Podcasts by Cold Call
Cold Call distills Harvard Business School's legendary case studies into podcast form. Hosted by Brian Kenny, the podcast airs every two weeks and features Harvard Business School faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
Further podcasts by HBR Presents / Brian Kenny
Podcast on the topic Management
All episodes
Can Sustainability Drive Innovation at Ferrari? from 2023-12-12T08:22:05
When Ferrari, the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, committed to achieving carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet, investors and employees applauded the new strat...
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What Founders Get Wrong about Sales and Marketing from 2023-12-05T08:22:21
Which sales candidate is a startup’s ideal first hire? What marketing channels are best to invest in? How aggressively should an executive team align sales with customer success? Harvard Business S...
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Tommy Hilfiger’s Adaptive Clothing Line: Making Fashion Inclusive from 2023-11-28T08:22:56
In 2017, Tommy Hilfiger launched its adaptive fashion line to provide fashion apparel that aims to make dressing easier. By 2020, it was still a relatively unknown line in the U.S. and the Tommy Hi...
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Building a More Equitable Culture at Delta Air Lines from 2023-11-21T08:22:17
In December 2020, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian and his leadership team were reviewing the decision to join the OneTen coalition, where he and 36 other CEOs committed to recruiting, hiring, traini...
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How Should Meta Be Governed for the Good of Society? from 2023-11-07T08:22:27
Julie Owono is executive director of Internet Sans Frontières and a member of the Oversight Board, an outside entity with the authority to make binding decisions on tricky moderation questions for ...
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How the United States Air Force Accelerated AI Adoption from 2023-10-24T08:22:03
In August 2022, the Pentagon tasked Victor Lopez, then a captain in the U.S. Air Force, with launching a new Air Force innovation unit that leveraged commercial developers and military talent to ac...
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Scaling Two Businesses Against the Odds: Wendy Estrella’s Founder Journey from 2023-10-10T08:22:31
Entrepreneur Wendy Estrella is attempting to simultaneously scale her law practice, as well as her property management and development company. What strategy will benefit both businesses, and is th...
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The PGA Tour and LIV Golf Merger: Competition Vs. Cooperation from 2023-09-26T08:33:58
On June 9, 2022, the first LIV Golf event teed off outside of London. The new tour offered players larger prizes, more flexibility, and ambitions to attract new fans to the sport. Immediately follo...
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Can Remote Surgeries Digitally Transform Operating Rooms? from 2023-09-12T08:22:32
Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms, where they would use mixed reality and ...
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As Social Networks Get More Competitive, Which Ones Will Survive? from 2023-08-29T08:22:05
In early 2023, the entertainment app TikTok reached close to one billion users globally, placing it fourth behind the leading social networks: Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Can all four of thes...
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Ryan Serhant: How to Manage Your Time for Happiness from 2023-08-15T08:22:26
In 2020, just a few months after the US began to shut down in order to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Serhant had time to reflect on his career as a real estate broker in New York City. ...
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Can Business Transform Primary Health Care Across Africa? from 2023-08-01T08:22:58
mPharma, headquartered in Ghana, is trying to create the largest pan-African health care company. Their mission is to provide primary care and a reliable and fairly priced supply of drugs in the ni...
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Diversity and Inclusion at Mars Petcare: Translating Awareness into Action from 2023-07-18T08:22:29
In 2020, the Mars Petcare leadership team found themselves facing critically important inclusion and diversity issues. Unprecedented protests for racial justice in the U.S. and across the globe gen...
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How Unilever Is Preparing for the Future of Work from 2023-07-04T08:22:27
Launched in 2016, Unilever’s Future of Work initiative aimed to accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization and prepare its workforce for a digitalized and highly automated era. But ...
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Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change from 2023-06-20T08:22:57
In late October 2022, Elon Musk officially took Twitter private and became the company’s majority shareholder. He needed to take decisive steps to succeed against the major opposition to his leader...
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The Opioid Crisis, CEO Pay, and Shareholder Activism from 2023-06-06T08:22:59
In 2020, AmerisourceBergen Corporation agreed to settle thousands of lawsuits filed nationwide against the company for its opioid distribution practices, which critics alleged had contributed to th...
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The Entrepreneurial Journey of China’s First Private Mental Health Hospital from 2023-05-23T08:15:12
The city of Wenzhou in southeastern China is home to the country’s largest privately owned mental health hospital group, the Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. It’s an example of the extraordinary ...
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Can Robin Williams’Son Help Other Families Heal Addiction and Depression? from 2023-05-09T08:20:34
Zak Pym Williams, son of comedian and actor Robin Williams, had seen how mental health challenges, such as addiction and depression, had affected past generations of his family. He began considerin...
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Sweden’s Northvolt Electric Battery Maker: A Startup with a Mission from 2023-04-28T08:20:48
In Stockholm, Sweden an upstart battery maker, Northvolt, is trying to recreate the value chain for European car manufacturers making the switch to EVs. With two founders from Tesla and two experie...
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Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi: Transforming Lives with Access to Credit from 2023-04-27T08:20:20
James Mwangi, CEO of Equity Bank, has transformed lives and livelihoods throughout East and Central Africa by giving impoverished people access to banking accounts and micro loans. He’s been so suc...
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How Martine Rothblatt Started a Company to Save Her Daughter from 2023-04-26T08:20:32
When serial entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt (founder of Sirius XM) received her seven-year-old daughter’s diagnosis of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), she created United Therapeutics and deve...
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Using Design Thinking to Invent a Low-Cost Prosthesis for Land Mine Victims from 2023-04-25T08:20:06
Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) is an Indian nonprofit famous for creating low-cost prosthetics, like the Jaipur Foot and the Stanford-Jaipur Knee. Known for its patient-centric cu...
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Our All-Time Favorite Episodes of Cold Call from 2023-04-24T08:20:03
Cold Call is celebrating 200 episodes with a special five-part series during the week of April 24, 2023. Each day that week, Cold Call will release a new episode. To kick off the week-long celebrat...
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A Rose by Any Other Name: Supply Chains and Carbon Emissions in the Flower Industry from 2023-04-11T08:00:37
Headquartered in Kitengela, Kenya, Sian Flowers exports roses to Europe. Because cut flowers have a limited shelf life and consumers want them to retain their appearance for as long as possible, Si...
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BMW’s Decarbonization Strategy: Sustainable for the Environment and the Bottom Line from 2023-03-28T08:00:42
In mid-2022, many automakers were announcing deadlines by which they would stop selling ICE vehicles altogether, buoyed by investment analysts and favorable press. While this would reduce tail-pipe...
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Can AI and Machine Learning Help Park Rangers Prevent Poaching? from 2023-03-14T08:00:06
The Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) was created by a coalition of conservation organizations to take historical data and create geospatial mapping tools that enable more efficient dep...
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Muhammad Ali: A Case Study in Purpose-Driven Decision Making from 2023-02-28T08:00:09
Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, rose from a poor family in segregated Louisville, Kentucky to international fame, winning three heavyweight boxing titles and becoming a civil rights l...
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Does It Pay to Be a Whistleblower? from 2023-02-14T08:00:10
In 2013, soon after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had started a massive whistleblowing program with the potential for large monetary rewards, two employees of a U.S. bank’s asse...
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Addressing Racial Discrimination on Airbnb from 2023-01-31T08:00:59
For years, Airbnb gave hosts discretion to accept or reject a guest after seeing little more than a name and a picture, believing that eliminating anonymity was the best way for the company to buil...
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Nestlé’s KitKat Diplomacy: Neutrality vs. Shared Value from 2023-01-17T08:00:58
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and multinational companies began pulling out of Russia, in response. At Switzerland-based Nestlé, chief executive Mark Schneider had a difficult decision ...
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Wordle: Can a Pandemic Phenomenon Sustain in the Long Term? from 2023-01-03T08:00:59
Wordle went from a personal game, created by a developer for his girlfriend, to a global phenomenon with two million users in just a few months. Then The New York Times made an unexpected bid to ac...
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Metaverse Seoul: How One City Used Citizen Input to Pilot a Government-Run Metaverse from 2022-12-13T08:00:02
In May 2022, the Seoul Metropolitan Government in Seoul, South Korea, launched the pilot of Metaverse Seoul, a virtual version of Seoul’s mayor’s office. As they worked towards building a broad, im...
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How Will Gamers and Investors Respond to Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard? from 2022-11-29T08:00:10
In January 2022, Microsoft announced its acquisition of the video game company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal would make Microsoft the world’s third largest video game company, but...
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Planning the Future for Harlem’s Beloved Sylvia’s Restaurant from 2022-11-15T08:00:54
Sylvia’s Restaurant, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in August 2022, is a testament to the values instilled by the founder and matriarch, Sylvia Woods. She cultivated a strong community aroun...
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Marie Curie: A Case Study in Breaking Barriers from 2022-11-01T08:00:43
Marie Curie, born Maria Sklodowska from a poor family in Poland, rose to the pinnacle of scientific fame in the early years of the twentieth century, winning the Nobel Prize twice in the fields of ...
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Chewy.com’s Make-or-Break Logistics Dilemma from 2022-10-18T08:00:05
In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and then-CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, was facing a decision that could determine his company’s future. Cohen was convinced that achieving scale...
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Corporate Governance and Growth Strategy at Capital SAFI from 2022-10-04T08:00:25
Asset management firm Capital SAFI wanted to attract new strategic investors and expand to other countries beyond Bolivia. Founder, chairman and CEO Jorge Quintanilla Nielsen knew that having the r...
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Larry Fink at BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit from 2022-09-20T08:00:57
In 2014, Larry Fink started writing letters to the leaders of some of the largest publicly listed companies, urging them to consider the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is...
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Reinventing an Iconic Independent Bookstore from 2022-09-06T08:00:29
In 2020, Kwame Spearman made the career-shifting decision to leave a New York City-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore,...
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Management Lessons from the Sinking of the SS El Faro from 2022-08-23T08:00:54
Captain Michael Davidson, of the container ship SS El Faro, was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his ...
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A Lesson from Google: Can AI Bias be Monitored Internally? from 2022-08-09T08:00:12
Dr. Timnit Gebru was the co-lead of Google’s Ethical AIresearch team –until she raised concerns about bias in the company’s large language models and was forced out in 2020. Her departure sent shoc...
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Can Bombas Reach New Customers while Maintaining Its Social Mission? from 2022-07-26T08:00:15
Bombas was started in 2013 with a dual mission: to deliver quality socks and donate much-needed footwear to people living in shelters. By 2021, it had become one of America's most visible buy-one-g...
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Can the Foodservice Distribution Industry Recover from the Pandemic? from 2022-07-12T08:00:14
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, US Foods struggled, as restaurant and school closures reduced demand for foodservice distribution. The situation improved after the return of indoor dining an...
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Scaling a Fintech Startup for the Greater Good from 2022-06-28T08:00:47
Esusu launched in 2018 with a rotational savings product and continued growing their fintech startup in late 2019 with Esusu Rent, a rent reporting tool that enables renters to improve their credit...
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What Does It Take to Close the Opportunity Gap in America’s Labor Market? from 2022-06-14T08:00:58
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and widespread protests for social justice in the United States, OneTen was formed by a coalition of 40 large companies to address the disparity in job opportu...
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Corruption: New Insights for Fighting an Age-Old Business Problem from 2022-05-31T08:00:42
Corruption is as old as humanity, with cases documented as far back as the Egyptian dynasties. While the World Bank estimates that international bribery exceeds $1.5 trillion annually, the larger a...
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Delivering a Personalized Shopping Experience with AI from 2022-05-17T08:00:30
THE YES, a shopping app for fashion brands, uses a sophisticated algorithm to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on her style preferences, size, and budget. After laun...
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Can a Social Entrepreneur End Homelessness in the U.S.? from 2022-05-03T08:00:54
Community Solutions is a nonprofit founded in 2011 by Rosanne Haggerty, with the ambitious goal of ending chronic homelessness in America. After they were awarded a $100 million grant from the MacA...
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What Role Do Individual Leaders Play in Corporate Governance? from 2022-04-19T08:00:50
From 1997 to 2012, Scott Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a pioneer in online lending along the way. But in 2012 federal prosecutors indicted Tucker on sever...
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Transforming Deloitte’s Approach to Consulting from 2022-04-05T08:00:33
Pixel helps facilitate open talent and crowdsourcing for Deloitte Consulting client engagements. But while some of Deloitte’s principals are avid users of Pixel’s services, uptake across the organi...
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How Etsy Found Its Purpose and Crafted a Turnaround from 2022-03-22T08:00:32
Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, grew substantially but remained unprofitable in its first decade. But after it was almost bought out by private equity firms, a new CEO arrived with a mis...
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France Telecom: Corporate Restructuring and Employee Wellbeing from 2022-03-08T08:00:25
The France Telecom case series follows the evolution of the organization from a national telephone monopoly to a private company facing severe challenges. As increasing pressure mounted internally ...
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How to Scale a Startup Marketplace for Used Furniture from 2022-02-22T08:00:23
AptDeco, a peer-to-peer marketplace for used furniture in the New York City area, was growing rapidly in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its complexity and high costs. Co-founder...
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How to Make Venture Capital Accessible for Black Founders: An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma from 2022-02-15T08:00:27
In May of 2021, Kevin D. Johnson had just graduated from a rigorous Executive MBA program, and he needed to decide on his next career move. Johnson was the founder and CEO of a successful media com...
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What’s Next for Nigerian Production Studio EbonyLife Media? from 2022-02-08T08:00:08
After more than 20 years in the media industry in the UK and Nigeria, EbonyLife Media CEO Mo Abudu is considering several strategic changes for her media company’s future. Will her mission to tell ...
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Making Diverse Leadership a Priority at Whittier College from 2022-02-01T08:00:48
In 2018, Linda Oubré was selected as the president of Whittier College in Los Angeles County – the first Black woman to serve in that role. The student body had been slowly evolving to represent th...
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How Footwear Startup Allbirds Is Decarbonizing Fashion from 2022-01-25T08:00:52
In 2021, the footwear startup Allbirds was extending its product range into apparel and expanding beyond its online store to open more retail stores around the world. Harvard Business School profes...
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Can Entrepreneurs and Governments Team Up to Solve Big Problems? from 2022-01-11T08:00:42
Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss and Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s CGO and co-founder, discuss the challenges entrepreneurs face when working with the public sector, and how investing in ...
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How Japan’s Recruit Holdings Regained Trust after a Scandal from 2021-12-14T08:01:35
Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in Japan in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. The company was built on the principle that the company should add...
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TikTok: Super App or Supernova? from 2021-11-30T08:01
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around the simple idea of helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. By May 2020, TikTok operated ...
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Can Mass General Brigham Diversify Its Community of Innovators? from 2021-11-16T08:01:57
In November 2019, Mass General Brigham (MGB) was the largest recipient of National Institutes of Health funding in the world. The Innovation Office, led by Chief Innovation Officer Chris Coburn, so...
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Innovating in the Feminine Care Market from 2021-11-02T08:00:57
Founded in 2014, Thinx, Inc. makes absorbent underwear that can be worn during menstruation. But the feminine care market had seen virtually no innovation in half a century because of the taboo aga...
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Should Global Beer Company Molson Coors Enter the CannabisBeverages Business? from 2021-10-19T08:00:02
In early 2019, global beer company Molson Coors was exploring how to enter the cannabis beverages business. At the time, cannabis had not yet been legalized in Canada. Initially the company had pla...
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How the Clean Network Changed the Future of Global Technology Competition from 2021-10-05T09:00:02
The Chinese telecom giant Huawei and other Chinese telecom firms, like ZTE, had been poised to lead the globe in 5G technology—until the U.S. State Department embarked on a global campaign to chall...
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Why JPMorgan Chase Is Committed to Improving Racial Equity in Banking from 2021-09-21T09:30:16
In 2020, JPMorgan Chase&Co. announced a $30 billion “Commitment to Advance Racial Equity.” This included investments in housing, small businesses, and financial literacy across the U.S., as well as...
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How to Lead through a Merger: US Airways and American Airlines from 2021-09-07T09:00:34
In February 2013, US Airways announced that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world’s largest airline. During the acquisition integration process, CEO Doug Parker had to determine...
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Why Did Pet Concierge Startup Baroo Fail? from 2021-08-24T09:30:45
In August 2017, Baroo Pet Care founder and CEO Lindsay Hyde wanted to continue expanding her pet services startup to new cities. In addition to raising venture capital, she needed to consider her g...
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The Science of Sales Conversations with Gong’s Amit Bendov from 2021-08-10T09:30:46
Gong’s business proposition is simple: provide software that automatically captures, understands, and analyzes written and spoken sales conversations to help sales teams sell more effectively. But ...
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Mixing Sports and Money: Adidas and the Commercialization of the Olympics from 2021-07-27T08:54:38
Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of Adidas, cultivated relationships with athletes and national associations – with the aim of expanding his family’s sports apparel business. In doing so, he c...
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Strategies for Underdogs: How Alibaba’s Taobao Beat eBay in China from 2021-07-13T08:51:12
In 2007, Alibaba’s Taobao became China’s leading consumer e-commerce marketplace, displacing the once dominant eBay. How did underdog Taobao do it? And will it be able to find a way to monetize its...
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Procter&Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation from 2021-06-29T09:01:56
When Kathy Fish became Procter&Gamble’s Chief Research, Development&Innovation Officer in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to...
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IKEA Navigates the Future While Staying True to Its Culture from 2021-06-15T09:03:55
After years of success in providing quality furniture at affordable prices, Swedish furniture maker IKEA is challenged by the rise of online shopping and changing consumer behavior, plus the arriva...
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Running a Consumer Fintech Startup within Goldman Sachs from 2021-06-01T08:54:39
Marcus by Goldman Sachs marked a dramatic shift for the 150-year-old financial institution, which historically had served only businesses and the wealthiest people. The fintech startup operated wit...
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How Georgia State University Increased Graduation Rates from 2021-05-18T08:51:06
Georgia State University was facing a growing"summer melt"problem, where nearly 20 percent of incoming students never actually enrolled. The university used a data-based approach to retain students...
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Reversing Brain Drain: Moving Talent to Middle America from 2021-05-04T09:01:13
After decades of brain drain in rural America, Tulsa Remote is working to attract a diverse group of remote workers to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj “Raj” Ch...
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What Went Wrong with the Boeing 737 Max? from 2021-04-20T09:00:11
How did the evolution of Boeing’s organization and management lead to two tragic plane crashes within six months, in which a total of 346 people died? Harvard Business School professor Bill George ...
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Disrupting the Waste Management Industry with Technology from 2021-04-06T08:58:04
Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform providing efficient service anywhere in the U.S. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had...
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Managing Future Growth at an Innovative Workforce Education Start-up from 2021-03-23T08:42:52
Guild Education is an education marketplace that connects employers and universities to provide employees with “education as a benefit.” The Denver-based company is transforming traditional tuition...
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A Family Business at a Crossroads: Scaling and Succession from 2021-03-09T08:23:19
In 2000, Rohit Gera turned his family’s boutique real estate development firm in Pune, India, into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Today Gera Developments stands...
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Can Historic Social Injustices be Addressed Through Reparations? from 2021-03-02T07:53:13
Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe historic social injustices should be addressed through reparations. Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai discusses the ar...
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Examining Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States from 2021-02-23T08:34:09
The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Bla...
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Fostering Authenticity and Employee Engagement at John Deere from 2021-02-16T08:12:02
As the first Black female factory manager to lead a John Deere plant, Rosalind Fox must figure out how to build relationships with her staff, who are mostly white men. Harvard Business School senio...
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Developing Resilience on the Path to Becoming a CEO from 2021-02-09T08:41:34
As a Black female CEO, Shellye Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. The software company she leads, MetricStream, is losing customers, hemorr...
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Using Empathy and Curiosity to Overcome Differences from 2021-02-02T08:08:49
Bill Riddick, an African-American community leader and counselor, must find a way to bridge the divide between Black and white community leaders, who are on opposing sides of school integration in ...
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Engaging Community to Create Proactive, Equitable Public Safety from 2021-01-19T09:07:41
Melvin Carter, the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, swept into office in 2018, promising to improve equity. In his campaign, he had spoken from experience about what it felt like to be pulled over b...
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Using Behavioral Science to Improve Well-Being for Social Workers from 2021-01-05T09:00:08
For family social workers, coping with the hardships of children and parents is part of the job. But that can cause a lot of stress. Is it possible to use non-cash rewards and recognition to improv...
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Dove: Maintaining a Brand with Purpose from 2020-12-22T09:00:04
Unilever’s Dove soap became a brand with purpose when it launched the “Campaign for Real Beauty” to combat media-driven stereotypes of female beauty. But now Dove is facing criticism about its othe...
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Uber’s Strategy for Global Success from 2020-12-08T09:07:41
As the transportation landscape evolves, can Uber adapt its business model to be successful in unique regional markets around the world? Alexander MacKay describes Uber’s global market strategy and...
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Evaluating Innovative Health Care Solutions for Obesity from 2020-11-24T09:05:37
From Weight Watchers to bariatric surgery, innovations for combatting obesity abound. But which will do the most good for society and yield the best business results? Harvard Business School profes...
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The Challenges of Commercializing Fertility from 2020-11-10T08:50:07
Entrepreneur Christy Jones is trying to create a new venture to help women preserve their eggs and postpone motherhood. But what would an egg-freezing service sell – and to whom?
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Growing a Manufacturing Company with a Social Mission from 2020-10-27T08:59:43
Nehemiah Manufacturing turned a social mission to hire convicted felons into a competitive advantage, with decreased turnover and higher staff loyalty. Harvard Business School professor Michael Chu...
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Can Entrepreneurs Make Mobile Voting Easy and Secure? from 2020-10-13T09:15:41
Making voting more accessible through technology could allow more people to take part in elections. But it also poses critical downsides, if the product fails or there are security failures. Harvar...
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Employee Performance vs. Company Values: A Manager’s Dilemma from 2020-09-29T09:12:05
As we celebrate the five-year anniversary of Cold Call, we welcome a special guest, Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria to discuss the classic case, “Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley.” The case p...
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Is Happiness at Work Really Attainable? from 2020-09-15T08:32:42
Simón Cohen, founder of Henco Logistics, transformed a small Mexican logistics company into a major player within the industry. Cohen credits the firm’s focus on employee happiness as the key ingre...
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How to Launch a New Biosciences Product: Start Small or Dive in? from 2020-09-01T09:00:55
C16 Biosciences wants to replace palm oil, a major contributor to deforestation and climate change, with a lab-grown substitute. Should the synthetic biology startup start small in the personal car...
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Testing New Contact Tracing Approaches in a Pandemic from 2020-08-18T08:56:15
Singapore officials added a nationwide, Bluetooth-based contact tracing program called TraceTogether to their suite of Covid-19-fighting strategies, which already included human-led tracing. The ne...
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Glossier Built a Cult Brand and a Digital Community, but What’s Next? from 2020-08-04T08:45:41
The digital-first, direct-to-consumer beauty brand Glossier considers marketing strategies that move away from organic community support and toward influencer marketing and paid media. Harvard Busi...
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Starbucks Commits to Raising Awareness of Racial Bias from 2020-07-21T09:18:23
After a highly publicized act of racial discrimination by a Starbucks employee against two African American men in one of its stores in 2018, the company closed its 8,000 U.S. coffee shops for a da...
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SmileDirectClub Looks Beyond Direct-to-Consumer Marketing from 2020-07-07T08:47:21
Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger and RSE Ventures Co-founder Matt Higgins discuss why direct-to-consumer channel businesses, like teledentistry company SmileDirectClub, must implem...
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Is It Time for Big Apple Circus to Fold the Tent? from 2020-06-23T08:00:47
By 2016, the Big Apple Circus had weathered many storms in its 38 seasons as one of the most well-known New York City nonprofits. But with ticket sales and charitable giving in steep decline, the f...
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In a Pandemic, What’s the Best Strategy for the Global Vaccine Alliance? from 2020-06-09T08:35:19
How should the vaccine alliance, Gavi, respond to the worldwide need for a vaccine for the Covid-19 pandemic? Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna discusses how experimentation, judicious...
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Can the“Cummings Way”Live on After the Founder Retires? from 2020-05-26T09:03:40
After 50 years at the helm of Cummings Properties, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Cummings is winding down his roles at both the family business and foundation that he built. How should the ma...
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Autonomous Vehicles are Ready to Disrupt Society, Business, and You from 2020-05-12T08:06:14
The rise of autonomous vehicles has enormous implications for business and society. Harvard Business School professors Bill Kerr and Elie Ofek explore the factors influencing development and commer...
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Is the Healthiest Building in the World Worth the Rent? from 2020-04-28T08:46:15
Healthy buildings and superior air quality are increasingly important as people spend 90% of their lives indoors. Harvard professors John Macomber and Joseph Allen discuss their case, “A Tower for ...
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Fortnite Was a Blockbuster for Epic Games, What’s the Encore? from 2020-04-14T09:04:15
In the ever-changing video games industry, Epic Games, the maker of the incredibly popular Fortnite multi-player game, considers whether it could become a PC-games distribution platform. Harvard Bu...
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Bringing the Case Method Online from 2020-04-07T08:42:01
In this special episode of Cold Call, Brian Kenny speaks with Harvard Business School professor Srikant Datar about how Harvard Business School brought 1,800 MBA students and 200 faculty online in ...
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Controlling the Emotion of Negotiation from 2020-03-31T11:28:05
Two siblings, Thomas and Sally Campbell, are faced with selling their childhood home. They need to make several difficult decisions, all the while navigating their contentious relationship. Harvard...
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Is There a Winner in Huawei’s Digital Cold War with the U.S.? from 2020-03-17T09:25:46
Against the backdrop of his case, “Huawei: A Global Tech Giant in the Crossfire of a Digital Cold War,” Harvard Business School professor Bill Kirby discusses Huawei’s entrepreneurial start, where ...
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Do Universities Need 2U to Create Digital Education? from 2020-03-03T08:37:27
2U, an online program management provider, believed it was the strongest partner to enable the digital transformation of universities by allowing them to offer a variety of courses to a new student...
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Global Ocean Trust: Protecting the Blue Planet in New Ways from 2020-02-18T08:33:28
Following a successful career in finance, Torsten Thiele has devoted himself full-time to the challenging cause of ocean conservation and stewardship. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Mos...
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Why Backstage Capital Invests in“Underestimated”Entrepreneurs from 2020-02-04T08:44:32
Harvard Business School professor Laura Huang, whose new book “Edge” explores methods for turning adversity into professional advantage, is joined by Venture Capitalist Arlan Hamilton to discuss he...
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China-based Fuyao Glass Considers Manufacturing in the U.S. from 2020-01-21T09:09:15
Not many Chinese companies open manufacturing facilities in the U.S., but automotive glass maker Fuyao is considering just that. Harvard Business School professor Willy Shih examines factors that g...
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Can Capitalism Be Fixed by Making Companies More Just? from 2020-01-07T09:05:35
Harvard Business School professors Ethan Rouen and Charlie Wang explore whether capitalism is broken and if JUST Capital's performance evaluation rubric and strategies for exerting influence are li...
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Under Pressure, OXXO Rethinks the Convenience Store from 2019-12-17T08:56:55
Mexican convenience store chain OXXO dominated its market -- until its chief rival doubled in size almost overnight. Harvard Business School professor Tatiana Sandino discusses how CEO Eduardo Padi...
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Why CalSTRS Chooses to Engage with the Gun Industry from 2019-12-03T09:09:12
Should large institutional investors divest or engage if they have an issue with a company? Harvard Business School professor Vikram Gandhi discusses why and how CalSTRS, the $200 billion pension p...
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Lessons from IBM in Nazi Germany from 2019-11-19T09:07:59
Harvard Business School professor Geoff Jones discusses his case,“Thomas J. Watson, IBM and Nazi Germany,”which explores the options and responsibilities of multinationals with investments in polit...
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Can the Robin Hood Army Grow with Zero Financial Resources? from 2019-11-05T08:51:32
In 2014, Neel Ghose (MBA 2019) created the Robin Hood Army, an entirely volunteer-based organization working to get surplus food to hungry people. Just four years later, they had served more than 9...
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Goldman Sachs’$500 Million Bet on Small Businesses from 2019-10-15T08:56:28
Launched in the midst of the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs'“10,000 Small Businesses”program provided business education and access to capital for small businesses across the United States. The co...
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Can Gimlet Turn a Podcast Network Into a Disruptive Platform? from 2019-10-01T11:47:56
Harvard Business School professors John Deighton and Jeffrey Rayport discuss how two former public radio producers launch the Gimlet Media podcast network, entering the last frontier of digital med...
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How a New Leader Broke Through a Culture of Accuse, Blame, and Criticize from 2019-09-17T09:51:25
Children’s Hospital&Clinics COO Julie Morath sets out to change the culture there by instituting a policy of blameless reporting, which encourages employees to report anything that goes wrong or se...
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At Booking.com, Innovation Means Constant Failure from 2019-09-03T10:00:27
Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke discusses how past experience and intuition can be misleading when attempting to launch an innovative new product, service, business model, or proces...
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Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? from 2019-08-20T09:30:35
Harvard Business School professors Rebecca Henderson and George Serafeim discuss the impact investing efforts of Hiro Mizuno, CIO of GPIF, Japan’s government pension fund. He says that improving co...
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Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands? from 2019-08-06T10:12:37
Much of the advertising purchased during the Super Bowl is about selling corporate brands rather than products. Harvard Business School professor Shelle Santana discusses her case,"Super Bowl Story...
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JUUL: Leading the Vaping Revolution from 2019-07-16T08:00:22
In his case,“JUUL and the Vaping Revolution,”Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel discusses the controversy surrounding the exponential growth of JUUL vaping products in 2018, in particula...
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The Controversial History of United Fruit from 2019-07-02T12:00:09
Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones discusses the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 in a U.S.-backed coup in support of the United Fruit Co. (now Chiquita Brand...
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In the Platform Economy, Upwork Searches for Better Matches in the Cloud from 2019-06-25T10:22:33
Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, considers different pricing solutions and ways to improve the matching process as part of a business model redesign.
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Can Khan Academy Scale to Educate Anyone, Anywhere? from 2019-06-18T09:56:33
Khan Academy is an online global education nonprofit launched by Sal Khan with the audacious mission to“provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”Harvard Business School professor ...
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Israel Turns 70: Does It Need a Rebrand? from 2019-06-04T10:43:37
Israel turned 70 years old in May of 2018, but its brand image internationally was less than ideal. Market research revealed that many people associated Israel primarily with military conflict. Har...
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If the Key to Business Success Is Focus, Why Does Amazon Work? from 2019-05-21T07:52:38
Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta explores the infiltration of Amazon into dozens of industries including web services, grocery, online video streaming, content creation and, oh, did we...
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Managers: Are You Prepared to Handle Religion in the Workplace? from 2019-05-07T07:49:04
Challenges related to managing religion in the workplace are on the rise, as are religious discrimination claims and monetary settlements in the U.S. and around the world. Harvard Business School p...
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Would You Live in a Smart City Where Government Controls Privacy? from 2019-04-16T10:17:55
Toronto is experimenting with smart city concepts envisioned by Google spin-off Sidewalk Labs. Harvard Business School professors Leslie John and Mitch Weiss discuss the tradeoffs of using technolo...
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Can Mark Zuckerberg Rebuild Trust in Facebook? from 2019-04-03T09:14:26
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced a crucible moment in 2018 after Cambridge Analytica accessed data from 87 million Facebook accounts. Harvard Business School professor Bill George discusses his c...
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Will Startup Fishbowl Become the Social Media App for Your Industry? from 2019-03-22T09:32:34
Fishbowl's founders have built a social media platform allowing professionals to connect anonymously and with candor within their companies and industry. But the app is still largely limited to the...
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How Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand from 2019-03-12T11:15:41
Harvard Business School professor Geoff Jones examines the career of Helena Rubinstein, one of the trailblazing female entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Using guile, brilliant branding, and more t...
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Pursuing Precision Medicine at Intermountain Healthcare from 2019-02-26T11:11:13
What happens when Intermountain Healthcare invests resources in an innovative precision medicine unit to provide life-extending, genetically targeted therapies to late-stage cancer patients? Harvar...
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The Delicious History of Hershey Chocolate from 2019-02-13T11:06:42
Have you ever wondered how Hershey chocolate came to be so popular? Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn discusses the life and vision of Milton Hershey, the entrepreneur and philanthropis...
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How Wegmans Became a Leader in Improving Food Safety from 2019-01-29T11:01:07
Harvard Business School professor Ray Goldberg discusses how Wegmans CEO faced a food safety issue and then helped the industry determine how it could become more proactive in the future.
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Can Miguel McKelvey Build the“Culture Operating System”at WeWork? from 2019-01-09T10:56:21
How deeply does the culture of a startup matter? Can it be shaped? Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport discusses WeWork cofounder Miguel McKelvey’s innovative role in building a compa...
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Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within from 2018-12-18T10:46:41
Was Eastern Labs a huge success or an expensive mistake? Eastern Bank CEO Bob Rivers innovates from within by partnering with fintech entrepreneur Dan O’Malley to launch a completely automated smal...
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Honda Created a Civic for Very Light Jets: How High Will it Fly? from 2018-12-05T10:41:51
After thirty years of research and development, the HondaJet is now the top selling jet in the very light jet segment of the market. Harvard Business School professor Gary Pisano discusses how Hond...
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Building a Nonprofit Marketplace System to Feed America from 2018-11-19T10:37:30
Feeding America is the third largest nonprofit in America, managing a network of more than 200 food banks nationwide. Harvard Business School professor Scott Duke Kominers and University of Chicago...
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Could Big Data Replace the Creative Director at the Gap? from 2018-11-07T10:32:41
Is it time to throw out the creative director and rely on big data to predict what consumers want to wear next? Harvard Business School professor Ayelet Israeli discusses how Gap CEO Art Peck consi...
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Vodafone’s Innovative Approach to Advanced Technologies from 2018-10-24T10:28:14
Harvard Business School professor Bill Kerr discusses how Vodafone, one of the largest companies in the telecommunications space, incorporated technological advancements like big data, automation, ...
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Baseball’s Billy Beane Shows Companies the Power of Data from 2018-10-10T10:23:31
Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane brought a data driven and unconventional approach to winning baseball games. By setting strategy and articulating the metric to evaluate and acquire th...
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Did Entrepreneur Ernesto Tornquist Help or Hurt Argentina? from 2018-09-19T10:17:38
Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones examines the career of Ernesto Tornquist, a cosmopolitan financier considered to be the most significant entrepreneur in Argentina at the end of the...
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Should U.S. Companies Still Care About the Paris Climate Change Agreement? from 2018-09-05T09:59:55
American President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change just over a year ago. What does that mean for the role of United States companies and business leaders in co...
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Two Million Fake Accounts: Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo from 2018-08-17T09:52:19
Coming out of the financial crisis, Wells Fargo was one of the world’s largest and most successful banks, viewed as a role model in how to manage in times of crisis. The news of its sales misconduc...
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The Transformation of Microsoft from 2018-07-10T09:48:19
In early 2015, Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, and the rest of the senior leadership team faced a set of fundamental choices. The firm had opportunities to serve customers in ways that would be associa...
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LA Philharmonic Shows the American Symphony Orchestra Isn’t Dead Yet from 2018-06-27T09:43:21
The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra faced real challenges, as all U.S. orchestras did: an aging subscriber base, disinterest from younger audiences, and development of a pipeline of donors for t...
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How Chase Sapphire Made Credit Cool for Millennials from 2018-06-13T09:35:46
The Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was one of the hottest product launches in 2016 enthusiastically received by millennial consumers, a group that had previously eluded JPMorgan Chase and its c...
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Careem: Riding the First Unicorn in the Middle East from 2018-05-29T09:29:53
Ride-hailing service Careem, the“Uber of the Middle East,”experienced expansion so dramatic that it monitored its growth target every 15 minutes. Was this a fabled startup unicorn? But doubling the...
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Candy Crush was a Blockbuster; Can King Digital Capitalize? from 2018-05-09T09:25:12
Riccardo Zacconi was the co-founder and CEO of King Digital Entertainment, the video game company that had quickly established itself as the world’s leading maker of casual games for mobile devices...
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Why JPMorgan Chase is Investing Millions in Detroit from 2018-04-25T08:42:09
JPMorgan Chase is working with local economic- and workforce-development organizations, small businesses, philanthropies, and the mayor. The goal? To put in place a series of investments to help tu...
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How a Coal Polluter Became a Renewable Energy Leader from 2018-04-03T17:33:40
Enel, Italy’s state-owned power company, was one of Europe’s largest coal users and polluters. Now it is recognized as a leader in renewable energy services. How did it engineer that monumental cha...
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Trump’s Populism: What Business Leaders Need to Understand from 2018-03-21T17:29:50
In the 2016 United States presidential election, candidates from both major political parties used anti-establishment messaging to appeal to Americans, a theme that had been on the sidelines of U.S...
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Could a New Business Model Make Clinical Drug Trials More Accessible to Patients? from 2018-03-05T17:25:01
Dr. Brian Alexander at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston was in the process of launching a new type of clinical trial: an adaptive platform trial. Unlike the traditional randomized controlled...
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Black Business Leaders Series: John Rogers and the Importance of Hiring Minority-Owned Services Firms from 2018-02-13T17:20:16
The African American CEO of a money management firm publicly criticizes the Fortune 500 for paying lip service to diversity. His board urges him to stop. What should he do? Harvard Business School ...
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Black Business Leaders Series: Oprah’s Path to Authentic Leadership from 2018-01-31T17:15:41
Oprah Winfrey believes in sharing the experiences that led her to become the wealthiest woman in the entertainment industry and the first African American woman billionaire. Harvard Business School...
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One Love: Managing a Movement Against Relationship Violence from 2018-01-23T17:11:16
The One Love Foundation is a group dedicated to the prevention of relationship violence through education. Harvard Business School professor Tom DeLong talks about the challenges CEO Katie Hood fac...
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Leadership Lessons from the Young Martin Luther King, Jr. from 2018-01-11T17:08:28
As the Montgomery Bus Boycott starts, the young Martin Luther King, Jr. faces challenges to his leadership goals, strategic vision, and personal and family safety. Harvard Business School professor...
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How to Monetize Happiness from 2018-01-03T17:04:14
Inspired by research linking happiness and productivity, the Japanese multinational conglomerate Hitachi Ltd, invested in developing“people analytics”technologies like high-tech badges (so-called“h...
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Does Time Pressure Hinder or Facilitate Creativity at Work? from 2017-12-04T16:59:58
Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile discusses how managers can create the ideal conditions for employee creativity and success based on her research in three industries, seven companie...
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Language and Globalization: The Mandate to Speak English at Rakuten from 2017-11-15T16:41:59
Japan’s largest online retailer Rakuten is rapidly expanding into global markets. In order to ensure the success of the organization, but also to break down linguistic and cultural boundaries in Ja...
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Could a Hackathon Help Solve the Heroin Crisis? from 2017-10-31T16:35:19
What’s the value of crowdsourcing technological solutions to societal problems? Could a hackathon help solve the heroin crisis in Cincinnati, Ohio? Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss dis...
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Telemundo: The Fastest Growing TV Network in the United States from 2017-10-11T16:30:39
With about 54 million Hispanics in the U.S. who have an estimated buying power of 2.3 trillion dollars, it’s no wonder Telemundo is the fastest growing television network here. But as the tradition...
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How to Promote Home Delivery of Prescription Drugs? Give Employees a“Nudge” from 2017-10-03T16:25:49
Bob Nease, chief scientist at Express Scripts, wants to promote home delivery of prescription drugs by mail -- a process proven to lower error rates, increase cost savings, and improve medication a...
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State Street’s SHE: Investing in Women Leaders from 2017-09-19T16:21:41
Financial returns are important, but for many companies, using capital to influence positive outcomes is just as important. Enter impact investing and the example of State Street’s SHE, a gender di...
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Faber-Castell Doubles Down on the Pencil from 2017-09-05T16:17:34
Faber-Castell is a 255-year-old company that makes pencils. How does an established company like this think about innovation, particularly if and when to adopt a new technology? Harvard Business Sc...
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Does Le Pliage Help or Hurt the Longchamp Luxury Brand? from 2017-08-22T16:13:29
Longchamp’s Le Pliage is one of the fashion world’s most successful products, a cultural icon across the globe. But managing the low priced, nylon handbag is challenging as Longchamp tries to move ...
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Pal’s Sudden Service: Taking Fast Food to the Next Level from 2017-08-08T16:09:16
Pal's Sudden Service has developed a unique operating model and organizational culture in the fast food restaurant business. With an emphasis on process control, zero errors, and extensive employee...
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From Don Draper to Big Data: The Revolution in Advertising from 2017-07-21T15:26:23
Advertising in the digital age bears little resemblance to the"Mad Men"depiction -- the Don Drapers of advertising have been replaced by big data and the people who work with it. Harvard Business S...
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ShotSpotter: A Gunfire Detection Business Looks for a New Market from 2017-06-19T15:21:24
ShotSpotter provides gunfire detection sensors to cities across the United States. CEO Ralph Clark is interested in taking the company beyond the business-to-government sales model and into new ser...
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Building India’s First $100 Billion Company from 2017-05-30T15:17:23
It’s a common challenge for almost every startup: how much and how fast to grow. But Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of the Indian mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm, knows that he wants to ...
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Reversing the Losing Streak on Sesame Street from 2017-05-16T14:51:22
When CEO Jeffrey Dunn took over Sesame Street in 2014 and made a licensing arrangement with HBO, many people were skeptical this would take the program in the right direction. But with a new missio...
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Leading Your Team to the Top of Mt. Everest from 2017-05-02T14:46:43
What does it take to successfully lead a team to the top of the highest peak in the world? First-year students find out as they participate together in,"Everest: A Leadership and Team Simulation."H...
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Making Health Insurance Consumers Actually Like from 2017-04-18T14:42:29
Health insurance that consumers like? Doesn’t sound possible, but South African company Vitality is doing just that. By focusing on consumer-driven health insurance ideas like paying customers to t...
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Why German Businesses Support, Train, and Hire Syrian Refugees from 2017-04-04T14:37:52
Germany took in a million Syrian refugees in 2015, buoyed by the knowledge that these people could contribute strongly to the country’s economy. But has it worked out as successfully as hoped? Harv...
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Cost-cutting Leads to Turbulence in the Airline Industry from 2017-03-21T14:33:16
Is it possible to retain brand value after cutting costs and services dramatically just to stay alive? The airline industry has struggled with this question for decades in the face of economic down...
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IDEO Is Changing the Way Managers Think About Thinking from 2017-03-03T14:27:49
IDEO’s human-centered design thinking is a systematic process used to help create new products and services. And, the best part? They are open about the process and how to adopt it. Harvard Busines...
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Black Business Leaders Series: Franklin Leonard,“Black List”Mastermind from 2017-02-22T14:23:40
Using crowdsourcing to develop an annual list of Hollywood’s hottest unproduced screenplays, Harvard graduate Franklin Leonard took the negative term“black list”and turned it into a coveted place t...
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Black Business Leaders Series: A Remarkable Legacy of Firsts, Maggie Lena Walker from 2017-02-15T14:22:29
Growing up in the heart of the Confederacy, Maggie Lena Walker started work as a laundress at age nine. At the urging of her mother and mentors, she turned to education, and used it to propel her l...
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Black Business Leaders Series: Putting Diversity to Work from 2017-01-26T09:00:04
In theory, most companies would love to diversify their workforce. In practice, hiring specifically to increase diversity can cause a variety of cultural problems within an organization. Harvard Bu...
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Black Business Leaders Series: The Entrepreneurship Behind Ebony Magazine from 2017-01-26T08:00:39
For more than seven decades, Ebony Magazine has chronicled the most important African-American issues, personalities, and interests of its time, including operating essentially as the journal of re...
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Can Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center Save Jazz Music? from 2017-01-18T13:47:49
Research says that people imprint on music in their dating years, and carry those tastes with them through the rest of their lives. Lately, this has spelled trouble for jazz music, which is failing...
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The American Food Paradox: Growing Obese and Going Hungry from 2017-01-03T13:44:01
One third of the U.S. population is obese, even as 50 million Americans often struggle to find enough to eat. And all that in a country where 40% of the food made and purchased each year is thrown ...
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Target’s Expensive Cybersecurity Mistake from 2016-12-20T13:39:51
There is a joke in the cybersecurity community that there are two kinds of companies: those that know they’ve been hacked, and those that haven’t found out yet. The Target Corporation learned this ...
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How Wayfair Built a Furniture Brand from Scratch from 2016-12-07T13:36:32
Wayfair has been around since the early days of ecommerce. But where it now exists as a single, popular brand, it was once an unaffiliated collection of 240 websites selling very different things. ...
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Digital Change: Lessons from the Newspaper Industry from 2016-11-18T13:31:20
On the internet, content may be king, but connecting users is the key to building an empire. The Norwegian media giant Schibsted learned this lesson the hard way, and then used it to thrive in an o...
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Building Affordable Health Care in Paradise from 2016-11-14T15:38:26
By some accounts, only 5-6% of people around the world get the cardiac treatment they need to survive. The rest perish. This statistic highlights the stark need for affordable, quality health care ...
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Managing in the Real World: How to Make Gray-Area Decisions from 2016-11-03T13:22:40
An unfortunate but necessary part of a manager’s job is having to let underperforming employees go. Knowing when and how to take that step with the company’s, the employee’s, and your own best inte...
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The Crash and the Fix of HealthCare.gov from 2016-11-01T15:38:27
The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare for short, had three goals: make health insurance available, required, and affordable for everyone. There was just one problem -- the launch of the HealthCare....
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Oktoberfest: Making Money Off of Tradition from 2016-10-04T13:15:59
Oktoberfest began as a raucous wedding celebration in Germany more than 200 years ago and has since grown into a worldwide phenomenon. Munich, alone, hosts some 6.4 million guests (who consume almo...
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Innovation Under Constraint: Constructing a Turnaround at Lego from 2016-10-04T12:54:44
Lego has been helping children piece together dreams and build their imaginations for decades, and has become one of the world’s most popular toys and most powerful brands in the process. But the c...
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Netflix Wins Big by Betting on“House of Cards” from 2016-10-04T12:51:17
Before“House of Cards”was an internationally-renowned and critically acclaimed hit series, it was a total shot in the dark. Luckily for the small film studio behind it, Netflix saw it as a shot wor...
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Behind Apple’s Tax Situation, an Unprecedented Financial Policy from 2016-10-04T12:00:40
Most people know Apple as one of the richest and most successful companies in the world, but it wasn’t always that way. In 1997, the company suffered a near-death experience that caused it to compl...
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What Building a“Jeopardy!”Robot Taught IBM About Innovation from 2016-10-04T11:55:19
It’s a good bet that winning a game show isn’t often on the list of top priorities at large companies. So how was it that building a robot to do just that became a prime focus at IBM? Harvard Busin...
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Why College Rankings Keep Deans Awake at Night from 2016-10-04T11:05:22
College represents one of the biggest decisions and investments many consumers will ever make. But can they really trust the rankings available to help them choose? Harvard Business School professo...
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How Modest Investors Can Still Bet Big from 2016-10-04T11:01:02
A novel idea: give loyal customers a chance to buy shares in a company they love. That’s the premise behind LOYAL3, which uses the democratizing power of technology to give average investors better...
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How to Fix a Broken Global Team from 2016-10-04T10:32
Increasingly, almost every team is a global team in some capacity. This presents a difficult challenge for managers everywhere, and especially for high-potential leaders who want to take their care...
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Who Makes the Eyes for Driverless Cars? from 2016-10-04T10:26:46
Though Google has become the U.S. face of the driverless car movement, other global companies have been developing similar technology for more than a decade. Mobileye is one of them, with a $10 bil...
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Hold Onto Your Complexity: Bringing Multiple Identities to Work from 2016-10-04T10:21:09
Carla Ann Harris has blazed trails and excelled at institutions like Harvard and Morgan Stanley. But doing so has required her to strike a careful balance between her professional image and her per...
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A Better World Through Brewing from 2016-10-04T10:16:55
Since brewing is a marketing-driven business, finding ways to differentiate a beverage from its competition is crucial. Heineken’s chief marketing officer took a novel approach: take the complicate...
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Who Owns Space? from 2016-10-04T10:11:50
Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are tapping into their vast personal wealth to make commercial space travel a reality. In the process, they're revitalizing a listless national space pro...
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The Real Cost of Ignoring Mental Health in the Workplace from 2016-10-04T09:53:33
The statistics are startling: about one-third of American workers suffer from chronic work stress; $27 billion worth of work days are lost to mental health-related absences each year. Harvard Busin...
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Walmart: Changing the World for Better or Worse? from 2016-10-04T09:48:43
Can big companies fix big problems? Are they responsible for doing so? As the third-largest employer in the world, any move Walmart makes reverberates around the globe. Yet despite its many success...
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The Key to Keeping Resolutions? Betting Against Yourself from 2016-09-19T09:44:09
It’s been a few months since many of us made New Year’s resolutions. Have you stuck with yours? Harvard Business School professor Leslie John studies how to help people change bad habits (and reinf...
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A Map of Economic Renewal Begins in Maine from 2016-09-19T09:37:10
Maine has had one of the worst state economies in the country the last few years. But something special is happening there of late that could change the face of job creation in the future. Harvard ...
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The Team Sport of Scaling a Business from 2016-09-19T09:30:41
For entrepreneurs, size and scale don’t have to come at the cost of agility. Fabricio Bloisi, a 21-year-old Brazilian college graduate, proved that with his company Movile. Harvard Business School ...
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For the Hotel Business, it’s TripAdvisor or Bust from 2016-09-19T09:25:08
Research says that 85% of people will make a purchase after reading online reviews about a product or service. This has had huge implications for the hotel industry and helps explain why TripAdviso...
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The Amazing Life of One of America’s Earliest Black Female Entrepreneurs from 2016-09-19T09:17:55
Though not everyone may know her name, Madam C.J. Walker helped invent what have become staples of our modern country and economy: national sales forces, corporate social responsibility, and, yes, ...
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The Space Shuttle Columbia’s Final Mission from 2016-09-19T09:12:57
No organization wants to fail. But even for the best and the brightest, failure is inevitable, and occasionally that failure can be catastrophic. Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson des...
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The Power of Presence at the Podium from 2016-09-19T09:06
Running for office requires a lot of public speaking. But often, it’s what candidates aren’t saying that can make or break their campaigns. Take the case of Dan Silver, an experienced congressional...
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A Microchip in Your Medicine from 2016-09-19T08:37:19
Digitally-enabled prescription medication may sound futuristic. Thanks to Proteus, the future is now. The company has developed the technology to place microchips inside prescription pills, allowin...
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Designing a Great Community from 2016-09-19T08:26:20
How do you manage a community, grow it, and sustain it? Threadless has done it since 2007 by crowdsourcing its T-shirt designs and selling the best ones. Harvard Business School professor Karim Lak...
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Planning Change: Lessons from the World of Retail from 2016-09-19T08:25:44
Ron Johnson's career path has featured stops at some of the world’s largest and most innovative retailers, including Target, Apple, and J.C. Penney. At each stop, Johnson learned invaluable lessons...
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Leadership from Below from 2016-09-19T08:23:19
Harvard Business School professor Rohit Deshpande discusses lessons for leaders from the heroic and selfless acts of the Taj Palace staff during the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.
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A Hard Sell: Bringing Cultured Beef to Market from 2016-09-19T08:17:32
In the hundred-plus years since journalist Upton Sinclair shined a light on the deplorable conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry in his groundbreaking exposé,"The Jungle,"per capita meat con...
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The Long Run: The Impact of Brain Injuries on the NFL from 2016-09-19T08:16:41
Today’s NFL is fast-paced and hard-hitting. Though players are well-compensated, many wonder about the long-term cost of those violent collisions on the athletes, the league, and culture at large. ...
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Bringing“Moneyball”to the NBA from 2016-09-19T08:15:22
Are people better off as a result of your presence? Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei discusses leadership lessons from basketball, the ultimate team sport.
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Making the Case for a New Kind of Classroom from 2016-09-19T08:14:49
There are no grade levels, no official start times, and teachers get stock options. Is AltSchool the school of the future? Harvard Business School professor John Kim discusses his case.
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Dangerous Mines: Saving Lives Through Leadership from 2016-09-16T18:10:05
Cynthia Carroll's breathtaking story about taking decisive action in the face of a complex and dangerous situation. Harvard Business School professor Gautam Mukunda discusses his case.
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Cold Calling Stella McCartney from 2016-09-16T18:04:44
With her unique leadership style and innovative approach to green fashion, Stella McCartney shows that a luxury brand can be sustainable. Harvard Business School professor Anat Keinan discusses her...
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Cold Call Introduction from 2016-09-16T17:30:39
Host Brian Kenny introduces Cold Call, the official podcast of the Harvard Business School. Cold Call distills the Business School’s legendary case studies into podcast form. The podcast airs every...
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