Publications

December 1989 (Revised June 1991)
Case

Motorola, Inc.: Bandit Pager Project

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes the development of a fully automated production line for manufacturing radio pagers. The company regarded the project as highly successful; it becomes clear in the case, however, that there were some shortcomings as well. Some marketing issues were not... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Marketing; Product Development; Production; Success; Projects; Technology; Telecommunications Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Hisano’s research addresses the social and cultural implications of technological development and economic changes mainly in the twentieth-century United States. By analyzing the regulation, manipulation, and presentation of food color, her current book project links... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Consumer Behavior; Agribusiness; Food And Environment; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Business And Government; Advertising; Goods and Commodities; Food; History; Government and Politics; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Advertising Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Chemical Industry; United States

Web

Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century - Leadership

Chesebrough Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, 1875–1909 Colby M. Chester General Foods Corporation, 1924–1935 Hugh J. Chisholm International Paper Company, 1899–1907 Walter P. Chrysler Chrysler Corporation, 1924–1935 Elisabeth Claiborne... View Details

October 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Catalent: Catalyzing the Next Era of Growth

By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks and Kevin Emancipator

Catalent's newly appointed CEO, Alessandro Maselli, experienced the highs of the pharmaceutical contract development manufacturing (CDMO) space during COVID-19 while helping Moderna and others bring vaccines to market quickly and safely. After rushing to add capacity... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Business or Company Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Tesla's Uncertain Fate as EV Race Accelerates

By: David Collis and Haisley Wert

By September 2021, Tesla had a staggering market cap of $755 billion. As the leader of the automobile industry, Tesla’s worth surpassed that of the six largest runner-ups combined, including Toyota, Volkswagen, BYD, Daimler, Great Wall Motors, and General Motors. As... View Details

Keywords: Electric Vehicles; Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Valuation; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Auto Industry

September 2011 (Revised September 2013)
Case

The K-Dow Petrochemicals Joint Venture

By: Guhan Subramanian, James K. Sebenius, Phillip Andrews, Rhea Ghosh and Charlotte Krontiris

In 2007, the Dow Chemical Company and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation announced plans to launch a multibillion-dollar joint venture. Later known as K-Dow Petrochemicals, it would be one of the largest manufacturers of chemicals and plastics in the world. Analysts... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Joint Ventures; Chemical Industry; Kuwait; United States

November 2010
Case

Spudnik, Inc.

By: William A. Sahlman and Elizabeth A. Kind

This case describes the plan to finance a revolutionary new television set manufacturing business in late 2009. Yatin Mundkur, a venture capitalist at Artiman Ventures, has recruited a team of veteran eecutives from the optical disk drive business, to design large... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Venture Capital; Disruptive Innovation; Corporate Finance; Electronics Industry

January 2010
Case

DR Corporation

By: Roy D. Shapiro

DR Corporation is a manufacturer of major appliances. The traffic manager is facing a decision of selecting a carrier for the inbound movement of motors. The primary case decisions are 1) what factors are critical to the decision; 2) how to calculate the tradeoffs... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Managerial Roles; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Truck Transportation; Consumer Products Industry

December 1998
Supplement

An Interview with Zhang Ruimin, CEO, Haier Group, Video

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jennifer Benqing

Zhang Ruimin, founder and CEO of China's Haier Group, must decide whether to acquire Red Star Electric Appliance Co., an insolvent local manufacturer of washing machines. Although Haier, slated to become one of China's first global brand names, has successfully turned... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Acquisition; Business or Company Management; Consumer Products Industry; China

Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor emeritus, former Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing, and Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for... View Details

Keywords: manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing; manufacturing

Web

The “Hawthorne Effect” – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

See Richard Gillespie, Manufacturing Knowledge: A History of the Hawthorne Experiments . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, and Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, "Shedding Light on the Hawthorne Studies," Journal of Occupational Behavior ,... View Details

February 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

The Michelin Restaurant Guide: Charting a New Course

By: Mukti Khaire, Elena Corsi and Jerome Lenhardt

Created in 1900 by the tire manufacturer Michelin, the Michelin Restaurant Guide was widely considered the international benchmark of food rating, and, by 2013, boasted paper editions in 23 countries, and had recently expanded to the United States and Asia. Paper sales... View Details

June 2010
Article

What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns

By: Glenn Ellison, Edward Glaeser and William R. Kerr

Why do firms cluster near one another? We test Marshall's theories of industrial agglomeration by examining which industries locate near one another, or coagglomerate. We construct pairwise coagglomeration indices for US manufacturing industries from the Economic... View Details

Keywords: Production; Economics; Industry Clusters; Analytics and Data Science; Labor; Theory; Goods and Commodities; United States; United Kingdom

April 1999
Case

Steve Perlman and WebTV (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Ron Fortgang

The dynamics of a linked series of internal and external negotiations involved in launching, growing, and selling a high-tech, Internet start-up are explored. Steve Perlman unfurled an impressive new technology, recruited a top technical and management team, secured... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Agreements and Arrangements; Negotiation Tactics; Alliances; Internet; Communications Industry

November 1987 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Groen: A Dover Industries Company

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the challenges facing the president of an old-line foodservice and food processing equipment manufacturing company as it attempted to accelerate sales and profit growth through the introduction of innovative products. The introduction of a "revolutionary"... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Labor and Management Relations; Machinery and Machining; Management Style; Management Teams; Performance Efficiency; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Organizational Culture

04 Jun 2019
News

Finding The Sweet Spot: Why Industry, Nonprofits Should (Or Can) Collaborate On Master Protocols

April 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Moderna: Pioneering a People Platform to Accelerate Science Innovation

By: Tatiana Sandino, Emil Dy and Samuel Grad

Moderna was founded in 2010 to explore how messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) could be used to create breakthrough medicines by encoding instructions for the body to create antibodies. When Stéphane Bancel (HBS 2000) took over in 2011, he bet on the potential of this... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Talent and Talent Management; Selection and Staffing; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Strategy; Innovation and Management; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Alignment; Employee Relationship Management; Science-Based Business; Expansion; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States

2011
Case

Founder's Group Diversification

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li and Chuanjiang Mao

Founder Group's Chairman of the Board, Wei Xin, made adjustments to the company portfolio in 2010. Established in the mid-1980s, Founder is the industry leader for Chinese laser typesetting systems and was once the second largest PC manufacturer in China. It is also... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Management; China