Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(6,928)
- Faculty Publications (1,162)
- October 2021
- Background Note
How to Write an Action-Planning Memo
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese
The ability to communicate an action plan through writing is essential for advancing ideas, earning credibility, and garnering support. Research has shown that leaders who write formal plans are more likely to execute successfully—written plans help members of an... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a Fortune 50 company in the drug distribution industry, agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices that critics alleged had contributed to the nationwide... View Details
Keywords: Opioids; Drug; Investors; Shareholder Activism; Investment Activism; Executive Compensation; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Legal Liability; Distribution Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; West Virginia; Tennessee; Ohio; Pennsylvania
- October 2021
- Article
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Nicolas Padilla and Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance
By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details
Keywords: Consulting Firms; Professional Services; Board Of Directors; Professional Service; Global Firm; Executive Leadership; Globalized Firms and Management; Private Equity; Governing and Advisory Boards; Global Strategy; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Leadership Development; Leading Change; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Partners and Partnerships; Service Industry; United States; India
- September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb
Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Plan; Disruption; Transformation; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Executive Compensation; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Job Interviews; Growth and Development Strategy; Ownership Stake; Opportunities; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; New York (city, NY); California; France
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Demand for Executive Skills
By: Stephen Hansen, Raffaella Sadun, Tejas Ramdas and Joseph B. Fuller
We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting... View Details
- September 13, 2021
- Article
Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team
By: Flavio Serapiao, Andrew Hill and Boris Groysberg
Crunch times—the long, stressful hours of work that are often required in the final weeks before a new product launch—can have an inordinate impact on the success of businesses and they’re powerful shapers of organizational culture. Effective leaders understand that... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Posse Foundation: Developing Strong Leaders from Diverse Backgrounds
By: John J-H Kim, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley
Founded in 1989, Posse Foundation was a nonprofit organization with a mission of developing future leaders who reflected the U.S.’s rich diversity. The organization ran a selective, localized admissions process in 10 U.S. cities to identify outstanding students with... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Education; Higher Education; Decision Making; Demographics; Diversity; Ethnicity; Income; Race; Values and Beliefs; Geography; Geographic Scope; Growth and Development; Leadership; Leading Change; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Partners and Partnerships; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Identity; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Expansion; Education Industry; North and Central America; United States
- September 2021
- Case
Worldreader: Helping Readers Build a Better World
By: Marco Bertini, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic... View Details
Keywords: Subscription Model; Price; Financial Strategy; Education; Early Childhood Education; Learning; Geography; Geographic Scope; Global Range; Goals and Objectives; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Markets; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Society; Social Issues; Strategy; Commercialization; Expansion; Segmentation; Education Industry; Africa; Asia; Latin America; Europe; North and Central America; South America
- Article
Is This the Right C-Suite Role?
By: Anne Donnellon, Joshua D. Margolis and Amy Gallo
A Harvard Business School Case Study is presented which asks "Is This the Right C-Suite Role?" Experts Rakefet Russak Aminoach, managing partner at venture capital firm TeamB, and Nadia Rawlinson, chief people officer at Slack and a board director at Vail Resorts and... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Dirk Nowitzki: Changing the Game
By: Boris Groysberg
NBA Superstar Dirk Nowitzki was unsure whether the 2018–2019 season would be his last as an NBA player. He had not faced such uncertainty since 1998, when he had navigated a difficult decision regarding the timing of his move to the NBA. He also did not know what he... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
KKR
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
In June of 2021, KKR’s executive team convened to prepare for an upcoming board meeting. From a small, three-person partnership that started in 1976 and invested only in U.S. LBOs, the firm 45 years later was a public company that employed over 1,600 people and managed... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (B): Kevin Hart and Clubhouse
By: Anita Elberse, Briana Richardson and Cydni Williams
In May 2020, Andreessen Horowitz secures an agreement with Clubhouse, one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round. One of the factors that insiders saw as pivotal in the race to be Clubhouse’s VC firm of choice was Andreessen... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
T-Shaped Managers—One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploratory Study from the Military
By: Hise O. Gibson
People are an organization’s most important resource. Managers who are collaborative and innovative ensure that organizations remain competitive. This type of manager has been referred to as a T-shaped manager. “T” given that the vertical portion represents the depth... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Allianz Customer Centricity: Is Simplicity the Way Forward?
By: Eva Ascarza and Emilie Billaud
This case explores the tradeoffs between product personalization and simplicity as companies grow. The case presents an opportunity to understand whether and how each of these approaches enables and/or limits companies’ abilities to provide customer satisfaction while... View Details
- June 28, 2021
- Article
4 Imperatives for Managing in a Hybrid World
By: Kalle Heikkinen, William R. Kerr, Mika Malin and Panu Routila
As more and more companies turn to a hybrid model of work more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, what challenges are leaders likely to face when managing people both in the office and remotely? Interviews with 38 executives in Nordic countries point to four main... View Details
- 2021
- Book
Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance
In nearly every business segment and corner of the world economy, the most successful companies dramatically outperform their rivals. What is their secret? In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee shows how these... View Details
- July 2021
- Case
Kevin D. Johnson: To Be a Venture Capitalist or an Operator?
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
In May of 2021, Kevin D. Johnson had just graduated from a rigorous Executive MBA program, and he quickly needed to decide on his next career move. Johnson was the founder and CEO of a successful media company, Johnson Media Inc., but his career goals had shifted while... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Strategic State Capacity: How States Counter Opposition to Climate Policy
By: Jonas Meckling and Jonas Nahm
When can states implement policies against the opposition from powerful interest groups? Research on state capacity has examined bureaucratic sources of capacity, leaving unexplained why countries with similar levels of bureaucratic capacity vary in goal attainment. We... View Details
- June 2021
- Case
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments): April 2021
By: Josh Lerner, Reza Satchu and Alys Ferragamo
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is one of the largest pools of investment capital in the world and follows a rigorous “Total Portfolio Framework” in its approach to investment management. In April of 2021, John Graham was just two months into his role... View Details