Publications

May 2018
Article

Selection and Market Reallocation: Productivity Gains from Multinational Production

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie X. Chen

Assessing the productivity gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research and policy debate. Positive aggregate productivity gains are often attributed to within-firm productivity improvement; however, an alternative, less emphasized... View Details

Keywords: Productivity Gains; Multinational Production; Selection; Market Reallocation; And Within-firm Productivity; Multinational Firms and Management; Production; Performance Productivity; Competition; Mathematical Methods

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May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Gap, Inc., 2012

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

Between 2000 and 2012, Gap, Inc. (Gap) ceded its world leadership position in specialty fashion retailing to Inditex of Spain and H&M of Sweden. These two companies, each less than a quarter of Gap's size in 2000, were now setting the pace in the global mass fashion... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Change; Fashion; Multinational; Brands; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Performance Improvement; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Change Management; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sweden; Spain; United States

09 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Really Drives Your Strategy?

way: that sometimes the content of strategy can come from the operating levels of the firm. So it's not just that resource allocation "gets in the way of implementation," it's that research allocation can lead firms in a whole... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

30 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Measuring the Efficacy of the World’s Managers

Firms in the United States, Japan, and Germany tend to be managed especially well, while firms in Brazil, China, and India tend to be managed poorly. Those are among the initial findings of the World... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

1999
Chapter

Organizing for Worldwide Effectiveness: The Transnational Solution

By: C. A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Performance Effectiveness; Organizational Design

February 2012
Article

Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

US productivity growth accelerated after 1995 (unlike Europe's), particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). Using two new micro panel datasets we show that US multinationals operating in Europe also experienced a "productivity miracle."... View Details

Keywords: IT Productivity; American IT Productivity; Information Technology; Performance Productivity; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Practices and Processes; United States; Europe

September 1995 (Revised December 2018)
Case

Managing Innovation at Nypro, Inc. (A)

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Rebecca Voorheis

Nypro is the world's leading injection molder of precision plastic parts, operating a global network of 21 plants. Nypro's strategy is for each plant to offer identical capabilities, because its customers are global companies with worldwide sourcing needs. The case... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Innovation and Management; Operations; Performance Consistency; Manufacturing Industry

November 1991 (Revised June 1997)
Case

Micom Caribe (A)

By: David M. Upton and Joshua D. Margolis

Describes the Puerto Rican manufacturing plant of a transnational company. The award-winning plant has dramatically improved the quality of flexibility of its operations, by taking a radical approach to manufacturing. The methods center on the use of specific... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Product Launch; Production; Performance Improvement; Quality; Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

23 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Partnering and the Balanced Scorecard

intra-organizational partnerships, facilitating alignment and partnership with external constituents: customers, suppliers, and communities. The Balanced Scorecard: From Measurement To Management We introduced the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in 1992.1 The BSC measures... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

15 Aug 2005
HBS Case

Classic Cases Live On at HBS

Aoki took command of a key variable in restaurant management: table turnover, or "turns." "Rocky made the restaurant a theater, with the chef as the star of the show," Klug says. "When the meal was over, the chef bowed, the View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

01 Apr 2002
News

Q&A - Mark Fields

have confidence. If you perform the appropriate due diligence up front, then you can be confident that you’ll make the right decisions, no matter where you are. What are some of the business issues you’ve dealt with? Cost issues, an... View Details

Keywords: auto; Mazda; Ford; Mark Fields; Machinery Manufacturing; Manufacturing

April 1996
Case

Shanghai Volkswagen

Volkswagen and Shanghai Sedan, have developed a joint venture to build western-quality autos in China. Having developed a supplier network capable of delivering quality components, the company now faces a need to expand capacity (demanding rapid expansion of their... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Management Practices and Processes; Joint Ventures; Operations; Performance Capacity; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Germany; China