Publications

27 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

pandemic’s uneven demands on labor markets and supply chains. The study notes that Amazon’s 2020 EEO-1 suggested that three in five workers hired to cover the pandemic surge in sales were people of color, but only 3.6 percent of its... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

June 1994 (Revised September 1994)
Background Note

Beating the Commodity Magnet

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and George T. Bowman

All markets follow a cycle of growth and maturity, then commoditization and decline. This note argues that while commoditization of an industry may seem inevitable, the better managed firms find a way to make money in the commodity cycle. These firms know how and when... View Details

Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Financial Markets; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry

July 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Carl Zeiss and Free-Form Production: Can We See Clearly Yet?

By: Willy Shih

The prescription eyeglass lens industry was complicated and highly fragmented, and even though many of the tools and techniques employed have been relatively unchanged over the last century, there was still a surprising pace of innovation. An aging population around... View Details

Keywords: History; Demand and Consumers; Disruptive Innovation; Vertical Integration; Theory; Technology Adoption; Health Industry

September 1975 (Revised June 1984)
Case

Southwest Airlines (D)

After 18 months of deficit operations, Southwest Airlines stands on the brink of profitability. Selective application of discount fares has contributed to a rapid growth in market share. Then, in February 1973, its major competitor halves all fares on Southwest's... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; United States

January 2009 (Revised November 2011)
Case

The Tip of the Iceberg: JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose, Daniel Baird Bergstresser and David Lane

"Bear Stearns & Co. burned through nearly all of its $18 billion in cash reserves during the week of March 10, 2008, and an unprecedented provision of liquidity support from the Federal Reserve on Friday, March 13 was insufficient to reverse the decline in Bear's... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Crisis; Capital; Financial Liquidity; Financial Strategy; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Competition; Valuation; Financial Services Industry

10 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 10, 2018

the marketing and economics literature. We show that in the Nerlove-Arrow framework, moment conditions typically used in conventional dynamic panel data methods become vulnerable to serial correlation in the error structure. We discuss... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 1994 (Revised October 1996)
Case

MicroFridge

By: Norman A. Berg and James Weber

MicroFridge, a five-year-old, $12 million company based in Sharon, Mass., develops and sells a unique, combination compact refrigerator and microwave oven. All of the manufacturing is done for it by Sanyo in various overseas locations. The founder and president... View Details

Keywords: Production; Competitive Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Supply Chain Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Consumer Products Industry; Massachusetts

Web

About | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

Community Action Partners, a pro-bono business consulting organization of Harvard Business School and Kennedy School alumni working with Boston-area nonprofits and social enterprises. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and prior work experience at the... View Details

2008
Article

Industrial Specialization and Regional Clusters in the Ten New EU Member States

By: Orjan Solvell, Christian H.M. Ketels and Goran Lindqvist

Purpose—The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of regional concentration patterns within ten new European Union (EU) member states, EU10, and make comparisons with EU15 and the US economy.
Design/methodology/approach—Industrial... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Policy; Employment; Industry Clusters; Industry Structures; European Union; United States

Find at Harvard

August 2023
Article

The 5G Spectrum Auction in Chile

By: Juan Escobar, Rafael Epstein, Jose Correa, Pamela Gidi, Jozsef Markovits, Natalie Epstein, Yerko Montenegro and Abner Turkieltaub

In 2021, the Chilean government implemented a first-price package auction to allocate electromagnetic spectrum for 5G mobile services. The auction was run sequentially for different spectrum bands, allowing firms to exploit band complementarities. It was a... View Details

Keywords: Bids and Bidding; Competition; Revenue; Telecommunications Industry; Chile

Read Now

05 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: iPads, Kindles, and the Close of a Chapter in Book Publishing

competition for eyeballs increasing from the Internet, television, and video games, publishers know they have a tough road ahead, regardless of how digital readers change their business model. “The situation is fraught with... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Information; Publishing; Entertainment & Recreation

July 2000
Background Note

Industry Transformation

By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin

One of the steepest challenges a strategist faces is to navigate his or her company through a period of industry transformation--an era of rapid and wholesale changes in industry structure. This note considers how periods of transformation typically unfold. It then... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Management; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Consulting Industry; Service Industry

Article

Moving Beyond Schumpeter: Management Research on the Determinants of Technological Innovation

By: Gautam Ahuja, Curba Morris Lampert and Vivek Tandon

Schumpeter's conjecture that large monopolistic firms were the key source of innovation in modern industrial economies has been the underpinning for much work on the topic of innovation. In this review paper we consciously move beyond the Schumpeterian tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Management; Strategy

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17 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 17, 2009

to combat gray markets is to increase internal transfer prices to foreign subsidiaries in order to increase the gray market's cost base. We illustrate that when a gray market competitor is present, the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2007
Supplement

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.

By: Tarun Khanna and Krishna G. Palepu

How do companies develop a strategy that is both low-cost and differentiated without becoming squeezed in the middle? Describes how Teva, Israel's largest and first multinational, achieved its globally dominant position in generic pharmaceuticals, an industry that has... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Emerging Markets; Rank and Position; Competitive Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Israel; India