Publications

March 1982 (Revised September 1985)
Case

Sealed Air Corporation

By: Robert J. Dolan

Market leadership and technological innovation have marked Sealed Air's participation in the U.S. protective packaging market. Several small regional producers have introduced products which are less effective than Sealed Air's but similar in appearance and cheaper.... View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Product; Technological Innovation; Supply and Industry; Competitive Advantage; Consumer Products Industry; United States

30 Oct 2024
News

Business and Climate Change: Three Harvard Business School Student Perspectives

10 Dec 2021
News

New NYC Law Restricts Hiring Based on Artificial Intelligence

19 Nov 2021
News

Companies Love to Buy Back Their Stock. A Tax Could Deter Them.

September 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Hot Wheels at Mattel: Reinventing the Wheel

By: Elie Ofek, Andres Terech and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2017, Chris Down, Global Brand General Manager for Hot Wheels, and his team from the Advanced Play Group within Mattel, Inc., were considering which innovation path to pursue in order to "future proof" the Hot Wheels franchise going forward. Hot Wheels was the... View Details

Keywords: Toys; Industry Evolution; Innovation Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Decision Making; Digital Transformation

26 Apr 2023
In Practice

Is AI Coming for Your Job?

applications present opportunities for job creation by broadening the scope and scale of a company’s product portfolio. Conversely, internal-facing applications are more likely to affect knowledge workers’ jobs. "Automating these tasks... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Technology

January 2021
Case

Saham Group: It's In the Genes

By: Christina R. Wing and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in August 2020 as Moulay Mhamed Elalamy (Mhamed), CEO of the Saham Group (the Group), a pan-African investment company that operates a variety of businesses out of Morocco, contemplates the Group’s identity, its investment strategy, and how to navigate... View Details

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Family Business; For-Profit Firms; Transformation; Transition; Emerging Markets; Change Management; Private Equity; Investment; Strategy; Insurance Industry; Real Estate Industry; Education Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Morocco; Africa

09 Aug 2024
Blog Post

Addressing Inequities in Education: Social Enterprise Summer Fellow Amal Tariq (MBA 2025)

The HBS Summer Fellows Program enables students to apply their classroom training as they explore career opportunities in roles or regions where compensation is generally lower than the traditional MBA level. This summer, we are... View Details

November 2020 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Dell Technologies: Bringing the Cloud to the Ground

By: Navid Mojir and V. Kasturi Rangan

The case tells the story of Dell Technologies and its efforts to revitalize its value proposition and escape a commodity trap by acquiring EMC for $67 billion—the largest tech acquisition in history. It also shows the deeply intertwined connections between a company’s... View Details

Keywords: Value Proposition; Go-to-market; Strategic Positioning; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business Divisions; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

negativity bias. Now this is an opportunity to use to use metacognition to understand yourself and to manage yourself. Because a lot of times, it's maladaptive. Look I got it in the caveman times it's really important that you you focus... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

March 1992 (Revised September 1996)
Case

ABB Deutschland (C1)

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

ABB Germany faces some newly emerging strategic and organizational challenges resulting from Europe 1992 and German reunification. In terms of organization, ABB Germany has created a holding company and has separated operations and service activities into legally... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Organizations; Outcome or Result; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Corporate Strategy; Germany

February 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Shanghai Diligence Law Firm (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Catherine Zhang

Shanghai Diligence Law Firm, started in January 2006, is a rapidly growing law firm in China's burgeoning legal services market. In addition to the usual challenges facing all professional service firms (picking and retaining talent and building a desired client... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Legal Services Industry; China

Jun 2020
Panel Discussion

COVID-19 in Africa: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps

By: John D. Macomber, Mattias Fibiger, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Shikhar Ghosh, Anywhere Sikochi, Laura Alfaro, Euvin Naidoo and Suraj Srinivasan

In June 2020, the Africa Research Center hosted a four-part webinar series titled COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps. The series brought together alumni and friends from across Africa and provided the opportunity to get to know HBS professors who are... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Macroeconomics; Leadership; Strategy; Africa

August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors

By: Marco Di Maggio and Nathaniel Schwalb

The start-up, BlueVine Capital Inc. (BlueVine), used data and technology to help finance small businesses via factoring and lines of credit. The case explains the small business financing market in mid-2010s, how CEO Eyal Lifshitz identified the opportunity for... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Startups; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Innovation Leadership; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

December 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Improving Melanoma Screening: MELA Sciences

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Kevin Schulman and Frédéric Dijols

MELA is a start-up medical device company looking to develop a novel technology to help physicians diagnose a deadly skin cancer, melanoma. The case reviews the FDA medical device development process, the development path pursued by MELA, and the regulatory and... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Industry; Health Care; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Health Industry; United States

November 2008 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Transformation of COFCO in a Changing Environment

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Kefei Yang

China's COFCO, the country's leading edible oil and food importer and exporter and its largest food manufacturer, had in its 50-plus years of operation undergone four stages of transformation and was about to embark on a fifth. The global agriculture system was... View Details

Keywords: Food; Leadership; Change Management; Transformation; Globalization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Food and Beverage Industry; China

January 2008 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy

By: William C. Kirby, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Wong

After fifty-five years in the semiconductor industry, Morris Chang, founder and Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), was seeing a change. After four decades of regular double-digit growth the industry was still growing-but now at a much slower... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Globalized Firms and Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Expansion; Semiconductor Industry; Shanghai; Taiwan