Publications

Read Now

June 2005
Case

Transformation of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. 2005 (A)

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and Yukihiko Endo

The company, once an outstanding Japan-based global leader in electronics and major appliances, suffered poor performance during the 1990s. Kunio Nakamura became CEO in 2001 and sought to transform the company in a fundamental way. Examines the company's history,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Business History; Leading Change; Management Systems; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Electronics Industry; Japan

November 1997 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Martin Smith: January 2002

By: Josh Lerner

An MBA student must choose between offers from three private equity organizations. Each organization has distinct strengths and weaknesses, and different implications for the student's career development. The case presents compensation and employment data about the... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Compensation and Benefits; Analytics and Data Science; Job Offer; Personal Development and Career

March 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Wachtell Lipton: Focused Excellence

By: Ashish Nanda and Margaret Cross

For years, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz—a small, New York City law firm—has consistently boasted the highest profits per partner and one of the highest “prestige” ratings among U.S.-based law firms. The firm has remained loyal to a distinctive strategy ever since its... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Law; Mergers and Acquisitions; Legal Services Industry; New York (city, NY)

28 Aug 2011
News

In Gaddafi's Wake

01 Jun 2013
News

Minding The Gap

August 2006 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Natura: Global Beauty Made in Brazil

By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Explores the globalization strategies of Natura, Brazil's largest cosmetics company. Founded in 1969, Natura grew using a direct selling model. Led by its three founders, the firm made distinctive use of Brazil's diversity and became characterized by high ethical and... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Brazil

Research Summary

Learning Motives

In another research stream, Professor Myers probes the underlying reasons that motivate people to learn. He has confirmed a conceptual framework that identifies four distinct learning motives that vary to the extent that they are intrinsic, extrinsic, and self- or... View Details

Keywords: Learning

October 2013
Background Note

Multi-Sided Platforms: Foundations and Strategy

By: Andrei Hagiu

This note offers an analysis of four fundamental strategic decisions and associated tradeoffs that set MSPs apart from other types of businesses (e.g. product firms) and that every MSP entrepreneur and investor should carefully consider. In the last section I also... View Details

Keywords: Multi-Sided Platforms; Strategy; Technology; Technology Industry

2023
Book

Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well

By: Amy Edmondson

A revolutionary guide that will transform your relationship with failure, from the pioneering researcher of psychological safety and award-winning Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson.

We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now,... View Details

Keywords: Failure; Success

Find at Harvard

May 1993 (Revised December 1994)
Background Note

Geography of Competition and Strategy, The

Addresses the role of geographic scope in competition and strategy. Makes distinctions between the geographic scope of competition (or the effective area over which firms compete), the geographic scope of competitive advantage (or the geographic area from which a firm... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Geographic Scope

May 20, 2010
Article

Leaders’ Blindspots Undermine Their Global Language Policies

By: Tsedal Neeley

Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Diversity

Register to Read

16 Apr 2020
News

Is This the End of the Indie Bookstore?

Joshua D. Margolis

Joshua Margolis is James Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration and the Unit Head for the Organizational Behavior unit. He is also Faculty Chair of the Program for Leadership Development. His research and teaching revolve around leadership... View Details

Keywords: furniture; health care; insurance industry; nonprofit industry; pharmaceuticals

January 2011 (Revised April 2023)
Course Overview Note

The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: Overview

By: Tom Nicholas

This is a course overview note for The Coming of Managerial Capitalism. CMC is chronologically organized. It starts in the late eighteenth century when America gained independence, spans the remarkable rise to industrial maturity during the nineteenth and twentieth... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business or Company Management; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Welfare; War; Transformation; Information Technology; Finance; Situation or Environment; Decision Making; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; United States

spring 2006
Article

All's Fair in Love, War, & Bankruptcy: Corporate Governance Implications of CEO Turnover in Financial Distress

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Prior discussions of management turnover during financial distress have examined bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms as distinct groupings with little overlap. Separately investigating rates of turnover in-bankruptcy and out-of-bankruptcy, without a direct comparison... View Details

Keywords: CEO Turnover; Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Shadow Of Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financing and Loans; Corporate Governance; Finance; Theory; Markets; United States

Find at Harvard

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: banking; asset management; investment banking industry; consumer products; shipping; wine; financial services

2018
Working Paper

Backhanded Compliments: How Negative Comparisons Undermine Flattery

By: Ovul Sezer, Alison Wood Brooks and Michael I. Norton

Seven studies (N = 2352) examine backhanded compliments—seeming praise that draws a comparison with a negative standard—a distinct self-presentation strategy with two simultaneous goals: eliciting liking (“Your speech was good…”) and conveying status (“…for a woman”).... View Details

Keywords: Backhanded Compliments; Self-presentation; Impression Management; Interpersonal Perception; Liking; Status; Image Concern; Interpersonal Communication; Status and Position; Perception; Motivation and Incentives

Read Now

June 2013
Case

The World Economic Forum's Global Leadership Fellows Program

By: Rakesh Khurana and Eric Baldwin

This case examines a distinctive leadership development program within the World Economic Forum. The program, born out of the conviction that the complexity of global challenges at the beginning of the 21st century required a new generation of global leaders, recruited... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Leadership Skills; Training; Global Organizations; Global Leadership; World Economic Forum; Globalization; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change