Publications

January 1991 (Revised March 1991)
Case

Responsible Care

By: George C. Lodge and Jeffrey F. Rayport

Describes a 1989 initiative of the Chemical Manufacturer's Association (CMA) to secure chemical industry support for and implementation of a series of codes of conduct in the field of environmental health and safety. Called "Responsible Care", the program makes... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Fairness; Ethics; Environmental Sustainability; Safety; Chemical Industry

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February 2018
Case

Robert K. Steel at Wachovia (A)

By: Gautam Mukunda, Nien-hê Hsieh and David Lane

In September 2008, Robert Steel presided over the sale of Wachovia, a top U.S. bank, less than three months after becoming its CEO. Wachovia’s exposure to risky home loans led depositors and creditors to flee the bank on Friday, September 26, after the FDIC seized and... View Details

29 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?

according to Magnus Thor Torfason, an assistant professor in Harvard Business School's Entrepreneurial Management Unit. His article for Social Psychological & Personality Science, "Here's a Tip: Prosocial Gratuities Are Linked to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

small number of rivals—for market power. (Indeed, at the Harvard Business School where I have taught business history to thousands of MBAs, students often compare the early... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

December 2002 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Tympani Board, The

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Mike Tarkington, a partner at Reality Venture Partners, must recommend a course of action to his colleague, Steve Bonhomme. Bonhomme is trying to decide whom he should put on the board of a company that is acquiring one of Reality's portfolio companies. Reality will... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Equity; Venture Capital; Governing and Advisory Boards; Finland; United States

October 2020
Case

HOPE and Transformational Lending: Netflix Invests in Black Led Banks

By: John D. Macomber and Janice Broome Brooks

Following the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day in 2020, the large US corporation Netflix elected to make a "transformational deposit" of $10 million into Hope Credit Union (HCU), a small Black led community development finance institution (CDFI) based in... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Rural Entrepreneurship; Economic Development; Black Entrepreneurs; Economic Growth; Credit; Banks and Banking; Entrepreneurship; Rural Scope; Development Economics; Race; Investment; Decision Making; Banking Industry

17 Apr 2022
Book

How to Avoid the 'Ethical Slide' That Leads Companies Astray

Excerpt Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know J. S. Nelson Most people follow at least some ethical rules in their daily lives. (The small percentage of individuals who do not are called psychopaths;... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

01 Sep 2023
News

Bless this Stress

mortal in search of strategies to live better and longer. Instead of a magic hammer, the actor relies on guidance from a series of experts like Akinola, an organizational psychologist and Columbia Business School professor. She’s here to... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training

March 2006
Case

EMC Corporation: Proposed Acquisition of VMware

By: Constance E. Bagley, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Chris Lombardi

Involves the decision by the CEO of EMC Corp. whether to acquire VMware, a small software firm in California that makes virtualization software. Among the factors to be considered are a pending patent case involving WMare and Microsoft and integration challenges... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Decision Choices and Conditions; Lawsuits and Litigation; Applications and Software; Acquisition; Information Technology Industry; California

Research Summary

Research and Publication Interests

Michelle Craig McDonald is currently writing a Harvard Business School case study on the impact of the International Coffee Act on small producers. She is interested in early American economic development, especially the role of foreign trade and re-exported... View Details

February 15, 2022
Article

How Managers Can Build a Culture of Experimentation

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Neil Hoyne

Testing in business presents qualitatively different challenges than those in clinical trials and most scientific research. There are very few opportunities for randomized control experiments in a changing, competitive market. Yet, change and competition make testing a... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Management; Decision Making

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Read Now

June 2019
Case

ClearLife: From Prospect to Platform

By: Alexander Braun, Lauren Cohen, Mauro Elvedi and Jiahua Xu

ClearLife’s first product was a trading and analytics platform for participants in the U.S. life settlement market, the secondary market for life insurance. ClearLife played a key role in facilitating transactions and devising a common language for expressing value and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Insurance; Entrepreneurship; Expansion; Diversification; Strategy

03 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 3

PublicationsThe Power of Small Wins Authors:Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer Publication:Harvard Business Review 89, no. 5 (May 2011) Abstract What is the best way to motivate employees to do... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Program

Senior Executive Leadership Program—India

Summary India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. To seize opportunities and sustain success under shifting global business conditions, companies need executives who are exceptional leaders—confident... View Details

17 Jun 2021
Blog Post

Setting a Higher Bar on Fatherhood

I am often asked the question, “How do you get through business school with a family?” I might give a light-hearted reply, but what I really want to say is, “How do you get through without one?” Here at HBS with me is my incredible wife,... View Details

September 2005 (Revised January 2009)
Case

E-Duction, Inc.

By: Peter Tufano

E-Ductions, a small privately held start-up, developed a new voluntary employee benefit: a payroll-deduction-linked credit card. The CLEAR card provided workers, especially low-income and credit-challenged employees, access to a card with tight credit limits, zero APR,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Credit; Credit Cards; Compensation and Benefits; Employees

15 Oct 2015
Blog Post

Why We Recruit: Medallia

deliver incredible customer experiences. How long has your organization been recruiting at Harvard Business School and what roles do you hire for? Medallia has ramped up its formal HBS recruiting program over the past year, and we are... View Details

Keywords: Technology

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Bharti Tele-Ventures

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

Following the liberalization of India's telecommunications service industry in the early 1990s, Bharti Tele-Ventures grew from a small entrepreneurial telephone equipment importer and manufacturer to become India's largest private-sector telecommunications service... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Growth and Development; Customers; Foreign Direct Investment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Public Ownership; Profit; Partners and Partnerships; Rank and Position; Telecommunications Industry; India

December 1986 (Revised November 1989)
Case

Hewlett-Packard: Manufacturing Productivity Division (A)

By: Benson P. Shapiro and Lawrence B. Levine

In late summer 1986, the management of the Manufacturing Productivity Division (MPD) of Hewlett-Packard (HP) was in the process of making major market selection and product policy decisions. MPD is a small division which develops and markets manufacturing productivity... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Marketing; Product Marketing; Market Entry and Exit; Production; Research and Development; Manufacturing Industry