Publications

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March 2008
Case

Novartis AG: Science-Based Business

By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington

Novartis is a science-based drug company, which has important implications for its business strategy. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with over $38B in sales in 2007. Pharmaceuticals account for slightly over $24B of that total. In 2007,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language

By: Ashley V. Whillans

This case explores the growth of Ureed, an online marketplace for translation services that is powered by a workforce consisting of remote freelancers who are based in the United Arab Emirates. Nour Al Hassan, the founder and CEO faced the challenge of how best to... View Details

Keywords: Language Translation; Freelancers; Remote Work; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Job Design and Levels

January 2008
Article

Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih

Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Value Creation

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Web

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets - Faculty & Research

control in large corporations—first empirically documented by Berle and Means (1932). Such separation entails several agency problems reflecting conflicts between managers and shareholders, such as self-dealing by managers, low effort,... View Details

May 1999 (Revised December 2007)
Case

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Development Strategy

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

Despite revenues in excess of $93 million in 1998, world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute constantly faces an operating shortfall and looks to its highly successful development office to help cover the deficit. The development office raises money annually (with a... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations

March 2024
Case

Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble (A)

By: N. Louis Shipley and Stacy Straaberg

In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina

June 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

Zensar: The Future of Vision Communities (A)

By: David A. Garvin and Rachna Tahilyani

Zensar is a rapidly growing, mid-sized Indian IT services company with a collaborative management philosophy and innovative HR policies. One of its practices, Vision Communities, is an inclusive forum for innovation and strategy formulation. As the company grows,... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Cooperation; Information Technology Industry; India

September 2006 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Empemex

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Regina Garcia-Cuellar

Studies an entrepreneurial venture in Mexico City. The protagonists, two MBAs from HBS, started a pawn shop chain funded from their private equity office after finishing business school. This is timed at a point where the protagonists have to decide how to grow the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Mexico City; United States

March 1992
Case

Amgen, Inc.: Planning the Unplannable

By: Nitin Nohria

By the early 1990s, Amgen--a pharmaceutical company started little over a decade ago as Applied Molecular Genetics--was within range of becoming a billion-dollar company. With two extremely successful biotechnology drugs on the market, Amgen stood as the largest and... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Strategic Planning; Success; Risk and Uncertainty; Pharmaceutical Industry

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

staggering scope of the findings could help put a value on the work, so senior leaders and non-tech managers at firms understand just how important hiring open source expertise is to success. The results mark among the first comprehensive... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

June 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Creating World-Class Board Governance at SECO

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney

In Spring 2023, SECO CEO Massimo Mauri had the ambition to grow the €200 million revenue technology company to a €1 billion company by 2030. Founded in Italy in the 1970s, the family-owned company had gone through a period of growth and internationalization,... View Details

December 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

i2 Technologies, Inc.

By: Ananth Raman and Jasjit Singh

Describes the emergence and growth of i2 Technologies and the supply chain planning software industry. In December 1998, i2's market capitalization was in excess of $2 billion; the supply chain planning software industry had annual sales of approximately $1 billion and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Supply Chain Management; Production; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology Industry

25 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 25

http://ssrn.com/abstract=2523601 Cases & Course Materials Harvard Business School Case 815-047 Venture Capital at the Harvard Management Company in Historical Perspective The compromise between capital preservation and View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Web

Japan - Global

global impact. Located in Tokyo, the JRC's primary purpose is to support HBS faculty research and case-writing activities in Japan. The School strives to deepen faculty's understanding of and exposure to Japanese management issues,... View Details

November 2005 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Bally Total Fitness (A): The Rise, 1962–2004

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

From a single, modest club in 1962, Bally Total Fitness had grown to become—in management’s words—the “largest and only nationwide commercial operator of fitness centers” in the United States in 2004. Bally had faced its share of challenges, but the last couple of... View Details

Keywords: Bally Total Fitness; Fitness; Gyms; Health Clubs; Chain; Securities And Exchange Commission; Paul Toback; Weight Loss; Exercise; Contracts; Personal Training; Retention; Accounting; Accounting Audits; Accrual Accounting; Finance; Advertising; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Public Equity; Financing and Loans; Revenue; Revenue Recognition; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Trends; Cost Management; Profit; Growth and Development; Leadership Style; Five Forces Framework; Private Ownership; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

May 1992 (Revised May 2002)
Case

NIKE in Transition (B): Phil Knight Returns

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

After returning to the CEO/COO job, Phil Knight makes changes to Nike's strategy, organization, and management between 1983 and 1987 aimed at making Nike more responsive to the market place. He takes cost-cutting measures, and experiments with several management and... View Details

Keywords: Change; Entrepreneurship; Cost Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy

February 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Big Spaceship: Ready to Go Big?

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Big Spaceship, a digital marketing agency, faced a rather big challenge: How to scale the distinctive culture that was essential to its competitive strategy? Renowned for the cutting-edge websites that it developed to market major Hollywood movies and leading consumer... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

2020
Working Paper

Updating the Balanced Scorecard for Triple Bottom Line Strategies

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan

Many companies are now attempting to achieve triple bottom line performance on financial, environmental, and societal metrics. Successful strategies for such performance, however, generally require new relationships among multiple players in multiple sectors across a... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adaptation; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Performance; Strategy