Publications

23 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research: May 23, 2017

founders who already had a more hands-on management style themselves, these interactions also increase top-line employee growth via an increase in hiring rates. Our study demonstrates View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

September 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Sona Comstar and Blackstone: Unlocking Value Through Business Transformation

By: Ranjay Gulati and Kanika Jain

Private equity firm Blackstone’s majority investment in automotive systems manufacturer Sona Comstar had culminated in the largest IPO in the Indian auto components industry in 2021, with stellar returns for all involved. This EV supplier was the result of a 2019... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Decision Making; Engineering; Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Private Equity; Mergers and Acquisitions; Initial Public Offering; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; Asia; Southeast Asia

01 Jun 2025
News

Alumni and Faculty Books

Edited by Margie Kelley Unlocking Innovation: A Leader's Guide to Turning Bold Ideas Into Tangible Results By Robyn Bolton (MBA 2005) Page Two Press Only 1 in every 50,000 incubated ideas reaches $1 million in sales. If you ask most corporate executives why their... View Details

01 Jun 2004
News

There and Back Again: The Challenges and Rewards of Working Abroad

(MBA ’91), a managing director in the firm’s Boston office. (See the International Checklist.) Working abroad can also develop new skills and open doors to future opportunities. Sean Keohane (MBA ’96), for... View Details

Keywords: Laura Singleton; international; relocation; employment

11 Dec 2023
Blog Post

Building Iconic Brands and Brighter Futures: Interview with Glossier CEO, Kyle Leahy

Kyle Leahy (MBA 2011) stepped into the CEO role of Glossier in May 2022 ready to take the brand to new heights. Since its founding in 2014, Glossier had disrupted the beauty industry, created a powerful community-driven brand, and was... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

15 Dec 2024
News

Alumni and Faculty Books

Edited by Margie Kelley Alumni Books The Power of Imperfect Eating By Kavita Bhatnagar (SELP 11, 2022) Penguin Enterprise Rather than dictating which foods are good or bad, this book weaves together stories that mirror the intricate, emotional, and often imperfect... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

November 2022
Case

The Battle Among Channels for Marketing Pharmaceuticals: UpScript, Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Direct-to-Consumer Sales

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Tiffany Farrell

Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous... View Details

Keywords: DTC; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Customer Value and Value Chain; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Strategy; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry

In 2000, Eaton Corporation was broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed... View Details

January 2025 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Gavi and the 'Next' Pandemic

By: Tarun Khanna and Kerry Herman

In 2025, CEO Dr. Sania Nishtar and her team consider the lessons the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunizations (GAVI) learned from the pandemic. GAVI successfully brought COVID-19 vaccines to large swaths of the undeveloped and under-developed world by pooling... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Success; Innovation and Invention; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Pharmaceutical Industry; Africa

2017
Book

Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book explores whether profits and environmental sustainability are compatible through the lens of a global history of green entrepreneurship between the nineteenth century and today. It tells the story of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who... View Details

Find at Harvard

February 2007 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Esquel Group: Integrating Business Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

By: F. Warren McFarlan, William C. Kirby and Tracy Manty

Focuses on the experience of China's largest shirt manufacturer in managing various aspects of government relations in China. Identifies a wide variety of social initiatives it has undertaken. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; China

07 Dec 2021
Op-Ed

Want to Build Better Leaders? Focus on Mindset, Skills, Knowledge

of their projects, their performance reflects their development in the knowledge tier. Questions that then explore their executing abilities through the lens of mindset and skills invites them to recognize how the View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Shawnette Rochelle

March 2017
Case

Swagbucks

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a competitor to Swagbucks, after the company’s... View Details

Web

Value-Based Health Care - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

outcomes to increase patient value. Patients Participate actively in managing personal health, and, when faced with care and treatment options, seek assistance in understanding the expected outcomes. Health... View Details

April 2025
Case

Lisa Su and AMD (A)

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb

This multimedia case study focuses on CEO Lisa Su’s turnaround and subsequent transformation of the technology company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). When Su accepted the top position in 2014, AMD was on the verge of collapse. Su focused on the company’s culture,... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Private Regulation, Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change: A Business History Perspective

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones

Private regulatory systems, including voluntary efforts by firms to restrain their own behavior are the primary form of global climate change governance. However, when environmental challenges first rose up on the scientific and political agendas during the 1970s, the... View Details

Keywords: Certification; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Business History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

Read Now

2018
Book

American Fair Trade: Proprietary Capitalism, Corporatism, and the 'New Competition,' 1890–1940

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with regulators to... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Competition; Policy; Fairness; History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States

October 2016
Case

Yili Group: Building a Global Dairy Company

By: William C. Kirby and Nancy Hua Dai

From its humble beginnings as a local Chinese dairy company, the Inner Mongolia Yili Group has become one of the largest dairy companies in the world. To achieve this, Yili has aggressively expanded its footprint overseas including building the world’s largest... View Details