Publications

Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy
Author of The Heart of Business– Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly is a senior lecturer in the General Management unit and... View Details

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Fortinet: Cybersecurity Pioneer Ken Xie Considers the Long Game

By: Tsedal Neeley, Jeff Huizinga and Emily Grandjean

Ken Xie, cofounder of cybersecurity giant Fortinet, faced a critical decision that would validate his leadership. Fortinet became the industry’s second-largest pureplay cybersecurity firm by developing differentiated hardware and investing in R&D. However, after a... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Marketing Strategy; Communication Strategy; Cybersecurity; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology Industry; United States; Sunnyvale

March 2020 (Revised March 2024)
Case

CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France

By: Charles C.Y. Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain

The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Private Equity; Strategy; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; France

06 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Big BRICs, Weak Foundations: The Beginning of Public Elementary Education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China

Keywords: by Latika Chaudhary, Aldo Musacchio, Steven Nafziger & Se Yan; Education

2014
Working Paper

Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

By: Hazhir Rahmandad, Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca Henderson

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"―delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer term investments―makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Competitive Advantage

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2021
Working Paper

MLS as a Sports Product—The Prominence of the World's Game in the U.S.

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Kenneth Cortsen

The purpose of this Working Paper is to analyze how soccer at the professional level in the U.S., with Major League Soccer as a focal point, has developed over the span of a quarter of a century. It is worthwhile to examine the growth of Major League Soccer (MLS) from... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; Major League Soccer; Sports; Growth and Development; Organizational Structure; Business Model; Sports Industry; United States

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20 May 2016
News

MatchMiner Wins Harvard Business School Kraft Precision Trials Challenge

September 2003 (Revised September 2018)
Exercise

RetailMax: Role for Regan Kessel

By: Kathleen McGinn and Dina Witter

This exercise requires students to enact an internal salary negotiation, taking on the roles of Cam Archer, a star employee, and Regan Kessel, a VP trying to attract the MBA into his department. The exercise presents a one-issue, distributive negotiation that... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Compensation and Benefits; Management Practices and Processes; Retail Industry

April 2019 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)

By: Ryan Raffaelli, David G. Fubini and Aldo Sesia

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Innovation Leadership; History; Technological Innovation; Investment; Decision Making

January 2016
Case

Savannah Informatics

By: Kevin Schulman

John Muthee and Justus Paul are recent graduates of medical school and a unique program in clinical informatics. They return to Nairobi, Kenya with a passion to make a difference in their community. They have a team they know well, but need to find a project concept... View Details

Keywords: Information Systems; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Kenya; Africa

April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Hambrecht & Quist

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Nicole Tempest

Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q), an investment bank headquartered in San Francisco, has a very unique culture relative to its Wall Street counterparts. Firm members and even competitors describe the culture as entrepreneurial, team-driven, non-bureaucratic, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; San Francisco

July 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

China 'Unbalanced'

By: Diego A. Comin and Richard H.K. Vietor

In 2010, Wen Jiabao looked back at the financial crisis with some satisfaction. Using aggressive fiscal and monetary policy, China had weathered the crisis successfully, growing 8.7% annually in 2010. Most of the unemployed workers had returned to work, often... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Local Range; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; China

Career Coach

Jonathan Shepherd

Jonathan is CPD's Corporate Relations Director overseeing principal investing: VC/PE, investment management and real estate. Since 2007, he has coached thousands of students & alumni and forged recruiting relationships with hundreds... View Details

Derek C. M. van Bever

Derek van Bever is a Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit of Harvard Business School. He teaches courses in both years of the MBA program (“Leadership and Corporate Accountability” in the first-year required curriculum and “Building and Sustaining a... View Details

August 2003 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Tower Software

Tower Software (TS) is a publicly traded corporation engaged in multiple facets of the computer software business. Its flagship product, TS SERVE, is a successful proprietary network operating system. TS also develops and sells applications software for word... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Product Launch; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

July 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Case

SIG Beverages (A)

SIG Beverages, a leading supplier of bottling and packaging systems for the beverage industry, has recognized an opportunity in providing services for its product end users. Management's challenge is to develop a service portfolio to address end users' needs, while... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Production; Service Delivery; Manufacturing Industry; Italy