Publications

July 2024 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Knowledge Transfer: Toyota, NUMMI, and GM

By: Willy Shih

New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) was a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. It was an opportunity for GM to learn about the Toyota Production System, which was quite different from the mass production processes American automakers used at the... View Details

Keywords: Culture Change; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Joint Ventures; Transformation; Selection and Staffing; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Labor Unions; Management Systems; Performance Improvement; Production; Labor and Management Relations; Auto Industry; Japan; United States

April 2024
Teaching Note

Ferrari: Shifting to Carbon Neutrality

By: Raffaella Sadun

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-446. A sports car manufacturer commits to carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet. View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leadership Style; Environmental Sustainability; Auto Industry; Italy

November 2023
Teaching Plan

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

By: Willy Shih

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 622-001. Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized... View Details

Keywords: Product Innovation; Product Architecture; Product Engineering; Platform Design; Platform Strategy; Product Design; Product Development; Cost Management; Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Product Positioning; Auto Industry; China; Sweden

2023
Working Paper

Spatial Mobility, Economic Opportunity, and Crime

By: Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Daniel Ramos-Menchelli, Jorge Tamayo and Audrey Tiew

Neighborhoods are strong determinants of both economic opportunity and criminal activity. Does improving connectedness between segregated and unequal parts of a city predominantly import opportunity or export crime? We use a spatial general equilibrium framework to... View Details

Keywords: Urban Development; Transportation Networks; Crime and Corruption; Transportation Industry; Medellín; Colombia; South America

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August 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Automating Morality: Ethics for Intelligent Machines

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Tom Quinn

As autonomy became a more significant part of modern life – most notably in autonomous vehicles (AVs), such as Teslas – ethical debates about whether and how to impart ethics to machines heated up. Utilitarians pointed out that autonomous vehicles crashed much less... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Judgments; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Cognition and Thinking; Technological Innovation; Auto Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; Asia; Europe; North and Central America; Oceania; South America

May 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Ferrari: Shifting to Carbon Neutrality

By: Raffaella Sadun, Elena Corsi and Leila Doumi

A sports car manufacturer commits to carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet. View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leadership Style; Auto Industry; Italy

February 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Case

National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS): Materializing a Vision

By: Shane Greenstein and Elena Corsi

In 2021, the car manufacturer National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) faced the challenge of securing funding from its investor to launch an innovative mobility solution based on fleets of shared autonomous driving (AD) cars. The system was complex as it required the... View Details

Keywords: Autonomous Vehicles; Product Design; Sustainable Cities; Transportation Networks; Auto Industry; Sweden; Europe

January 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized battery electric vehicle (BEV). He had led... View Details

Keywords: Product Innovation; Product Architecture; Product Engineering; Platform Design; Platform Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Product Design; Product Development; Cost Management; Decision Making; Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Auto Industry; China; Sweden

December 24, 2019
Editorial

Why It’s So Hard to Change People’s Commuting Behavior

By: Ariella Kristal and Ashley Whillans

Car commuters report higher levels of stress and lower job satisfaction compared to train commuters—in large part because car commuting can involve driving in traffic and navigating tense road situations. Some employers are trying to get involved and reduce car... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Behavior; Employees

2019
Book

The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power

By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie

The Business of Platforms explores the strategic, economic, and technology management challenges of digital platform businesses. We have five major themes in the book: 1) The world’s most valuable companies are all platforms, in part because platforms have... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technology; Platform; Internet and the Web; Management; Competitive Strategy; Digital Platforms

March 2018
Case

EKOL Logistics: Thinking Outside the Box

By: Willy C. Shih and Esel Çekin

This case describes Ekol, an intermodal transportation and logistics company, and how it manages capacity planning. Its busiest routes linked motor vehicle assemblers in Germany and Turkey with many of their parts suppliers, but it had also developed key links in... View Details

April 1989
Case

Norton Auto Supply

By: Janice H. Hammond

Describes a multiechelon distribution system for the distribution of automobile spare parts. An analyst has been hired by the Norton Auto Supply Co. to improve the company's inventory planning and control techniques. Includes demand, cost, weight, and supplier lead... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Operations; Distribution Channels; Management Practices and Processes; Management; Strategy; Industrial Products Industry; Auto Industry