Organisational development
July 2020
Haier’s (2019) ecosystem revolution: From Rendanheyi 2.0 to Rendanheyi 3.0
By Michael Jacobides, Lisa Duke
2019 was an important year for Haier. Its new version of its radically decentralised structure, dubbed Rendanheyi 2.0, based on many independent ‘Ecosystem Micro-enterprise Communities’ (EMCs) had been devised to help it respond to the…
January 2005
Brahma versus Antarctica: Reversal of Fortune in Brazil’s Beer Market
By Donald Sull
The case is set in June 1999 as Marcel Telles, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Companhia Cervejaria Brahma (Brahma) – the largest brewer in Brazil – considers a possible merger with the Antarctica Group…
February 2019
Jack Ma at Alibaba: Building a Learning Organisation
By Herminia Ibarra, Jessica Spungin
In September 2018 Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, announced his plans to step down from the $420 billion Chinese internet company to pursue philanthropy in education. The case describes the evolution of Alibaba’s…
March 2017
UEFA 2016: The Opportunities and Challenges of Connectivity
By Costas Markides
UEFA is considering how best to use the new technologies of the social era to improve fans’ experience with football in Europe. The case describes the key challenges facing UEFA and raises the issue of…
August 2018
The UK Government Digital Service
By Julian Birkinshaw, Scott Duncan
The case describes how Mike Bracken, the newly appointed head of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), took on the massive challenge of setting up, from scratch, a centralised team to deliver online public services…
November 2018
Takeda: The governance of strategic transformation (B)
By Harry Korine, Kazuhiro Asakawa
The case series describes strategic transformation at Takeda, the largest Japanese pharmaceutical company, with a special focus on the R&D function. Since 2015, the 237-year-old industry doyen has narrowed its strategic focus from six to…
November 2018
Takeda: The governance of strategic transformation (A)
By Harry Korine, Kazuhiro Asakawa
The case series describes strategic transformation at Takeda, the largest Japanese pharmaceutical company, with a special focus on the R&D function. Since 2015, the 237-year-old industry doyen has narrowed its strategic focus from six to…
September 2016
ING Bank: Creating an Agile Organisation
By Julian Birkinshaw, Scott Duncan
Set in 2016, this case describes ING Bank’s implementation of a radical new way of working using agile principles. ING’s agile way of working has been written up in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review…
August 2018
Bayer’s Innovation Agenda: Igniting Innovation in a 100,000-person company
By Julian Birkinshaw, Enrique De Diego, Henning Trill, Julia Hitzbleck
The case describes how Bayer, one of the oldest and largest life-science companies in the world, recognised that innovation driven solely by the traditional R&D process that characterised the sector would not be sufficient to…