Publications

January 2007 (Revised October 2008)
Case

H&R Block 2006

By: Peter Tufano

Mark Ernst, the Chairman, CEO and President of H&R Block, has to decide how to respond to a competitive threat posed by a competitor's refund-lending product. Block is the largest U.S. tax preparation firm, which competes not only on its tax preparation services, but... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Taxation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competition; Financial Services Industry

11 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

U.S. Tops Business Competitiveness Index 2006

The United States and Germany remain atop the latest Business Competitiveness Index, with China continuing to slip in the rankings while India ascends, according to a report released from Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Web

Executive Education - Health Care

Delivery Addresses the complex challenge faced by health care leaders: being accountable for both medical and financial outcomes. With the focus on dramatically enhancing patient care, this intensive program helps you design, manage, and... View Details

01 Dec 2023
News

Wide Horizon

There were three critical events that led John Rodakis (MBA 1997) to form the nonprofit N of One in 2014 and ultimately dedicate his life to surfacing breakthrough autism research. The first occurred on Thanksgiving of 2012. He had driven about four hours with his wife... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; Photos by Sarah Wilson

Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

Finance Finance May 2014 Article Dynamics of Demand for Index Insurance: Evidence from a Long-Run Field Experiment By: Shawn A. Cole , Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman This paper estimates how experimentally-manipulated experiences with a novel View Details

February 2023 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Accelerating the Accelerator: Raja Al Mazrouei at DIFC Fintech Hive

By: Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards and Lydia Begag

In January 2023, Raja Al Mazrouei became the Managing Director and Acting CEO of Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI) in Dubai, UAE. In her previous role as the Executive Vice President of the DIFC Fintech Hive, she successfully built and led an accelerator program for... View Details

May 2006 (Revised February 2012)
Case

General Electric's 20th Century CEOs (Abridged)

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony J. Mayo and Mark Benson

General Electric thrived in every decade of the 20th century. Since its founding in 1892, GE has placed a high value on picking and training the best people. Staff members worked with other scientists in the company's research lab to design and manufacture new and... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style

April 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (D): Organizing for the Future (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Aldo Sesia

By the end of 2015, BlackRock had succeeded beyond any of the early dreams of its founders. The firm remained the world’s largest asset manager, with more than $4.6 trillion under management, and other financial services companies used BlackRock’s Aladdin platform to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

challenges these leaders confronted and strategies for how to address them. Organizational change is never easy, but our roundtable discussions made clear that achieving digital maturity can be an especially arduous journey, even for... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

December 2006 (Revised December 2007)
Case

The Vanderbilt University Endowment (2006)

By: Andre F. Perold and William T. Spitz

As with many modern-day large pools of capital, the Vanderbilt University endowment is significantly invested in alternative assets such as hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and natural resources. The endowment's investment committee chair is attempting to... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Asset Management; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management

View Details

Keywords: federal government; real estate

31 Oct 2007
HBS Case

Climate Change Puts Heat on GMs

leading financial services companies as it determines its stand on a matter of increasing public prominence. Oberholzer-Gee teaches the case in Strategies Beyond the Market, a second-year elective that... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

May 1983 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a decision confronting the president of a small company about selling some or all of the shares in his company to another firm. Technical Data Corp. provides analytical services to professional bond market traders over a system of computer terminals operated... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Information Industry; Service Industry

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

organization to a new level. And at home, rebels are more engaged partners, parents, and friends. Packed with strategies for embracing rebellion at work and in life as well as illuminating case studies from a wide range of industries,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Europe - Global

significant transformation. The ERC has contributed to much of the European-focused faculty publications and research projects across the School. Research topics have ranged from the challenges of European economic and financial... View Details

16 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 16

The Dynamic Effects of Bundling as a Product Strategy By: Derdenger, Timothy, and Vineet Kumar Abstract—Several key questions in bundling have not been empirically examined: Is mixed bundling more effective than pure bundling or pure... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

November 2003 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Samsung and Daewoo: Two Tales of One City

By fiscal year 2000, Samsung had pulled far ahead of other "chaebols," Korean conglomerates. For example, the market value of Samsung affiliates listed on the Korea Stock Exchange exceeded the sum of the market value of listed affiliates of second, third, and fourth... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Business Conglomerates; Corporate Strategy; Emerging Markets; Crisis Management; Electronics Industry; South Korea

24 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 24

and in contrast, such indirect costs appear relatively fixed in the face of sales declines in this industry. We discuss potential sources of these cost-structure patterns and their implications for cost management efforts as asset management firms move forward from the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 1996
Case

Chadwick, Inc.: The Balanced Scorecard (Abridged)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The pharmaceutical division of a diversified company has been asked to develop a Balanced Scorecard. Research and development projects take about ten years to bring a new product to the marketplace and the division depends on good relations and active feedback from its... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Research and Development; Product Launch; Commercialization; Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Pharmaceutical Industry