Publications

Web

The General Shoe Company, 1921 | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

Skip to Main Content Exhibition Home Exhibition Business Education & The Case Method The General Shoe Company, 1921 Case Writing & Industry Expansion of the Case Method The Case Method Classroom Teaching & The Case Method Impact on... View Details

November 2019
Case

Celebrity Fashions Limited (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan, Tanvi Deshpande and Shreya Ramachandran

In May 2017 in Chennai, India, the chairman of Celebrity Fashions doubted whether the company could last until the end of the year. Venkatesh Rajagopal had found that the company, a readymade garment manufacturing and exporter he founded in 1989, was having a hard time... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Operations; Management; Financial Condition; Problems and Challenges; Communication; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

Web

Curriculum - Business & Environment

electronics. Other students helped a Chinese agribusiness identify opportunities to support smallholder walnut farmers and grow their business. Still others helped a Moroccan company that converts used cooking oil into a cleaner form of biodiesel to start collecting... View Details

2010
Book

Unilever'i Yenilemek: Dönüşüm ve Gelenek [Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition]

By: Geoffrey Jones

Unilever's brands can now be found in one out of every two households in the world. This arresting and impressive fact shows the scope and scale of this unique global corporation. Geoffrey Jones, a leading business historian from the Harvard Business School, takes us... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business Growth and Maturation; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Globalization; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry

September 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Trade and Genocide in U.S.-China Relations

By: Jeremy Friedman and David Lane

On June 21, 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect, requiring companies to prove that goods imported from the People’s Republic of China were not made with forced labor. The bill was a reaction to reports of products being made with... View Details

01 Dec 2023
News

Rounding the Bend

Illustration by Fernando Cobelo To help people visualize what a circular economy could look like and bring the challenges down to a closet-sized scale, Emily Bolon (MBA/MPA 2007) recommends the following exercise. First, make a mental tally of the number of garments... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

Caitlin C. Rosenthal didn't intend to write a book about slavery. She set out to tackle something much more mundane: the history of business practices. But when she started researching account books from the mid-1800s, a period of major economic development during the... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

27 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

manufacturing processes and stem reputational damage. In one of the costliest recalls in history, Johnson & Johnson spent more than $100 million in 1982 (more than $260 million in today’s dollars) to recall 31 million bottles of... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Manufacturing

2006
Article

The Long-Term Value of M&A Activity to Enhance Learning Organizations

Viewing the automobile industry as being made up of independent learning-organisations may reveal some tie-ups that can generate value not easily revealed by traditional financial metrics. The key question to be answered when considering M&A activity between automakers... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Processes; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry

February 2001 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group - A "Wild Ride" Leveraged Buyout

Describes the attempt of Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a buyout firm, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Motor, the world's leading high-performance motorcycle company, based in Bologna, Italy. Ducati is part of Cagiva Group, a family-controlled industrial group.... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Texas; Italy

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

Abstract—What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper shows that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Nexleaf Analytics: Saving the World Using the Internet of Things

By: Frank Nagle

In 2019, a decade after co-founding Nexleaf Analytics, CEO Nithya Ramanathan faced an important decision that would impact the ability of the small, but growing, not-for-profit organization to thrive for another decade. Their sensor technologies and big data analytics... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Competitive Strategy; Patents; Expansion; Information Technology; Health Industry; Information Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Technology Industry

Forthcoming
Article

No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details

Keywords: Assortative Matching; Productivity; Global Buyers; Readymade Garments; Labor; Organizational Design; Performance Productivity; Fashion Industry

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