Publications

2015
Case

Fine Harvest Restaurant Group (cases A and B)

By: Clara (Xiaoling) Chen, Kenneth A. Merchant, Tatiana Sandino and Wim A. Van der Stede

The Fine Harvest Restaurant Group cases A and B examine a company's design of a new system to evaluate the performance (and determine the bonuses) for its restaurant managers. Fine Harvest had traditionally evaluated restaurant managers based on store margins and had... View Details

Keywords: Incentive Systems; Relative Performance Evaluation; Restaurant Industry; Accounting; Economics; Human Resources; Measurement and Metrics; Labor; Performance; Salesforce Management; Retail Industry; North and Central America

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

October 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Marketing Chateau Margaux

By: John A. Deighton, Leyland Pitt, Vincent Marie Dessain, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Anders Sjoman

Chateau Margaux, luxury brand or connoisseur brand? Although France is awash with unsold wine, demand has never been stronger for the very finest Bordeaux. How should Margaux sustain and grow its business? The Chateau management team is wondering if it can take more... View Details

Keywords: Price; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Distribution; Luxury; Food and Beverage Industry; France

18 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Learning in Action

their way up the mountain. After the two days testing, and constant interactive feedback, the design team returned to headquarters and immediately debriefed and extracted key learnings. Prototypes were quickly developed and sent to... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

March 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Deepa Bachu (A): Design Thinking at Pensaar Design

By: Thomas Graeber, Joshua Schwartzstein and Amram Migdal

In this case, set in June 2019 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Deepa Bachu of Pensaar Design and her team work with client ITC Ltd. to use design thinking and behavioral experiments to improve workplace safety and strive toward the company’s zero-accident goal. The... View Details

Robin Ely is the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She conducts research on race and gender relations in organizations with a focus on leadership, identity, and organizational culture change.... View Details

17 Jul 2017
News

‘The Wisdom of Finance’, by Mihir Desai

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

to the information necessary to make important choices, both the ERP and CAD systems would increase the likelihood that plant managers and production workers would make decisions and act on them without having to consult an executive at... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

11 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

In the Future of Sports Investing, Media Is the Best Bet

focuses on a new adaptation of an older sport: auto racing. In December, the partners invested $21 million toward Formula E Holdings, the management team behind an all-electric racecar circuit that will... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Sports; Financial Services

March 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Neck & Neck: Leveraging the Club Neck Information

Commercial Director Prado wonders how to leverage the loyalty card information to prepare the fall 2008 budget. The case discusses the value of subjective and objective information for profit-planning purposes. Spanish children's apparel retailer Neck & Neck uses... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

November 2011 (Revised May 2013)
Case

The Freelancers Union (A)

By: Michel Anteby and Erin McFee

Sara Horowitz faces a major strategic decision. Founder and CEO of the Freelancers Union, Horowitz has worked tirelessly to operationalize her new mutualist ideals, which comprise collective strength, independence, and shared protections. In 2008, she plans to move the... View Details

Keywords: Labor Unions

11 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Second Life: Reflections on Complementing Success with an Encore Career

In 2015, Steve Kloeblen retired and thought he was done with the corporate world. A graduate of HBS Executive Education’s General Management Program, Kloeblen had more than 30 years of experience with IBM, culminating with his transition... View Details

March 2008 (Revised June 2009)
Case

Actis: January 2008

By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Paul Feltcher, the CEO of Actis, a leading private equity investor in emerging markets, is preparing for an executive retreat at which the management team will consider how best to position the firm for the future. Actis could move in a number of different directions... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Private Equity; Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Emerging Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation

January 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

People Analytics at McKinsey

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Olivia Hull

A private equity–backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey’s new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team’s findings, especially those that... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Consulting Industry; Service Industry