Strategy
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- August 2024
- Case
Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Kuria KamauIn July 2023, Peter Kang’iri, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quickmart, Kenya’s second-largest retail chain, sat in his Nairobi office reviewing the company’s first half financial results before the weekly executive committee (EXCO) meeting. The company was in the second year of its five-year plan, following its most profitable year ever in 2022. Quickmart’s five-year plan was to increase its revenues by 82% to $541 million by opening 50 new stores. It was targeting to have 105 stores in Kenya by 2026 and had opened three new stores in 2023 which increased its national presence to 58 stores in 16 counties by July 2023. However, Kenya’s challenging economic environment was negatively impacting consumer spending, and Quickmart’s growth plans were at risk. Furthermore, Kang’iri feared that Quickmart could face financial challenges as it increased its store numbers since other Kenyan retailers had failed after growing to 65 stores. Given these challenges, Kang’iri knew he would need to reconsider how best to meet the company’s ambitious growth targets.
- August 2024
- Case
Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Kuria KamauIn July 2023, Peter Kang’iri, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quickmart, Kenya’s second-largest retail chain, sat in his Nairobi office reviewing the company’s first half financial results before the weekly executive committee (EXCO) meeting. The company was in the second year of its five-year plan, following its most profitable year ever in...
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- August, 2024
- Article
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoWe study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often large, weakly correlated across teams, and have substantial negative impacts on team productivity. Together these facts imply gains from sharing workers. We show that managers respond to shocks by lending and borrowing workers in a manner consistent with relational contracting, but many potentially beneficial transfers are unrealized. This is because managers’ primary relationships are with a very small subset of potential partners. Counterfactual simulations reveal large gains to forming additional relationships among managers.
- August, 2024
- Article
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge TamayoWe study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often large, weakly correlated across teams, and have substantial negative impacts on...
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- July 2024
- Case
Shell’s Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition (Abridged)
By: David Collis and Haisley WertIn mid-2023, amid pressure from climate change activists, shareholder activists, and confronting enormous uncertainty about the future demand for and price of fossil fuels, new Shell CEO Wael Sawan (Harvard MBA 2003) announced a change in strategy for the U.K. oil major. Maintaining that, “We’re not an oil-and-gas-only investment case, and we’re not a renewables-only investment case,” he stated that Shell would remain “balanced” and “disciplined while delivering compelling shareholder returns.” Yet, in a shift in how resources were to be allocated across “Three Pillars” during the transition to net zero operations, he placed more emphasis on “return of capital” and “return on capital” and demanded a “fundamental cultural change” in the company. The change in strategy would not just affect the internal allocation of resources across Shell’s different businesses, but would also have important impacts on global climate change and the future mix of fossil fuels and renewables in the economy.
- July 2024
- Case
Shell’s Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition (Abridged)
By: David Collis and Haisley WertIn mid-2023, amid pressure from climate change activists, shareholder activists, and confronting enormous uncertainty about the future demand for and price of fossil fuels, new Shell CEO Wael Sawan (Harvard MBA 2003) announced a change in strategy for the U.K. oil major. Maintaining that, “We’re not an oil-and-gas-only investment case, and we’re...
About the Unit
The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.
Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.
Recent Publications
Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment
- August 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm
- August, 2024 |
- Article |
- Journal of the European Economic Association
Shell’s Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition (Abridged)
- July 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Designing a Successful Reskilling Program
- July 10, 2024 |
- Article |
- Harvard Business Review (website)
The Scope of the Corporation
- July 2024 |
- Module Note |
- Faculty Research
Organization: Managing the Corporation
- July 2024 |
- Module Note |
- Faculty Research
Growing Foodology into Latin America's Largest Platform for Virtual Restaurants
- June 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.