Publications

January 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

U.S. Steel: Proposed Acquisition by Nippon Steel

By: Willy Shih

The case setting is the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, which elicited a great deal of controversy. The purpose of the case is to look at the history of the American steel industry since World War II and understand how the steel minimill operators... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business History; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; United States

Research Summary

The Panama Canal

The Big Ditch is the first quantitative economic history of the Panama Canal and its effect on Panama, the United States, and the world economy. It makes three general arguments. First, that the Panama Canal was very important to... View Details

26 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How Cellophane Changed the Way We Shop for Food

development of self-service merchandising systems in American grocery stores, but also revealing how cellophane manufacturers tried to control the narrative of how women buy food. “Cellophane changed how people shopped,” says Ai Hisano,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Retail; Advertising

March 2022 (Revised June 2022)
Case

The United States National Security Apparatus, Multipolarity, and the Rise of Commercial Space

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan L. Rosseau

In 2019, the U.S. national security community crossed a Rubicon by declaring that space was “a war-fighting domain” and undergoing a major reorganization, including the creation of the U.S. Space Force, the first new military branch in over 70 years. Military and... View Details

Keywords: War; National Security; International Relations; Power and Influence

25 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Beauty Entrepreneur Madam Walker

the case details, by 1916, she turned her horror of the barbaric practice of lynching into a powerful campaign against it. Her efforts toward African American participation in international peace discussions after World View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Beauty & Cosmetics

2009
Book

Let Me Explain: Eugene G. Fubini's Life in Defense of America

By: David G. Fubini

There is no necessary relationship between fame and power, and great influence is often wielded in willful obscurity. So it was with the irascible, indomitable Eugene Fubini. A physics prodigy who fled Italy when the fascists came to power, his searing intelligence and... View Details

Keywords: Biography; Personal Development and Career; National Security; United States

Find at Harvard

October 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Roshan: Light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan

By: Herman B. Leonard and Qahir Dhanani

Roshan is a highly successful telecommunications company founded by the Aga Khan fund for economic development in Afghanistan during an ongoing civil conflict. Company leaders must now decide financial and market strategy for the next phase of development of the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; War; Telecommunications Industry; Afghanistan

April 2021
Case

The Clean Network and the Future of Global Technology Competition

By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han

In May 2019, amidst of an ever-worsening trade war between the U.S. and China, President Donald Trump added Chinese telecom giant Huawei to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list,” essentially forbidding American firms from doing business with the company. Huawei,... View Details

Keywords: 5G; Telecommunications; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Trade; Competition; International Relations; Telecommunications Industry; China

A historical account of ideology in the Global South as the postwar laboratory of socialism, its legacy following the Cold War, and the continuing influence of socialist ideas worldwide.

In the first decades after World War II, many newly... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Cellophane, the New Visuality, and the Creation of Self-Service Food Retailing

By: Ai Hisano

This working paper examines how innovations in transparent packaging, specifically cellophane in the mid-twentieth century United States, helped retailers create full self-service merchandising systems, including selling perishable food. While self-service stores began... View Details

Keywords: Food; Product Marketing; Business History; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

SSRN

Read Now

08 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Poverty, Social Divisions and Conflict in Nepal

Keywords: by Quy-Toan Do & Lakshmi Iyer

2014
Book

Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth

By: Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby and F. Warren McFarlan

At the time of the American Revolution, China was the strongest, richest, and most powerful civilization in the world. The Great Qing Empire ruled China and dominated East Asia by a combination of power and cultural prestige. China's economy was the world's largest.... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Leadership; Power and Influence; China

Find at Harvard

09 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Andy Grove: A Biographer’s Tale

go off into the stratosphere Q: Or head south. A: Or head south. It reminds me of the old Civil War hymn: "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer

2022
Book

Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World

By: Jeremy Friedman

A historical account of ideology in the Global South as the postwar laboratory of socialism, its legacy following the Cold War, and the continuing influence of socialist ideas worldwide.

In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent... View Details

Keywords: Socialism; Economic Systems; Globalization; Government and Politics; Developing Countries and Economies

June 2022
Case

Mossadeq’s Gambit: The US, UK, and Iranian Oil Nationalization

By: Jeremy Friedman and Jingyu Liu

Many of the West’s political problems in the Middle East and in Iran in particular can be traced to the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh by military forces supported by the American CIA and the British MI6 in August 1953. Mossadegh, at the head of a... View Details

Keywords: Neo-imperialism; History; Conflict Management; War; Globalized Economies and Regions; Natural Resources; National Security; Government and Politics; Globalized Markets and Industries; Middle East; Iran