The Economist opened 2021 with a cover story headlined "Why Retailers Everywhere Should Look to China." It''s not hard to see why. China is both a large and a fast-growing retail market--worth about $5 trillion in 2020--and highly digitized. And the pandemic has made digital every retailer''s strategic priority. The authors draw from their research on Chinese retailers to explain five lessons that Western companies can learn .....more

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgment--often based on race and gender--about people''s talents or character, it strives to make hiring and promotion fairer and improve interactions with customers and among colleagues. But most UB training is ineffective, research shows. The problem is, increasing .....more

A female executive considers whether a staff job is a dead end or the next step to becoming CEO. This fictional case study by Anne Donnellon, Joshua D. Margolis, and Amy Gallo feature expert commentary by Rakefet Russak Aminoach and Nadia Rawlinson. This HBR Case Study includes both the case and the commentary. For teaching purposes, this reprint is also available in two other versions: case study-only, reprint R2105X, and commentary-only, R2105 .....more

A female executive considers whether a staff job is a dead end or the next step to becoming CEO. This fictional case study by Anne Donnellon, Joshua D. Margolis, and Amy Gallo feature expert commentary by Rakefet Russak Aminoach and Nadia Rawlinson. For teaching purposes, this is the case-only version of the HBR case study. The commentary-only version is reprint R2105Z. The complete case study and commentary is reprint R2105M.

A female executive considers whether a staff job is a dead end or the next step to becoming CEO. This fictional case study by Anne Donnellon, Joshua D. Margolis, and Amy Gallo feature expert commentary by Rakefet Russak Aminoach and Nadia Rawlinson. For teaching purposes, this is the commentary-only version of the HBR case study. The case-only version is reprint R2105X. The complete case study and commentary is reprint R2105M.

Champo Carpets is one of the largest carpet manufacturing companies based in India, with customers across the world, including some of the most reputed stores and catalog companies. Champo Carpets is based out of Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the most famous clusters of carpet weaving in India. This cluster is spread over 1,000 sq. km and comprises many villages and districts in and around it. The company is a vertically integrated manufacturer .....more

Spreadsheet supplement for case IMB879.

Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar death industry. But despite a well-defined market and positive response to the idea, Mylestone made little headway in the funeral industry during its first eighteen months. In response .....more

Spreadsheet supplement to case 220087

In November 2018, Sarah Robb O''Hagan is reeling from an unceremonious exit as CEO of Flywheel, a chain of indoor cycling studios. In the past, Robb O''Hagan had led transformational change across companies throughout the sports and fitness industry, including as President at Gatorade and Equinox. As a highly passionate fitness enthusiast, stepping into the CEO role at Flywheel felt like the pinnacle of her career, one that she would .....more