Publications

2022
Book

The Heart of Business (ハート・オブ・ビジネス)――「人とパーパス」を本気で大切にする新時代のリーダーシップ

By: Hubert Joly and Caroline Lambert

A remarkable turnaround by a leader with a remarkable philosophy: Find your noble purpose. Put people at the center. Unleash human magic.
"It was fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early,... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Business and Stakeholder Relations

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

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March 2025
Case

Stagwell: AI and the Future of Marketing

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Radhika Kak

In early 2025, Mark Penn, Founder, CEO and Chairman of Stagwell, a global marketing company with a network of over 70+ agencies that served over 4000 blue-chip customers across 40 countries, was looking at ways that marketers should navigate the disruption emanating... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Innovation Strategy; Change Management; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Transformation; Technology Adoption; Marketing Strategy; Service Delivery; Creativity; Business Model; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry

December 1995
Case

City Year: National Expansion Strategy (A)

City Year, a successful nonprofit organization, is studying how, when, and where to expand to new sites. This case provides the opportunity to understand the strategy and structure of a successful delivery system for human services. That analysis raises the question of... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Growth Management

June 2021
Case

uBiome

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Olivia Graham

uBiome provided clinical tests that sequenced the DNA of human microbiome samples, providing data on health conditions directly to consumers or to prescribing physicians. Founded in 2012, the San Francisco-based startup raised $105 million from top-tier venture capital... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Crime and Corruption; Insolvency and Bankruptcy

July 2005 (Revised September 2016)
Case

24 Hour Fitness (A): The Rise, 1983–2004

By: John R. Wells, Elizabeth A. Raabe and Gabriel Ellsworth

In October 2004, Mark S. Mastrov, CEO of 24 Hour Fitness, reflected on how far his company had come in just over 20 years. From humble beginnings in 1983 in San Leandro, California, 24 Hour Fitness had grown to become the largest privately-owned health-club chain in... View Details

Keywords: 24 Hour Fitness; Mark Mastrov; Health Clubs; Fitness; Gyms; Chain; Weight Loss; Exercise; Personal Training; Retention; Sales Force Compensation; Incentive Systems; Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Private Equity; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Nutrition; Business History; Employees; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Operations; Private Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Sales; Salesforce Management; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Information Technology; Internet; Technology Platform; Web; Web Sites; Capital Structure; Performance; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; United States; California; San Francisco

06 Jul 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Do All Your Detailing Efforts Pay Off? Dynamic Panel Data Methods Revisited

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Keywords: by Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung Park; Pharmaceutical

30 Oct 2018
Blog Post

Demystifying the HBS Application

We know that the Admissions process can be nerve-wracking no matter what stage of the process you are in. In an attempt to demystify aspects of the application process and dispel some myths along the way, we wanted to provide some View Details

11 Jun 2018
Blog Post

Meet the 2018-2019 Blavatnik Fellows in Life Science Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship in the HBS Community There are a multitude of entrepreneurship programs and resources available to students and alumni in the HBS and Harvard Ecosystem. While attending HBS, students have access to countless offerings to... View Details

10 Nov 2015
Op-Ed

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

Bennis said, “Leadership is character. It is not just a superficial question of style. It has to do with who we are as human beings and the forces that shaped us. Style is the outward manifestation of one’s authentic leadership, not one’s... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

Peter Tufano

Peter Tufano is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and Senior Advisor to the Harvard Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. From 2011 to 2021, he served as the Peter Moores Dean at View Details

2011
Working Paper

Top Executive Background and Financial Reporting Choice

By: Francois Brochet and Kyle Travis Welch

We study the role of executive functional background in explaining management discretion in financial reporting. Taking goodwill impairment as our reporting setting, we focus on top executives (CEOs and CFOs) whose employment history includes experience in investment... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Goodwill Accounting; Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Managerial Roles; Agency Theory

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22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing, Cespedes, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, offers research-based insight and context, and presents sales productivity not only as a core way to increase... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

David Ager

David Ager is a Senior Lecturer in Executive Education. He engages CEOs, CHROs, and their teams to design and deliver customized executive development experiences for executive, senior and high potential leaders. The companies hail from diverse sectors including... View Details

December 2011 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Pierre Frankel in Moscow (A): Unfreezing Change

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

A young and upcoming French executive in a global technology company is sent to Moscow as deputy managing director to turn around the Russia subsidiary. He must report to the subsidiary's managing director (a large reason for the organization's underperformance) and to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Selection and Staffing; Change Management; Restructuring; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Moscow

January 2009 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Pitney Bowes: Employer Health Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter and Jennifer F Baron

Pitney Bowes, a Fortune 500 mail and document management firm, offered its first health plans in the years following World War II. Over the ensuing decades, Pitney Bowes adapted its approach to employee health amid rising health care costs, shifting employer attitudes... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Insurance; Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Corporate Strategy

September 2008
Class Lecture

Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

By: Michael L. Tushman and Charles O'Reilley

Executives who return from campus-based executive programs ready to make changes often find employees resistant to new ideas. The Leading Change and Organizational Renewal multimedia resource was created to ease transitions and empower the teacher as leader. This... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Learning; Framework; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes

January 1998
Case

Frontgate Catalog

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Frontgate is a high-end, Lebanon, Ohio-based catalog business. The decision makers are trying to determine how much financial and personnel resources to invest in the development of a Web site. The decision is being made in light of branding issues and competitor's Web... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Competition; Internet and the Web; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; Ohio