News & Highlights

  • March 2025
  • Cold Call Podcast

Inside Porsche’s Push to Evolve: New HBS Case Featured on Cold Call

What does it take for a legendary brand like Porsche to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving auto industry? In this Cold Call episode, Harvard Business School Professor Stefan Thomke dives into the strategy and innovation behind the iconic automaker—drawing from the case study he co-authored with Daniela Beyersdorfer, Director of Research & Administration at the Europe Research Center (ERC). From electric sports cars to digital customer experiences like “Track Your Dream,” the case—based on deep field research in Germany—reveals how Porsche is reimagining what performance and luxury mean in a changing world.
  • December 2024
  • Harvard Gazette

Learning from Notre-Dame: A Case on Leadership and Preventable Failure

What can one of the world’s most iconic landmarks teach us about leadership and operational discipline? In a new Harvard Business School case study, Professor Amy Edmondson examines the 2019 Notre-Dame Cathedral fire as a powerful example of complex failure. The case explores how a cascade of small oversights led to catastrophe—and what leaders must do to build cultures of vigilance and accountability.
  • October 2024
  • HBS Institute for Business in Global Society

Europe’s Green Transition

In October 2024, Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society (BiGS), in partnership with the Europe Research Center (ERC), brought together corporate leaders, sustainability officers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers in Paris for a high-level roundtable on Europe’s role in the global green transition. Against the backdrop of mounting climate urgency, the event sparked rich dialogue on how European businesses are turning environmental challenges into strategic advantage.

New Research on the Region

  • April 2025
  • Teaching Material

Arla Foods: Data-Driven Decarbonization (A) and (B) PowerPoint Supplement

By: Michael Parzen, Michael W. Toffel and Susan Pinckney

Arla implemented a data based price incentive systems to measure, track, and influence climate friendly changes to reduce CO2 emissions across the world’s fourth largest dairy cooperative.

  • April 2025
  • Case

Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact

By: Lauren Cohen, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo and Mariana Cal

In early 2024 Erika Bienek, Chief Community Relations Officer at Techint, had to decide whether to invest in a new company-owned and operated technical school in Veracruz, Mexico, or invest instead in strengthening the city’s public education system. Techint, a global industrial conglomerate with $38.4 billion in annual revenues and 97,000 employees in 2023, had a longstanding commitment to community development through education. Over the past five years, the group invested $204 million in its Community Relations program, focusing on four synergistic education initiatives. The Roberto Rocca Technical School (RRTS)—owned and operated by Techint—offered high-quality technical education to underprivileged students, while other programs strengthened public school infrastructure, provided scholarships, and supported after-school learning. TenarisTamsa, Techint’s subsidiary in Veracruz, had been active in the region for decades, and a new RRTS would expand its footprint. However, some stakeholders argued that broader impact could be achieved by supporting public schools serving over 40,000 students or by launching a community training center to meet urgent workforce development needs in the local energy sector. With Techint’s tradition of deep community engagement and rigorous standards, the question for Bienek and her team was how to allocate the newly earmarked $30 million to generate the greatest long-term impact for Veracruz—through direct, measurable educational transformation, or broader support for the public system.

  • April 2025
  • Teaching Material

ZEISS: Commercializing Science

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 725-359.

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Paris Staff

Vincent Dessain
Executive Director
Filomena Berreby
Office Coordinator
Daniela Beyersdorfer
Director, Research and Administration
Emilie Billaud
Associate Director
Elena Corsi
Associate Director
Lena Duchene
Research Associate
Hugo Etchegoyhen
Research Assistant
Nikolina Jonsson
Research Associate
Tonia Labruyere
Senior Researcher
Emer Moloney
Senior Researcher
Carlota Moniz
Research Associate
Jan Pianca
Director, Educational Programs