Publications

June 2012 (Revised November 2012)
Case

The Rise of Circuit City Stores, Inc.

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In fiscal 2000, Circuit City was at the top of its game. The world's leading consumer electronics retailer had delivered record sales and profits for the first year of the new millennium. It was a fitting moment for Richard Sharpe, the CEO of the last 14 years, to step... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Strategic Planning; Competition; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; North America

November 2002 (Revised May 2003)
Case

ConAgra Foods

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Ingrid Vargas

In 2002, ConAgra Foods CEO Bruce Rohde was deliberating the next steps in the process of transforming the company from an agribusiness giant to a value-added food processor. ConAgra had become the second largest food company and number one food service supplier in the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Leading Change; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Food; Agribusiness; Product; Business Processes; Management Teams; Expansion; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

24 Mar 2025
Video

Climate Rising Episode 6 | Voluntary Carbon Markets Series: A Conversation with Luke Leslie of Key Carbon

April 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Mastercard Labs (A) (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Hill, Sunil Gupta, Emily Tedards and Julia Kelley

When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, he shifted the company’s competitive focus from card networks to cash itself. Mastercard’s new vision of a “World Beyond Cash” distilled into a three-pronged framework: Grow the core business, Diversify... View Details

2020
Working Paper

Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Survey Research; Performance Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Analysis; Business Startups; Failure; Surveys

SSRN

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February 2016
Teaching Note

Akın Öngör's Journey

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

The case of Akın Öngör's Journey describes a highly successful former CEO with stellar leadership skills, who transformed a bank in Turkey into one of the world's best, steered it to contribute to his country's social agenda, influenced business practices of other... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Change Management; Social Entrepreneurship; Business and Community Relations; Turkey

2011
Working Paper

The Organization of Firms Across Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Asia; Europe; United States

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October 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Reactivity: A Case of Re-Invention

By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper

By the time Glenn Osaka joined Reactivity as its new CEO in January 2001, the Internet bubble had burst, the financial markets had turned, and the company's core businesses were drying up. He was not hired to lead a turnaround, but Osaka found that the firm's future... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Venture Capital; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Leadership Style; Product; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

April 2002
Case

In vivo to in vitro to in silico: Coping with Tidal Waves of Data at Biogen

By: Juan Enriquez-Cabot, Gary P. Pisano and Gaye Bok

Biogen is a successful biotech company facing a critical juncture. CEO John Mullen ponders how technological changes introduced into the research function will shape larger corporate decisions. This world in which biotechnology companies operated had changed... View Details

Keywords: Change; Decisions; Product Development; Research and Development; Expansion; Technology; Biotechnology Industry

15 Feb 2022
Blog Post

Health Is Wealth | The Path To Creating A Venture

elsewhere.” Leveraging the HBS alumni network, Rachel secured an internship between her RC and EC years at naviHealth, Inc... a digital health company. This internship allowed her to make an impact at the organization by working on projects that shaped View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care

22 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 22, 2008

challenges in terms of moving research from the bench to the bedside. Five years after undertaking the restructuring of the discovery research organization, CEO Daniel Vasella is pleased with its progress, including many more development... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

Working PapersNone this week Cases & Course MaterialsCreating Meaning for the Customer: The Case of GMACI Harvard Business School Case 106-073 Excellence in exploiting customer information and leveraging its affiliation to the GM group are among the strategic... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Apr 2021
Book

How Inclusive Managers Create Glass-Shattering Organizations

and co-author of the new book, Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work. “They have lots of opportunity to change the structures themselves.” The authors of Glass Half-Broken weave academic research... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

July 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

USA TODAY: Pursuing the Network Strategy (A)

By: Michael L. Tushman, Michael J. Roberts and David Kiron

Describes the evolution of USA TODAY Online, the electronic version of the newspaper, within the organizational structure of the newspaper. Describes the tensions and issues that develop and the pressure from the Online division to be spun off. At the same time, CEO... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Integration; Internet and the Web; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Newspapers; Innovation and Invention; Journalism and News Industry

12 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

Pay Workers More So They Steal Less

Bigger paychecks for retail employees could generate significant payoffs for employers by reducing worker theft and raising the level of moral behavior in the workforce, a new study shows. Tatiana Sandino, an associate professor in... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Retail

July 2016
Case

Product Portfolio Management at Genentech

By: Kevin Schulman and Jamie Gresh

Genentech, long the darling of the biotechnology industry, was acquired by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche in 2009. The combined company retains the name Genentech in the US, but must now move to achieve the promises made at the time of this merger—to build from... View Details

Keywords: Portfolio Management; Drug Development; Postmerger Integration; Marketing Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

December 2005 (Revised December 2008)
Case

SchoolNet: Pursuing Opportunity beyond Federal Mandates

Settling into his seat on the train bound for New York, CEO Jonathan Harber reflected on the evolution of SchoolNet's position in the educational technology market and its important relationship with Philadelphia. Specifically, how could it transition from a project to... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Education; Performance Improvement; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion; Technology Adoption; Philadelphia

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September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising

By: Elie Ofek

Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Evaluation; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy

July 1984
Case

Braniff International: The Ethics of Bankruptcy (A)

Intended to advance understanding of corporate responsibility in the context of a bankruptcy decision. The case documents the implementation of a turnaround plan for financially ailing Braniff International. This includes a new marketing and operations strategy,... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Accountability; Ethics; Insolvency and Bankruptcy