Impact on Research & Curriculum

A man stands in front of a tall shelf packed with books, some with their spines facing outward and many with their pages facing out. He looks down at an open book in his hands.

A lot of the things that were being discussed in cases clearly had none of the appreciation of what we now call diversity . . . . Certainly African American issues were just a small part of the agenda, if any part of the agenda.

E. Theodore Lewis Jr.; MBA 1969

Above quote from “The Afro-American Student Union of HBS: A Salute to the Past, A Challenge to the Future,” 1994.1

Over the years, HBS case research has fostered new areas of inquiry in ways that have deepened students’ and faculty understanding of complex business and management issues. In 1959, for example, HBS Professor Kenneth R. Andrews reported on his extensive study in Switzerland that resulted in a series of landmark cases on the Swiss watch industry. These cases, used in the “Business Policy” course, helped Andrews to rethink business policy more broadly and formalize the theoretical framework of corporate strategy, the concept of looking at a company’s goals, policies, organization, and values from a holistic perspective. HBS Professor Joseph L. Bower noted: “With Professor C. Roland Christensen and others, Ken Andrews built the field of business policy, which laid the foundation for what we now think of as the field of strategy.”2 Corporate strategy became part of the HBS curriculum and research efforts and represented a critical new approach in the management consulting field.

Red and orange cover of "The Concept of Corporate Strategy" book

Kenneth R. Andrews. The Concept of Corporate Strategy. Homewood, Ill., Dow Jones-Irwin, 1971.

Societal forces also propelled changes in the HBS curriculum and expanded the focus of its cases. In 1968, five students founded the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) at HBS to address challenges Black students were experiencing in the HBS classroom and socio-economic issues students were facing nationwide. AASU founders called upon the School’s administration to develop new courses and cases in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including those centered on economic development in Black communities, Black entrepreneurship, and discrimination in hiring.

  • E. Theodore Lewis Jr.

    MBA 1969

  • Clifford E. Darden

    MBA 1969, DBA 1982

  • Lillian Lincoln Lambert

    MBA 1969

  • A. Leroy Willis

    MBA 1969

  • George R. Price

    MBA 1970

A man stands in front of a tall shelf packed with books, some with their spines facing outward and many with their pages facing out. He looks down at an open book in his hands.

Kenneth R. Andrews.
HBS Archives Photograph Collection.

Corporate strategy chart

Kenneth R. Andrews. The Concept of Corporate Strategy.
Homewood, Ill. : Dow Jones-Irwin, 1971. Page 41.

Download The Concept of Corporate Strategy chart

In response, new courses and cases were created. AASU founding member Clifford E. Darden, for example, helped develop materials for a series of cases to support a new second-year elective, “Organizational Development in the Inner City,” that addressed economic development issues. Working with Professor Paul R. Lawrence, Darden wrote “The Bedford-Stuyvesant Special Impact Program” case used in the elective.

  1. Interview with E. Theodore Lewis Jr., “The African American Student Union of HBS: A Salute to the Past, A Challenge to the Future,” 1994. HBS Archives (104871962_VT_0006).back to text ↑
  2. Joseph L. Bower, “Kenneth R. Andrews, HBS Professor and Father of Corporate Strategy, Dead at 89,” The Harbus, September 7, 2005.back to text ↑