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- 2025
- Working Paper
How Does Wage Inequality Affect the Labor Movement
By: Barbara Biasi, Zoë B. Cullen, Julia H. Gilman and Nina Roussille
This paper provides causal evidence on how wage inequality among workers affects the labor movement using three complementary research designs: a vignette experiment with union organizers, a natural policy experiment that increased wage inequality among Wisconsin... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
How Firms Respond to Worker Activism: Evidence from Global Supply Chains
By: Yanhua Bird, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Social movement pressures can lead organizations to concede and improve social performance to avoid disruption costs, but we theorize that such responses evoke concession costs that prompt organizations to shift resources and attention from other social domains whose... View Details
- January 2025
- Teaching Plan
Knowledge Transfer: Toyota, NUMMI, and GM
By: Willy Shih
Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 625-003. New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) was a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. It was an opportunity for GM to learn about the Toyota Production System, which was quite different from the mass production... View Details
Keywords: Culture Change; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Joint Ventures; Transformation; Selection and Staffing; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Labor Unions; Management Systems; Performance Improvement; Production; Labor and Management Relations; Auto Industry; Japan; United States
- December 2024 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Strategy and CEO Succession at Starbucks
By: Krishna G. Palepu and David Lane
On August 13, 2024, Starbucks announced that Laxman Narasimhan who was appointed as the CEO only in September 2023, was stepping down as CEO and board director “with immediate effect.” Laxman would be replaced on September 9 by Brian Niccol, CEO since 2018 of Chipotle... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Management Succession; Cost Management; Labor Unions; Working Conditions; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Service Operations; Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Resignation and Termination; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- July 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
Knowledge Transfer: Toyota, NUMMI, and GM
By: Willy Shih
New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) was a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. It was an opportunity for GM to learn about the Toyota Production System, which was quite different from the mass production processes American automakers used at the... View Details
Keywords: Culture Change; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Joint Ventures; Transformation; Selection and Staffing; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Labor Unions; Management Systems; Performance Improvement; Production; Labor and Management Relations; Auto Industry; Japan; United States
- March–April 2024
- Article
Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest
By: Jorge Tamayo
Paulo Ferreira, the president of Luna Brazil, has an ambitious plan to turn around the dismal performance of the plant he oversees in Campinas. The wrinkle is, he needs the buy-in of the powerful local union, which is still smarting from a 10-year-old labor conflict... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Yellow Corporation: On the Verge of Bankruptcy
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer
Yellow Corporation, one of the country’s oldest and largest less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, was nearing its 100th anniversary in 2024. Whether it would reach that milestone, however, was uncertain as the company was attempting to restructure its operations to... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Impact of Unionization on Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality: Evidence from Starbucks
By: Isamar Troncoso, Minkyung Kim, Ishita Chakraborty and SooHyun Kim
The US has seen a rise in union movements, but their effects on service industry marketing outcomes like customer satisfaction and perceptions of service quality remain understudied. In this paper, we empirically study the impact on customer satisfaction and... View Details
- May 2023
- Article
Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency
By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson
The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek
to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting
and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details
Keywords: Pay Transparency; Online Labor Market; Privacy; Wage Gap; Corporate Disclosure; Wages; Negotiation
- February 2023 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
Ronald Reagan: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun
This case traces the rise of Ronald Reagan from small town Illinois to two-term president of the United States. An unlikely candidate for the world’s most powerful job, the case describes the different roles that Reagan filled over his life: radio announcer, Hollywood... View Details
- February 2023 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Amazon and the Future of Organized Labor
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
From their peak in the 1950s, private-sector labor unions in the United States declined rapidly in membership and influence, decade after decade. But growing inequality—especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic—sparked new interest in labor and organizing.... View Details
- January 2023 (Revised November 2024)
- Technical Note
Legal Analysis: Labor Unions in the United States
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
This note provides an overview of the regulation, mechanics, and history of labor unions in the United States, along with an overview of their place in the early 21st century. View Details
- August 2022
- Case
Air Wars: Deregulating the U.S. Airline Industry
By: Tom Nicholas and James Weber
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. government assisted in the development of an airline industry by subsidizing the delivery of mail and allowing mail carriers to also fly passengers. Because the government awarded mail routes to the lowest... View Details
Keywords: Government Regulation; Deregulation; Change Management; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Business History; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Labor; Labor Unions; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Industry Structures; Operations; Strategy; Adaptation; Competition; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; United States
- June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
South Africa – a 'Just Energy Transition'
By: Richard Vietor
South Africa, like most other countries, is in the process of reducing its carbon emissions to comply with COP26 and, hopefully, reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, because South Africa relies almost wholly on coal (93%) for electricity, and on coal for... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
The 2012 Spanish Labor Reform: Lifting All Boats, or Leveling Down?
By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella, Santiago Botella and Elena Corsi
Since 1978, Spain had struggled to control unemployment. The country’s labor law was protective of employees hired long-term and companies used temporary contracts as buffers. In 2012, amid economic recession and a 23.6% unemployment rate, a center-right government of... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Labor Market; Unemployment; Recession; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government Legislation; International Relations; Working Conditions; Employment; Labor Unions; Contracts; Social Issues; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Spain; European Union
- 2021
- Working Paper
Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency
By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson
The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek
to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting
and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details
- May 2021
- Supplement
Paul Levy: Confronting a 'Corporate Campaign' (B)
By: James K. Sebenius and Isaac Silberberg
Paul Levy, CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center hospital is faced with a formidable negotiation campaign to unionize staff at BIDMC. Armed only with his personal blog, does Paul stand a chance against the union's multi-million dollar organizing budget? View Details
- March 2021
- Supplement
Toyota and Its Labor Union in Argentina (C)
By: Jorge Tamayo, Erik Snowberg and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago
Toyota Argentina (TASA) and the union representing automotive industry workers in the country had been working together since 2011 to address the challenges faced by Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Zárate (Argentina). In 2019, after achieving all the goals set forward... View Details
- 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... View Details
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
- January 2021
- Case
Toyota and Its Labor Union in Argentina (A)
By: Jorge Tamayo, Erik Snowberg and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago
In 2011, Daniel Herrero, CEO of Toyota Argentina (TASA) since 2010, was about to meet with the Secretary-General of the union representing automotive industry workers in the country. The company produced vehicles in Argentina since 1997 at their plant at Zárate, and,... View Details