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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

  David A. Garvin, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Liz Kind

  Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes, designed to help Google employees become better managers. By November 2012, the program had been in place for several years, and the company could point to statistically significant improvements in managerial effectiveness and performance. Now executives were wondering: how could Google build on the success of this project, extending it to senior leaders, teams, and other constituencies while striving to create truly amazing managers?

  Keywords: organizational behavior; management; leadership; business policy; general management; human resource management; Management; Leadership; Human Resources;

  Citation:

  Garvin, David A., Alison Berkley Wagonfeld, and Liz Kind. "Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?" Harvard Business School Case 313-110, April 2013.

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2012 version)

  Ctrip: Scientifically Managing Travel Services

  David A. Garvin and Nancy Hua Dai

  Ctrip is a $437 million Chinese on-line travel services company with a scientific, data driven approach to management. The case explores Ctrip's founding and early growth, its expansion into multiple market segments including hotel reservations, air ticketing, leisure travel, and corporate travel, and the sources of its competitive advantage. The firm's culture, organization and call center operations are described in detail, as are its decision-making and business processes. At the end of the case, executives are considering whether Ctrip should actively pursue either the budget or luxury travel segments, which would mean shifting attention from the company's core customer base of Frequent Independent Travelers.

  Keywords: Scientific Management; Data-driven management; Business Processes; Management; Travel Industry; China;

  Citation:

  Garvin, David A., and Nancy Hua Dai. "Ctrip: Scientifically Managing Travel Services." Harvard Business School Case 312-092, March 2013. (Revised from original January 2012 version.)

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2010 version)

  Growing Pains at Stroz Friedberg

  David A. Garvin and Carin-Isabel Knoop

  In late spring 2009, Stroz Friedberg co-presidents Edward Stroz and Eric Friedberg had to set growth targets for 2010. The leading global consulting firm they had built specialized in managing digital risk and uncovering digital evidence and had grown very rapidly. With the firm's CFO, they believed that the firm could grow from $58 million to $72 million, a growth rate of 27% over the preceding year. However, the firm's 11 offices had submitted first draft FY 2010 plans that together added up to firm-wide revenues of only $53 million, a growth rate of negative 10.2%. The preceding years of rapid growth had been successful but challenging, and a thorough review of the firm's culture, systems, structure, and processes in late 2008 had resulted in a significant set of changes to which the organization was still adjusting. Stroz and Friedberg wondered whether to push for continued, aggressive growth.

  Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Transition; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Consulting Industry;

  Citation:

  Garvin, David A., and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Growing Pains at Stroz Friedberg." Harvard Business School Case 311-008, March 2013. (Revised from original December 2010 version.)

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