Publications

April 2024
Teaching Note

'The Wheels on the Bus' Go Electric: Highland Electric Fleets and Partners

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 324-107. Founder Duncan McIntyre developed an innovative service-based business to electrify transportation fleets for school districts and scale through public-private partnerships while contributing to climate change solutions. The case... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Leadership; Growth Management; Supply Chain; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Innovation Leadership; Transportation Industry; United States; Canada

October 2018
Case

Shield AI

By: Mitchell Weiss and A.J. Steinlage

Shield AI’s quadcopter – with no pilot and no flight plan – could clear a building and outpace human warfighters by almost five minutes. This was not to say that it was better than the warfighters or would replace their jobs, but it was evidence that autonomous robots... View Details

2015
Working Paper

How Should We Pay for Health Care?

By: Michael E. Porter and Robert S. Kaplan

Improving the way we pay for health care must be a central component in health care reform. Payment reform must link provider reimbursement and accountability to improving patient value: better health outcomes delivered at lower cost. Today’s deeply flawed... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Value; Health Industry

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March 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

“The Wheels on the Bus” Go Electric: Highland Electric Fleets and Partners

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Founder Duncan McIntyre developed an innovative service-based business to electrify transportation fleets for school districts and scale through public-private partnerships while contributing to climate change solutions. The case covers the rationale for electric... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Leadership; Growth Management; Supply Chain; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Innovation Leadership; Transportation Industry; United States; Canada

20 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Paul Healy, George Serafeim, Devin Shanthikumar & Gui Yang; Financial Services

Web

HBS Veteran Spotlight: Lindsey Chrismon (MBA 2025) - MBA

Sciences Partners & Families Peek SVMP Social Enterprise Student Life Student Loans Student Profile Sustainability Video Blog Industries Industries Architecture Construction Consulting Consumer Packaged... View Details

August 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Case

eSig: Growth Analysis

By: Mark Roberge and Tom Eisenmann

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations (available as a... View Details

Keywords: Esignature; Computer Software; Business or Company Management; Marketing Channels; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Computer Industry

May 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

The Road to Kolkata: NH-34 and PPP in India

By: Sid Yog and Ben Eppler

It is May 2014 and construction of road NH-34 has been fraught with difficulties, but HCON CEO Arjun Dhawan can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Land acquisition is finally nearing completion throughout the entire stretch, and one parcel is almost ready to begin... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Construction; Emerging Markets; Infrastructure; Public Ownership; Construction Industry; India

July 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Sycamore Networks

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Daniel J. Green

Founders Desh Deshpande and Dan Smith reflect on Sycamore's sales strategies and consider how going public might affect the morale of its key employees. In the optical networking sector, technological change and exploding demand has created a market for talent in which... View Details

Keywords: Applied Optics; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Retention; Employees; Communication Technology; Technological Innovation; Communications Industry; Communications Industry

Research Summary

Corporate Governance

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

The characteristics and structure of boards of directors have important implications for firm performance. Professor Wang has found that firms with well-connected boards whose members have strong network connections provide economic benefits that are not immediately... View Details

February 2010
Case

Corporate Strategy at Berkshire Partners

By: Julie M. Wulf and Scott Waggoner

The managing directors of Berkshire Partners, a mid-sized private equity firm, address strategic and organizational challenges in response to turbulent market conditions, rapid firm growth, and the transition of leadership from its founding partners to the next... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Boston

August 2004
Article

Appearing and Disappearing Dividends: The Link to Catering Incentives

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We document a close link between fluctuations in the propensity to pay dividends and catering incentives. First, we use the methodology of Fama and French (J. Finan. Econ. (2001)) to identify a total of four distinct trends in the propensity to pay dividends... View Details

Keywords: Dividends; Payout Policy; Catering; Dividend Premium; Investor Sentiment; Investment Return; Motivation and Incentives; Trends; Stocks; Financial Services Industry

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March 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Edwin Land: The Art and Science of Innovation

By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher Stanton and Matthew Preble

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Polaroid first invented—and then continuously reinvented—the field of instant photography. Under the leadership of its mercurial founder Edwin Land, the company regularly released new instant cameras and films, often... View Details

Keywords: Instant Photography; Company History; Change Management; Disruption; Forecasting and Prediction; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Intellectual Property; Patents; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Development; Chemical Industry; Chemical Industry; United States

Article

Network Effects Aren't Enough

By: Andrei Hagiu and Simon Rothman

In many ways, online marketplaces are the perfect business model. Since they facilitate transactions between independent suppliers and customers rather than take possession of and responsibility for the products or services in question, they have inherently low cost... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Internet and the Web; Network Effects; Market Participation

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16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Theory O change, Scott Paper operated in a highly competitive, cyclical, capital-intensive global industry. Like Champion International, it operated in two different segments of the paper industry and had several businesses in View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

Web

Faculty & Researchers - Managing the Future of Work

Senior Editor in Bain & Company’s global marketing team; and, prior to that, she was the Senior Vice President of Programs at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a national not-for-profit focused on revitalizing America’s inner... View Details

17 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

If the CEO’s High Salary Isn't Justified to Employees, Firm Performance May Suffer

employee pay (such as worker performance and labor market characteristics), as well as the “unexplained pay ratio”—the portion of pay disparity not driven by economic factors. Rouen then studied how these measures of pay disparity... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2018
Working Paper

The Welfare Effects of Peer Entry in the Accommodation Market: The Case of Airbnb

By: Chiara Farronato and Andrey Fradkin

We study the effects of enabling peer supply through Airbnb in the accommodation industry. We present a model of competition between flexible and dedicated sellers - peer hosts and hotels - who provide differentiated products. We estimate this model using data from... View Details

Keywords: Peer To Peer; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Competition; Accommodations Industry