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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,394)
- News (246)
- Research (944)
- Events (2)
- Multimedia (8)
- Faculty Publications (383)
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- 02 Aug 2022
- Research & Ideas
6 Strategies for Building Socially Responsible—and Profitable—Companies
A dozen years ago, Harvard Business School Professor George Serafeim wondered why some companies operated with an eye toward the greater good, while most did not. Back then, he always got the same response: Corporate leaders thought social and environmental practices... View Details
Keywords: by Lane Lambert
- 2012
- Working Paper
Payout Taxes and the Allocation of Investment
When corporate payout is taxed, internal equity (retained earnings) is cheaper than external equity (share issues). If there are no perfect substitutes for equity finance, payout taxes may therefore have an effect on the investment of firms. High taxes will favor... View Details
Keywords: Business Earnings; Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Taxation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Motivation and Incentives
Becker, Bo, Marcus Jacob, and Martin Jacob. "Payout Taxes and the Allocation of Investment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11-040, October 2010. (Revised November 2010, March 2011, September 2011, April 2012.)
- March 1991 (Revised July 1993)
- Case
Kyocera Corp.
By: John P. Kotter
Examines the three factors critical to this company's remarkable success in the high tech field. The first factor is the founder, Dr. Inamori's powerful leadership. The second is the strong corporate culture or philosophy of the firm. The third element in Kyocera's... View Details
Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Information Infrastructure; Leadership Style; Management Systems; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Practice; Profit; Planning; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry
Kotter, John P. "Kyocera Corp." Harvard Business School Case 491-078, March 1991. (Revised July 1993.)
- 2022
- Article
Diffusing Management Practices within the Firm: The Role of Information Provision
By: Michael J. Lenox and Michael W. Toffel
Why are some firms more successful in adopting profitable environmental management practices than others? A key role of corporate managers is to encourage subsidiaries to adopt innovative practices. We examine the conditions under which corporate managers use... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Strategy; Information Provision; Environmental Management; Knowledge Dissemination
Lenox, Michael J., and Michael W. Toffel. "Diffusing Management Practices within the Firm: The Role of Information Provision." Art. 5911. Special Issue on Competitive Sustainability: The Intersection of Sustainability and Business Success. Sustainability 14, no. 10 (2022).
- 09 May 2017
- What Do You Think?
Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?
But the ascendancy of agency theory—the idea that shareholders are owners of the corporation and managers their agents in a quest to maximize shareholder value—need not be one of them. Agency theory will not be a problem if we bend it to... View Details
Keywords: by James Heskett
- August 1993 (Revised April 1997)
- Case
Southwest Airlines: 1993 (A)
By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell
Southwest Airlines, the only major U.S. airline to be profitable in 1992, makes a decision as to which of two new cities to open, or to add a new long-haul route. Provides windows into Southwest's strategy, operations, marketing, and culture. View Details
Keywords: Decisions; Cost Management; Profit; Marketing; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Air Transportation Industry; United States
Heskett, James L., and Roger H. Hallowell. "Southwest Airlines: 1993 (A)." Harvard Business School Case 694-023, August 1993. (Revised April 1997.)
- December 8, 2022
- Article
What Companies Still Get Wrong about Layoffs
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Marilyn Morgan Westner
Research has long shown that layoffs have a detrimental effect on individuals and on corporate performance. The short-term cost savings provided by a layoff are often overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and... View Details
Sucher, Sandra J., and Marilyn Morgan Westner. "What Companies Still Get Wrong about Layoffs." Harvard Business Review (website) (December 8, 2022).
- Article
Professionalism, Fiduciary Duty, and Health-Related Business Leadership
Expanding fiduciary duty to leaders of health-related businesses can help leaders meet the challenges of caring for not only the corporation and shareholders but also the patients and medical professionals. How should leaders of health-related businesses weigh the... View Details
Margolis, Joshua D. "Professionalism, Fiduciary Duty, and Health-Related Business Leadership." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 313, no. 18 (May 12, 2015): 1819–1820.
- 23 Jan 2013
- Research & Ideas
Three-Dimensional Strategy: Winning the Multisided Platform
third party. By contrast, a grocery store also creates a space for consumers and multiple brands to meet—but the store controls the transaction, serving as a reseller. Done right, the MSP model has proven extremely lucrative, throwing off much higher percentage View Details
Keywords: by Julia Hanna
- November 2017
- Teaching Note
Amazon.com, 2016
By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth
Teaching Note for HBS No. 716-402.
On January 28, 2016, Amazon announced record 2015 operating profits of $2.2 billion on $107 billion of sales, and the markets responded with cautious optimism. For years, founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos had prioritized growth and... View Details
Keywords: Strategic Analysis; Retail; E-commerce; Amazon; Amazon.com; AmazonFresh; Jeff Bezos; Cloud Computing; Marketplaces; Streaming; E-reader Market; Digital Media; Mobile App; Online Retail; Shipping; Database; Tablet; Kindle; Kindle Fire; Smartphone; Delivery; Market Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Competition; Internet; Corporate Strategy; Online Advertising; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Profit; Revenue; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Taxation; Business History; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Books; Human Capital; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Media; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Product Development; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Organizational Culture; Public Ownership; Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges; Labor and Management Relations; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Integration; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Hardware; Information Technology; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Technology Networks; Technology Platform; Web; Web Sites; Price; Software; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Working Capital; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Retail Industry; Advertising Industry; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Music Industry; Publishing Industry; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; Washington (state, US); Seattle
- May 2003
- Case
Sun Hydraulics: Leading in Tough Times (A) (Abridged)
By: Linda A. Hill and Jennifer Suesse
Sun Hydraulics, 32-year-old global hydraulics engineering and manufacturing company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida; confronts tough choices due to the economic downturn in 2001. The company leadership debates how to maintain profitability and reduce labor costs... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Financial Crisis; Crisis Management; Manufacturing Industry; Florida
Hill, Linda A., and Jennifer Suesse. "Sun Hydraulics: Leading in Tough Times (A) (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 403-139, May 2003.
- 26 Mar 2013
- First Look
First Look: March 26
related to technological orientation. Second, we find that the adoption of customer orientation is positively related to the profitability of both Japanese and American entrepreneurial firms, although the effect is stronger in the U.S. We... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- March 2022 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Kimball International, Inc. (KII), led by CEO Kristie Juster, and its board of directors, chaired by Kim Ryan, faced critical questions about KII’s future in the spring of 2021. Two years earlier, the board had appointed Juster as the new CEO of KII, a publicly traded,... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Committees; Board Decisions; Board Dynamics; CEO Compensation; CEO Succession; Compensation Committee; Compensation Consultants; Compensation Design; Compensation Mix; Corporate Purpose; COVID-19; ESG; Furniture; Furniture Industry; Manufacturing; Midwest; Pandemic; Purpose; Spin Off; Strategic Change; Strategic Decisions; Strategic Evolution; Target-setting; Executive Compensation; Family Ownership; Governance; Restructuring; Strategy; Transformation; Manufacturing Industry; United States
Paine, Lynn S., and Will Hurwitz. "Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)." Harvard Business School Case 322-083, March 2022. (Revised October 2022.)
- 02 Jun 2014
- Research & Ideas
Excerpt: ‘A Social Strategy’
book excerpt What My Research Revealed, In Broad Strokes From A Social Strategy: How We Profit From Social Media By Mikolaj Jan Piskorski As I began my research, it quickly became clear that there are two major ways in which companies... View Details
- December 2021
- Case
Bunge: Building a Sustainable Future?
By: Forest Reinhardt, David E. Bell, Pedro Levindo and Ruth Costas
Bunge, one of the world’s leading agribusiness traders and processors, strives to comply with its commitment to having a deforestation-free value chain by 2025 while it considers potential new business growth areas. After a complex turnaround, which involved one of the... View Details
Keywords: Deforestation; Value Chain; Agribusiness; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry
Reinhardt, Forest, David E. Bell, Pedro Levindo, and Ruth Costas. "Bunge: Building a Sustainable Future?" Harvard Business School Case 522-007, December 2021.
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details
Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Cost of Capital; Corporate Finance; Value; Valuation; Industrial Products Industry; United States; Denmark; Republic of Ireland
Esty, Benjamin C., E. Scott Mayfield, and Daniel Fisher. "Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and The Cost of Capital." Harvard Business School Case 221-006, September 2020. (Revised June 2021.)
- March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
Lehigh Steel
By: V.G. Narayanan and Laura Donohue
Lehigh Steel is a specialty steel manufacturer that plummeted from record profits to record losses in less than three years, driven by an inability to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable business. The scale and growth of service activities and overhead... View Details
Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Product; Cost; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Accounting; Corporate Finance; Steel Industry
Narayanan, V.G., and Laura Donohue. "Lehigh Steel." Harvard Business School Case 198-085, March 1998. (Revised April 1998.)
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality
By: Zeynep Ton
Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the costs of increasing labor are obvious and easy to measure, the benefits are often indirect and not immediately felt. One benefit of increased labor is improved quality. The objective... View Details
Keywords: Profit; Selection and Staffing; Service Delivery; Business Processes; Quality; Retail Industry
Ton, Zeynep. "The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09-040, September 2008. (Revised July 2009.)
- December 2002 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characteristics of Project Finance Loans (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
In June 1999, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision announced plans to revise the capital standards for banks. The Basel Committee believed that project loans were significantly riskier than corporate loans and, therefore, warranted higher capital charges under... View Details
Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Project Finance; Financing and Loans; Projects; Standards; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry
Esty, Benjamin C., and Aldo Sesia. "Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characteristics of Project Finance Loans (A)." Harvard Business School Case 203-035, December 2002. (Revised January 2004.)
- January 2024
- Case
The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI
By: Andrew Rashbass, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell
In September 2023, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times, was considering the possible impact of Generative AI on the industry and his business. Having navigated successfully the seismic shift from print to digital, and reporting record results, the company... View Details
Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Journalism and News Industry
Rashbass, Andrew, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, and Jordan Mitchell. "The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI." Harvard Business School Case 724-410, January 2024.