Turnaround: A Tale of Two Pandemic Case Studies

What happened? What went wrong? Those are simple questions to ask when a company experiences difficulty. In Professor Kathryn Harrigan’s Turnaround Management class, students examine case studies to uncover the often complex reasons why a firm got in trouble and to help plot a way back.

On this episode of Bizcast, Harrigan, the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Business Leadership, tells us the story of the decisions made by two very different firms – J. Crew, the famous purveyors of preppy clothes, and Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork processor – as they coped with shifts in their fortunes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to discussing the strategies companies take to recover, Harrigan also explains how the class instills a sense of responsibility that future leaders should feel toward their companies.

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