Hwa Gung Tea (HGT), a premium tea brand founded in Taiwan, has a rich history dating back to 1918. For many decades, the family business has been producing and distributing alpine Oolong tea cultivated at above 2,000 metres on the famous tea-producing Lishan mountains. Having transitioned through four generations, HGT''s unique value proposition was an end-to-end value chain integrator from tea cultivation, harvesting, production, and wholesale distribution .....more

In the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union (the EU) had led the global fight against climate change with a wide array of policy measures. The EU''s primary approach to climate policy had been taxation via the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the first carbon cap-and-trade regulation. EU ETS was a market-based solution designed to reduce GHG emissions by setting an upper limit on domestic emissions. However, the effectiveness .....more

SofMedica Group had expanded from its origins as a medical equipment distributor in Romania to a holding company with four business lines operating in six countries. This expansion had been driven by SofMedica''s mission: to make cutting edge medical technology available to the remotest patient by enabling healthcare professionals through education and access to innovation. As the company marked its 30-year anniversary Georgios Sofianos, SofMedica''s .....more

Raizen, the world''s largest sugar and ethanol producer, strived to find ways to expand the second-generation ethanol (E2G) market, which it pioneered. The company planned to invest R$24 billion (around $4.6 billion) in 20 production plants, with a total capacity to make approximately 1.6 billion liters of E2G. Paula Kovarsky, the company''s Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, firmly believed that E2G was a readily available biofuel that could .....more

When the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson, unexpectedly died in 2009, he left behind an estate that was over $500 million in debt, with largely illiquid assets, and legions of creditors poised to begin to seize assets in as soon as 60 days. The task of managing Jackson''s estate, in the role of co-executor-bitterly contested by some members of the Jackson family-fell to celebrated entertainment lawyer John Branca, who was re-hired by Jackson just two .....more

According to psychological research.

Today''s employees, particularly young ones, expect their employers to speak out about the social, political, and environmental issues they care about. Many organizations have complied, only to find themselves locked into a cycle of perpetual statement-making that is often tangential to their organizational priorities or runs against their political spending. Companies would be wise to reconsider how they determine what to prioritize and discuss internally .....more

With employees increasingly speaking out on political and social issues, the authors use their research on activist voices in the workplace to suggest three ways organizational leaders can determine if and how to respond. First, it''s important to understand the range of responses available and their pros and cons. Second, you should consider five factors that will help you decide whether it''s appropriate and productive to step in. Finally, give .....more

When political and social issues touch business and the workplace, employees and their leaders sometimes struggle to address those issues productively and effectively. HBR editors have collected key articles on when to speak out at work, how managers navigate conflict, and why organizations are increasingly weighing in on controversial topics.

Most executives know the basics of negotiation; some are spectacularly adept. Yet even experienced negotiators routinely leave money on the table, end up in deadlock, damage relationships, or allow conflicts to spiral. They fall prey to common mistakes that keep them from solving the right negotiation problem. In any negotiation, each side ultimately chooses between two options: accepting a deal or taking its best no-deal option - that is, the course .....more

Why is it so difficult for established companies to pull off the new growth that business model innovation can bring? Here''s why: They don''t understand their current business model well enough to know if it would suit a new opportunity or hinder it, and they don''t know how to build a new model when they need it. Drawing on their vast knowledge of disruptive innovation and experience in helping established companies capture game-changing opportunities, .....more

When most of the world''s financial services giants were stumbling and retrenching in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, the asset management firm BlackRock was busy charting a course for growth. Its revenues, profits, and stock price all performed consistently through this tumultuous period. The authors looked at BlackRock and other game-changing companies-the Mumbai-based global conglomerate Tata Group, and Envision, an entrepreneurial alternative .....more

Companies struggle with innovation because they put all their chips on one innovation paradigm-what Holt calls better mousetraps. This is innovation as conceived by engineers and economists-a race to create the killer value proposition. It wins on functionality, convenience, reliability, price, or user experience. Fortunately, building better mousetraps is not the only way to innovate. In consumer markets, innovation often proceeds according to a .....more

Research shows that companies that are investing heavily in digital technologies to harness the power of human-machine collaboration are dramatically improving their bottom lines. But it takes people to conceive of and manage the innovations, and the authors are convinced that success in the future depends on a human-centered approach to artificial intelligence (AI). In this article they present their IDEAS framework, which calls for attention to .....more