Publications

Brian J. Hall is the Albert H. Gordon Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He served as the Unit Head for the Negotiation, Organizations and Markets (NOM) Unit for 14 years. Previously, he was an assistant professor of economics in the... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; consulting; consumer products; executive search; financial services; high technology; investment banking industry; management consulting; private equity (LBO funds); restaurant; sports; venture capital industry

December 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Manufacturing Moderna's Future

By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks

In 2019, Moderna faced long odds of survival having failed to develop a successful clinical program out of the vast platform technology they had built around mRNA. Nearly overnight, the company skyrocketed to success with a vaccine for COVID-19, leading to an extremely... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Health Testing and Trials; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Production; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry

2 Dec 2021
Interview

How To Make Healthcare Innovation Happen

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Regina Herzlinger has been called “the godmother of consumer-driven healthcare” because of her groundbreaking scholarly articles and books on the subject. As a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School for nearly 50 years, her focus has supported... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention

10 Jul 2023
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2023

my research on leading complex organizations and scaling businesses, I've chosen Unleash Your Transformation by Marco Van Kalleveen and Peter Koijen. This book offers valuable insights and practical strategies for leaders who are driving View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

April 2021
Case

Etsy: Crafting a Turnaround to Save the Business and Its Soul

By: Ranjay Gulati, Luciana Silvestri and Monte Burke

Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, was founded in 2005 on an almost utopian ideal—a responsible, caring company that offered individual crafters a place to sell their wares, a wholesome alternative to companies that sold mass-manufactured products. The company... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Organizational Culture; Financial Condition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Leadership

Program

Managing Turbulence

all-out war for scarce talent. How do the best business leaders manage through these disruptions? What strategies have proven successful in unstable environments with few certainties? How do leaders continue to grow when faced with... View Details

August 2018 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

By: George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked... View Details

Keywords: Facebook; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Social Media

14 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need

The idea went mainstream in 2012, when Google’s Project Aristotle identified psychological safety as a key component in successful teams. Edmondson says the theory took on more urgency as organizations faced uncertainty and complexity... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Program

Strategy: Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage

that you need to devise a successful strategy for your organization. It takes a deep dive into all aspects of successful strategy and its execution: scoping the competitive landscape, choosing where (and... View Details

May 2001 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Jumpstart

By: Allen S. Grossman

Many in the nonprofit sector doubt whether organizational performance can be measured. Jumpstart, a 10-year-old nonprofit, developed performance measurement and management systems from its inception. The organization has experienced explosive growth and attributes a... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Measurement and Metrics; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Nonprofit Organizations

April 1987 (Revised April 1992)
Background Note

Games of Strategy: An Introduction

An introduction to the formal analysis of strategic situations. Ideas of game trees, backwards induction, and dominated strategies are introduced. The methods of backwards induction to find optimal strategies is related to the method of successive eliminations of... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Game Theory

09 Aug 2011
News

How to Master the Art of Office Politics

03 Dec 2015
Video

Planning Change: Lessons from the World of Retail

Launch of Nigeria's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) - the eNaira

Stakeholders including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and Prof. Lauren Cohen, L. E Simmons, a Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, United States of America, among others, yesterday, listed recommendations for the... View Details

2020
Book

Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments

By: Stefan Thomke

Don’t fly blind. See how the power of experiments works for you. When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out new business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often get it wrong. They discover that intuition,... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Experiments; Market Research; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Customers; Research

Find at Harvard

January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft

By: Doug J. Chung

Industry leaders should adapt to changes in the business context and consider different ways to grow. Advances in technology had shifted software demand to the cloud. As a result, Microsoft announced a strategic shift in direction from its existing ‘Windows first’... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Strategy; Transformation

October 1999
Case

CIBC Corporate and Investment Banking (A): 1987-1992

By: Joseph L. Bower and Michael Raynor

In 1992, CIBC CEO Al Flood faced the short-term operational challenge of saving Wood Gundy, the troubled investment bank CIBC had purchased five years earlier. At the same time he had to tackle the long-term strategic challenge of integrating Gundy's investment banking... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Banks and Banking; Corporate Strategy; Integration; Problems and Challenges; Mergers and Acquisitions; Banking Industry

Find at Harvard

July 1994
Case

Microsoft: Multimedia Publications (A)

By: Marco Iansiti and Ellen Stein

Microsoft Corp. has built a highly successful business around computer software (both applications and system software) using a particular organizational structure. Now that the company has chosen to enter the consumer market with a CD-ROM product, how should Microsoft... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Organizational Structure; Applications and Software; Design; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry; Information Technology Industry; Washington (state, US)