Cold Call

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 of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and help them graduate. Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel and Harvard University senior fellow Robin Mendelson discuss what the univers...

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” Choudhury discusses how the program gives workers the flexibility to move out of congested cities and explores the challenges in scaling this model throughout rural America and beyond.

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 discusses the long roots that ultimately led to the crash of Lion Air flight 610 in October 2018 in Indonesia and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 in March 2019 in Ethiopia. He discusses the ro...

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 done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School associate professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup levera...

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-assistance programs by facilitating direct payment by the employer to the academic institution and by supporting students with coaching and advising. Now CEO and co-founder Rachel Carlson must decide ho...

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 at a crossroads, with Gera planning the end of his managerial career. How should the family think about scaling the business? And, should the company seek a successor to lead those efforts from inside o...

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 arguments for and against reparations in response to the Tulsa Massacre and, more broadly, to the effects of slavery and racist government policies in the U.S.

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 Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done t...

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 senior lecturer Tony Mayo discusses the pressure on Fox to assimilate into the dominant culture, her decision to lean into her authentic self, and the deep connection between employee engagement and authentic...

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, hemorrhaging cash, and struggling to make payroll. Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley discusses Archambeau’s leadership style and the importance of developing resilience, particularly when managin...

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 Durham, North Carolina, in 1971. Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Jeffrey Huizinga discuss how empathy and curiosity can foster understanding in divisive situations.

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 by police as a Black man. He wanted to create a new public safety framework that would be rooted in community. But then the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out much of the city’s budget and the May 2020 killing o...

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 improve social workers’ well-being? Ashley Whillans describes the experience of Chief Executive Michael Sanders’ experience at the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care.

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 other brands that contradict the Dove campaign, and struggling to determine the best allocation of funds between advertising and the educational programs that deliver social impact. Can Dove maintain both it...

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 responses by regulators and local competitors.

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 professor Regina Herzlinger discusses how to evaluate health care innovations aimed at providing solutions for obesity in her case, “Fighting the Battle of the Bulge – Evaluating Innovations in Morbid Obesity...

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?

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 discusses the challenges and opportunities of combining profit with social impact in his case, “Nehemiah Mfg. Co.: Providing a Second Chance.”

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. Harvard Business School professor Mitchell Weiss debates the risks, rewards, and business models for mobile voting in his case study on “Voatz.”

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 poses a complex dilemma: should Morgan Stanley promote a high performer who lacks interpersonal skills and brushes off company values? More subtly, the case also encourages reflection about the accountabi...

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 ingredient to its success -- an approach he developed following a personal crisis. But can that approach endure through Henco’s rapid growth, leadership transition, and changing employee expectations?

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 care market or dive into booming lab-grown food market?

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 new digital program’s success would rely on mitigating privacy issues. Would Singaporeans adopt TraceTogether? As Singapore’s government opened up the technology to the world, would you? Harvard Business S...

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 Business School professor Jill Avery discusses the debate in her case, “Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community.”

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 day of unconscious bias training. The company also revised store policies and employee training practices. Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman discuss what we can learn...