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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020 (Revised August 2020)

  Culture at Google

  Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

  Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of employee speech, mistreatment of contract and temporary workers, allegations of sexual misconduct and gender inequality, and claims of retaliation against labor organizing. While Google employees felt an obligation to dissent against morally questionable practices, embodying the company’s informal motto “don’t be evil,” the company struggled to respond to employees’ concerns while preserving its unique culture.

  Keywords: Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Resignation and Termination; Labor; Working Conditions; Employment; Labor Unions; Wages; Law; Lawsuits and Litigation; Rights; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Behavior; Conflict Management; Trust; Motivation and Incentives; Prejudice and Bias; Power and Influence; Technology; Search Technology; Web; Hardware; Society; Social Issues; Culture; Civil Society or Community; Demographics; Diversity; Ethnicity; Gender; Race; Technology Industry; North and Central America; United States; California;

  Citation:

  Hsieh, Nien-hê, Amy Klopfenstein, and Sarah Mehta. "Culture at Google." Harvard Business School Case 320-050, March 2020. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised August 2020)

  Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL

  Chiara Farronato, Alan MacCormack and Sarah Mehta

  Set in March 2018, the case follows ride-sharing company Uber as it develops and launches a new product called Express POOL. This product offers a reduced price to riders willing to carpool, walk a short distance to/from their pick-up and drop-off points, and wait a few minutes before being matched to a driver. Two weeks after the launch of Express POOL in six U.S. cities, Uber’s product managers discover that if riders are made to wait five minutes to be matched to a driver—rather than the standard two minutes—rider cancellation rates increase, but Uber’s costs per ride are reduced. Together with data scientists, engineers, and product operations specialists, the product managers must decide whether to keep rider wait times at two minutes or increase wait times to five minutes in the six newly launched cities. The decision is complicated by the fact that Uber’s data science team normally places a five-week moratorium on changes to any new product, to allow robust data to be collected on its performance. This case is paired with a supplementary dataset from Uber (HBS No. 619-702). In advance of the class discussion, students can analyze the data and draw their own conclusions about the trade-offs of maintaining the standard wait times or increasing them.

  Keywords: Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Technology; Mobile Technology; Software; Technology Platform; Decision Making; Technology Industry; California; San Francisco;

  Citation:

  Farronato, Chiara, Alan MacCormack, and Sarah Mehta. "Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL." Harvard Business School Case 619-003, October 2018. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised August 2020)

  Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL

  Chiara Farronato, Alan MacCormack and Sarah Mehta

  Citation:

  Farronato, Chiara, Alan MacCormack, and Sarah Mehta. "Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 619-702, October 2018. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details

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