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- March 2022
- Article
Sensitivity Analysis of Agent-based Models: A New Protocol
By: Emanuele Borgonovo, Marco Pangallo, Jan Rivkin, Leonardo Rizzo and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Agent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly used in the management sciences. Though useful, ABMs are often critiqued: it is hard to discern why they produce the results they do and whether other assumptions would yield similar results. To help researchers address such...
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- February 2022 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
Ample Hills Creamery
By: Tom Eisenmann, Lindsay N. Hyde and Tom Quinn
Ample Hills Creamery started in 2010 as a temporary ice cream pushcart in Brooklyn, New York City. On the strength of inventive flavors and clever marketing, husband-and-wife founders Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna built a premium, artisanal dessert empire of 16 retail...
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- December 2021 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Katerra (A)
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn
In April 2020, Katerra executives struggled with a series of decisions that would determine the fate of one of the best-funded construction startups in history. Katerra was founded in 2015 by technology-industry executive Michael Marks and commercial real estate...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Coupling and Coupling Compromises in Supplier Factories' Responses to Worker Activism
By: Yanhua Bird, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Activist pressure has prompted many companies to adopt formal corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, but can ongoing activist pressure influence whether companies effectively implement these policies? Drawing on and extending the private politics and...
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- March 2021
- Case
VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory
By: Karim R. Lakhani and Amy Klopfenstein
Florian Hillen, co-founder and CEO of VideaHealth, a startup that used artificial intelligence (AI) to detect dental conditions on x-rays, spent the early years of his company laying the groundwork for an AI factory. A process for quickly building and iterating on new...
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Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence;
Innovation and Invention;
Disruptive Innovation;
Technological Innovation;
Information Technology;
Applications and Software;
Technology Adoption;
Digital Platforms;
Entrepreneurship;
AI and Machine Learning;
Technology Industry;
Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Cambridge
- Article
Manage the Suppliers That Could Harm Your Brand: Know When to Avoid, Engage, or Drop Them
By: Jodi L Short and Michael W. Toffel
The pandemic has placed a new spotlight on working conditions in factories that supply global companies. To avert problems, firms often impose codes of conduct on their suppliers and perform audits to assess compliance. Do these measures help identify unethical...
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Keywords:
Auditing;
Agency Cost;
Quality And Safety;
Quality Management System;
Quality Management;
Unions;
Environmental Management;
Globalization;
Goods and Commodities;
Governance;
Labor;
Labor Unions;
Wages;
Working Conditions;
Operations;
Supply Chain;
Safety;
Quality;
China;
Bangladesh;
Asia;
Pakistan
- July 2020 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Rosalind Fox at John Deere
By: Anthony Mayo and Olivia Hull
Rosalind Fox, the factory manager at John Deere’s Des Moines, Iowa plant, has improved the financial standing of the factory in the three years she’s been at its helm. But employee engagement scores—which measured employees’ satisfaction with working conditions and...
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Keywords:
Agribusiness;
Change Management;
Experience and Expertise;
Talent and Talent Management;
Diversity;
Gender;
Race;
Engineering;
Geographic Location;
Globalized Markets and Industries;
Leadership Development;
Leadership Style;
Leading Change;
Management Style;
Management Teams;
Organizational Culture;
Personal Development and Career;
Prejudice and Bias;
Power and Influence;
Status and Position;
Trust;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
United States
- February 2020 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Anomalie
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
In early 2019, the founders of Anomalie, an online direct-to-consumer provider of bridal gowns, have just agreed to an $13.6 million Series A investment from a Silicon Valley VC. They are considering three major initiatives as they move forward. (1) To scale their...
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- November 2019
- Case
Celebrity Fashions Limited (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Tanvi Deshpande and Shreya Ramachandran
In May 2017 in Chennai, India, the chairman of Celebrity Fashions doubted whether the company could last until the end of the year. Venkatesh Rajagopal had found that the company, a readymade garment manufacturing and exporter he founded in 1989, was having a hard time...
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- July–August 2019
- Article
Coupling Labor Codes of Conduct and Supplier Labor Practices: The Role of Internal Structural Conditions
By: Yanhua Bird, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Exploitive working conditions have spurred companies to pressure their suppliers to adopt labor codes of conduct and to conform their labor practices to the standards set forth in those codes. Yet little is known about whether organizational structures such as codes...
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- March 2019 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
Global Sourcing at Nike
By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael W. Toffel and Olivia Hull
This case explores the evolution of Nike’s global product sourcing strategy, in particular ongoing efforts to improve working conditions at its suppliers’ factories. When the case opens in July 2018, Vice President of Sourcing Amanda Tucker and her colleagues in Nike’s...
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Keywords:
Sourcing;
Factory Conditions;
Trade;
Geography;
Geographic Scope;
Globalized Firms and Management;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Collaborative Innovation and Invention;
Innovation Strategy;
Labor;
Human Capital;
Working Conditions;
Supply Chain Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Labor and Management Relations;
Complexity;
Sports Industry;
Fashion Industry;
Oregon;
Portland;
Asia;
North and Central America
- January 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
New Balance: Managing Orders and Working Conditions
By: Michael W. Toffel, Eileen McNeely and Matthew Preble
New Balance Athletics, Inc., a major U.S.-based athletic footwear and apparel brand, sources most of its footwear products from independent suppliers whose factories are located in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Monica Gorman, vice president of responsible leadership...
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Keywords:
Footwear;
Athletic Footwear;
Manufacturing;
CSR;
Sustainability;
Quality Management;
Supply Chains;
Operations;
Management;
Production;
Working Conditions;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Labor and Management Relations;
Supply Chain Management;
Supply Chain;
Order Taking and Fulfillment;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Consumer Products Industry
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A), (B), (C), and (D)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps students...
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- September 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Supplement
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (D)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
This supplements the (A) case by summarizing key developments in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry after the fire at Tazreen Fashions factory, including formation of the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Accord (“Accord”) and the Alliance for Bangladesh...
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- March 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
The Ready-Made Garment Industry: A Bangladeshi Perspective (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Saloni Chaturvedi
Responsibility for working conditions in contract factories within the supply chain presents an ongoing challenge for managers and an area of debate. Much of the debate approaches the challenge from the perspective of large global apparel brands. This case helps...
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- 7 Apr 2016
- Conference Presentation
Assessing and Improving Working Conditions at Global Supply Chain Factories
By: Michael W. Toffel and Yanhua Zhou
- July–August 2014
- Article
Sustainability in the Boardroom: Lessons from Nike's Playbook
By: Lynn S. Paine
One surprising role of Nike's corporate responsibility committee is to provide support for innovation. More and more companies recognize the importance of corporate responsibility to their long-term success—and yet the matter gets short shrift in most boardrooms,...
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- January 2014 (Revised February 2014)
- Teaching Note
Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety In Bangladesh (A) and (B)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories,...
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- September 2013 (Revised June 2014)
- Case
Rana Plaza: Workplace Safety In Bangladesh (A)
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories,...
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- May–June 2013
- Article
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly.
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Keywords:
Regulation;
Auditing;
Labor Relations;
Occupational Safety;
Environmental Operations;
Environmental Regulation;
Employees;
Labor;
Labor and Management Relations;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Manufacturing Industry;
China;
Bangladesh;
India;
Honduras;
Nicaragua;
Pakistan;
Guatemala;
Malaysia;
Viet Nam