatives in high-potential areas; appoint some promising young managers to lead them; locate them safely away from the established businesses—is a recipe for failure, according to the authors.... View Details

Keywords: Failure; Growth and Development Strategy

July 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Case

How Much? (A)

By: Clayton Rose

The leader of a small business team must deal with an employee who is unwilling to reveal to him the profitability of a transaction for the firm and client. View Details

Keywords: Culture; Client Responsibility; Leadership; Groups and Teams; Ethics; Finance; Conflict Management

July 1984 (Revised September 1986)
Case

CML Group, Inc.: Going Public (A)

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a series of decisions confronting Charles Leighton, co-founder and chairman of the CML Group. CML is a successful participant in the leisure time industry with two lines of business: specialty retailing and recreational consumer products. The key issues in... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Going Public; Strategy; Business or Company Management; Cost vs Benefits; SWOT Analysis; Investment Banking; Financing and Loans; Planning; Corporate Finance; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry

18 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ‘Collective Genius’

book excerpt Leading Innovation From Collective Genius: The Art of Practice of Leading Innovation By Linda A. Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove and Kent Linebeck Though each of our leaders and their firms differed in key ways, all leaders paid particular attention to... View Details

Keywords: by Linda Hill; Entertainment & Recreation

03 May 2016
First Look

First Look, May 3, 2016

2016 Berrett-Koehler Publishers Building the Future: Big Teaming for Audacious Innovation By: Edmondson, Amy C., and Susan Salter Reynolds Abstract—Machiavelli famously wrote, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2022
Case

Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion

By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Platforms; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Strategy; Business Strategy; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Distribution Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Europe

October 2020 (Revised July 2023)
Case

UCK Partners: Gong Cha

By: Victoria Ivashina and Sangyun Lee

In the Spring of 2017, Soomin Kim, Founding Partner of UCK Partners, and his team were debating the potential exit of UCK Partner’s investment in Gong Cha Korea, the sole local franchisor of the premium milk tea brand that they proprietarily sourced three years ago.... View Details

Keywords: Exit; Strategic Decision Making; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Investment Return; Decision Making; Bids and Bidding

22 Oct 2019
News

Episode 11: Karen Mills, Harvard Business School

October 2020
Article

IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice

By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy

Using a novel database that tracks web traffic on the SEC’s EDGAR servers between 2004 and 2015, we show that mutual fund managers gather information on a very particular subset of firms and insiders, and their surveillance is very persistent over time. This tracking... View Details

Keywords: Tracked Trades; Return Predictability; Institutional Trading; Insider Trading; Institutional Investing; Information; Investment Portfolio; Decisions; Management

SSRN

2013
Book

Beyond the Idea: How to Execute Innovation in Any Organization

By: Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

By offering specific action steps, Beyond the Idea extends the elegant conceptual insights from How Stella Saved the Farm, Govindarajan and Trimble's parable. Beyond the Idea shows exactly how to: - Build a team with a very particular structure, one... View Details