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Having studying myself abroad at Harvard Business School, I want to use the lens of the disruptive innovation to study the case of an Italian family business (Livi srl), operating in the sector of food and beverage (pasta), which has to cope with the crisis pushed by the pandemic. I want to use the concept of the disruptive innovation to understand: How strongly the customers behaviour has been changing in the sector of food and beverage because of Covid 19 in term of functional, emotional and social jobs to be done Whether the disruptive strategy could be a useful business map for the Small Medium Enterprises to re- adapt their profit formula, resources and processes How the local authorities could help the SMEs to leverage the production at a local dimension This paper uses a method based on a case history of an Italian family business, which has been operating for 50 years at a local dimension in the sector of food and beverage. The pandemic has significantly changed the customers’ habits and their needs and this put the lights on the big amount of jobs to be done by the companies to meet these incoming customers’ requirements. Indeed, in the sector of food and beverage many restaurants were forced to close because of the decision making taken by the local authorities. Would Livi srl be able to cope with this economic downturn? Which strategy should the entrepreneur set up to go through this negative financial performance? I want to answer to these questions by using the lens of theory of the Disruptive Strategy taught by Prof. Clayton at Harvard Business School. This paper puts the lights on the business’ ability to adapt its deliberate strategy to the new challenges of the market; indeed, a strong actual strategy is a good mix of a deliberate strategy with an emergent strategy. Finally, the relationship between local authorities (policy) and companies is investigated in a critical way, by which that has studied in term of partnership through the cost benefit analysis rather than considering the policy a social tool able to meet the customers’ needs with the business supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quick scan of the Academy of Management Journals over the past two decades suggests that the overwhelming majority of articles published are statements about academic pursuits that have had little application to managers in the field. Can any academician this chosen profession point out a half dozen facts that have significantly improved the quality of a manager's life in a corporation? I am hopeful that there are some, but I would be embarrassed if one were to challenge me with that kind of question. Some of our colleagues around the country are apt to agree that the Academy should, if it is to be a viable, contributing organization, experience a second crisis of identity -- the uncertainty as to whether the restitution is to remain primarily a cult of knowledge; a scholary discipline or a medium for the application of views and methods; service or research; community action or enhancement of knowledge. One of the easiest, sometimes initially the most effective, alternatives dissatisfied Blacks have is to cry: "I am being mistreated in this way because I am Black. This is a racist company." Racist behavior is, without a doubt, a reality but organization behaviorists have not come close to identifying it as a serious problem in managerial behavior. Few management researchers have attempted to operationally define organizational racism to the minimum degree necessary to establish methodological research controls. The causes and perpetuation of "upward mobility discrimination" of well qualified minorities are associated with lines of progression, psychological "fit," grooming favorite sons for the top jobs, transfer provisions, and others. Therefore, the remedies of upward mobility discrimination must come not only from changes in attitudes (who among us can wait that long?), but changes in systems of management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most enduring features in business education is the case method of teaching. The case method's popularity dovetails with a conviction that business education is a training in taking action to solve business problems. In recent years, however, following corporate scandals and the Global Financial Crisis, attention has focused on the shortcomings of today's business school graduates, with the case method seen as contributing to a narrow, instrumental, amoral, managerial perspective on business. Subsequently, there has emerged a binary dichotomy of those for and those against the case method, with much heated, circular debate but little in the way of progress. By looking deeper into the complexities surrounding the emergence of the case method at Harvard and how the case method could have evolved differently from this point, we can move the debate to a new level: a focus not on the pros and cons of what the case method is, but on what it could be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three objectives. First, it documents the rapid growth of the private service sector in the United States. Second, it compares and contrasts the management tasks within a service operation with those of a manufacturing operation. Third, it outlines the development of a new course, Management of Service Operations, at Harvard Business School. The course, which was designed to treat explicitly both the operating and strategic issues faced by managers of service firms, has grown from a seminar of 35 students in 1972 to a course with 300 second-year MBA students in 1974. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]