Publications

January 1971 (Revised August 1984)
Case

Dansk Designs Ltd.

Dansk Designs Ltd., a supplier of high quality, highly designed tableware products, plans to enter a new product area in housewares. Past growth and anticipated future expansion make organizational changes necessary. Overseas operations, design changes, supplier... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Expansion; Organizational Structure; Consumer Products Industry

29 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 29

differences in ownership structure across countries, measured by the difference in sectoral vertical integration indexes, are smaller in sectors with similar levels of protection. Finally, ownership View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 9

Working PapersOperational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting Authors:Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer, and Michael W. Toffel Abstract Operational failures occur in all industries with consequences... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2014 (Revised March 2022)
Case

School Specialty, Inc.

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Kristin Mugford

Set in 2013, School Specialty was a financially troubled supplier of educational products to primary and secondary schools in the United States. The company planned to file Chapter 11 in order to address its excessive debt load, but needed to arrange... View Details

Keywords: School Specialty; Bankruptcy; Section 363; Financing; Chapter 11; Capital Structure; Financing and Loans; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

April 1985 (Revised November 1987)
Case

Sun Hydraulics Corp. (A)

Involves the design and creation of a company with no formally-defined hierarchy. Describes the steps the founder takes to avoid the organizational politics he perceives as crushing the human contributions they were designed to harness. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Engineering; Business Startups; Technology Industry

01 Apr 1997
News

Critical Information: MIS Monitors the Ever-Changing World of IT

framework for IT baselining and planning, is examining how the new information economy is transforming the traditional management principles of the industrial economy. Nolan is studying, for example, how IT is changing the traditional... View Details

Keywords: Elaine Gottlieb

01 Jun 2010
News

Alumni Books

industry’s growth from a small base in the U.S. North-east in the 1960s to today’s highly visible role in economies all over the world. Brooke lays out his vision for the industry as an essential element of economic growth and... View Details

Keywords: mathematics; statistics; Finance

01 Apr 2002
News

Charting the Luminary Leadership in Professional Service Firms

of the factors that drive success in an industry that attracts 65 percent of MBA graduates from leading business schools — many of whom eventually leave to run organizations of their own. With revenues approaching a trillion dollars,... View Details

Keywords: professional service firms; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

01 Oct 1996
News

Leading In a New Era

structure up-to-date. Last year, Boise Cascade announced its most profitable year ever, with earnings of $352 million on sales of $5 billion. At about the same time that Harad's company was struggling against declining profits, across the... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry

02 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 2

possibility of platforms investing in "educating" unsophisticated users. In a competitive environment, such education is a public good among platforms and therefore the equilibrium level is lower than the one that would maximize joint View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Politics is Failing America, and What Business Can Do To Help

industrial complex that limits healthy competition in order to promote its continued growth and caters to the power and profit-driven demands of its best customers instead of the broader public interest. During the 2016 election cycle,... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

30 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Driving Social Impact Through Consumer Behavior: Nonprofit to Finance to Retail with Nicole Krantz (MBA 2022)

close the finance gap, Krantz dove directly into the industry instead of learning it from the outside. She spent three years in fixed income sales and trading learning new things every day and getting a 360-degree view of the business and... View Details

Keywords: Retail

Web

Field Course: Startup Operations - Course Catalog

startups. There is no specific industry focus for this course - all sectors and business models apply - including CPG, social enterprise, nonprofits and bootstrapped businesses. This field course complements concepts covered in Launching... View Details

01 Sep 2016
News

Pricing Paradise

The Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Bilmes began her career at the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on cost structures in large-scale industries where fractional... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

March 1990 (Revised November 2004)
Case

O.M. Scott & Sons Co. Leveraged Buyout

By: George P. Baker III and Karen Wruck

Documents the organizational changes that took place at O.M. Scott & Sons Co. in response to their leveraged buyout. Provides the opportunity for students to discuss the effects of high leverage on management decision making, and the differences between operating as a... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management; Business Conglomerates; Cost of Capital; Financial Services Industry