Publications

October 2008 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Amazon Web Services

By: Robert S. Huckman, Gary P. Pisano and Liz Kind

Considers the development of Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of Amazon.com, Inc., specializing in the provision of web-based storage and computing services to web developers. The case focuses on the issues facing Andy Jassy, the head of AWS, in 2008 as AWS faces... View Details

Keywords: Price; Market Entry and Exit; Service Operations; Competition; Diversification; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry

21 Feb 2005
Op-Ed

Is Business Management a Profession?

Repeated and, as of this writing, ongoing revelations of corporate wrongdoing over the past two years have eroded public trust in business institutions and executives to levels not seen in decades. A recent... View Details

Keywords: by Rakesh Khurana, Nitin Nohria & Daniel Penrice

19 Aug 2022
Blog Post

Climate Stories Episode #8: The Role of Solar and Wind Farming (and Other Tools) in the United States’ Clean Energy Future

energy projects, Diana is equally stimulated and frustrated by the challenges of slowing climate change, before it’s too late.* “The U.S. electric grid is the largest machine on the planet. Our grid is... View Details

October 1991 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Workplace Safety at Alcoa (A)

By: Kim B. Clark and Joshua D. Margolis

Examines the challenge facing the managers of a large aluminum manufacturing plant in its drive to improve workplace safety. The CEO of the company has made safety a top priority. The plant has made good progress in reducing the injury rate, but now confronts the need... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Safety; Problems and Challenges; Change Management; Operations; Resignation and Termination; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Manufacturing Industry; United States

2007
Working Paper

Paths to Equality: Walking the Talk in Multi-party Negotiations

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Nöth

Past research has shown that communication in negotiations heightens social awareness, facilitates coordination, increases the utility for the other's positive outcomes, and thereby leads to more equal payoffs. But the role of specific communication strategies in... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Fairness; Agreements and Arrangements; Negotiation Types; Behavior; Competition

01 Mar 2021
Blog Post

Exploring Career Passions through Short Intensive Programs – Moving Beyond Direct to Consumer

Short Intensive Programs (SIPs) are courses that offer students a great opportunity to think about career choices, gain practical skills, and explore topics you might otherwise never get to study. These courses run for one week in January... View Details

George Serafeim

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he co-leads the Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab within the Digital, Data, and Design Institute. He teaches the MBA course “Risks, Opportunities,... View Details

Keywords: asset management; insurance industry; automobiles; industrial goods; fashion; food; green technology

March 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Ant Financial (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Ying Zhang, Krishna G. Palepu, Anthony K. Woo and Nancy Hua Dai

Headquartered in Hangzhou (China), Ant Financial has grown into a fintech “Unicorn.” The fintech empire that the company established spanned verticals such as mobile and online payment (Alipay), money market fund (Yu’e Bao), wealth management (Ant Fortune),... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Finance; Opportunities; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

01 Oct 2019
News

The bias that can cause catastrophe

July 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

The Robin Hood Army

By: Susanna Gallani

In 2014, Neel Ghose and a handful of friends spent one evening distributing excess food they had collected from local restaurants to the less fortunate people living under the Hauz Khas flyover in South Delhi. Four years later, this initiative had developed into The... View Details

Keywords: Volunteer-based Organization; Food Redistribution; Nonprofit Organizations; Food; Human Needs; Expansion; Global Range; Growth and Development

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of... View Details

Keywords: health care; nonprofit industry; professional services; consulting

July 2005
Article

Price Improvement in Dealership Markets

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Price improvement refers to the practice whereby dealers order executions that improve on quoted prices. Why are these improvements given? Standard thinking is that competition causes dealers to give better prices to customers with less information. This paper... View Details

Keywords: Price; Markets; Competition; Information; Customers; Negotiation; Mission and Purpose; Practice; Theory; Performance Improvement; Bids and Bidding; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Find at Harvard

24 Sep 2019
Blog Post

Launching a Career in Clean Energy

mission to help commercial & industrial customers get to zero net energy. From my experience in the energy industry, the commercial & industrial sector is a very hard nut to crack. Energy is a really complex world, and my cofounders and I saw the View Details

April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Antler

By: Dennis Campbell and Iuliana Mogosanu

The case describes the founding, development, and scaling of Antler, an early-stage investment platform that invests in entrepreneurs pre-team and, in many cases, even pre-idea. The case explores the economics of venture capital investing at such an early stage and the... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Technology; Analytics; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Expansion; Financial Services Industry

Rajiv Lal, is the Stanley Roth, Sr. Professor of Retailing at Harvard Business School. He is currently teaching an elective MBA course on the Business of Smart Connected Products/IOT. He has been responsible for the retailing curriculum and has served as the course... View Details

20 Jun 2019
News

Broadcast from Harvard Business School

August 2022
Article

The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion

By: Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler

In applications, interviews, performance reviews, and many other environments, individuals are explicitly asked or implicitly invited to assess their own performance. In a series of experiments, we find that women rate their performance less favorably than equally... View Details

Keywords: Self-promotion; Gender Gap; Experiments; Performance Evaluation; Gender