Publications

May–June 2021
Article

Why Start-ups Fail

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why. Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Failure

May 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Colgate-Palmolive Company: Marketing Anti-Cavity Toothpaste

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion... View Details

Keywords: New Product Management; Consumer Segmentation; Global Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Healthcare; Sustainability; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Marketing; Segmentation; Product Development; Product Launch; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States

Educators

April 2022
Case

Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?

By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman

"Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?" traces the history of women in management from the early 20th to early 21st century through analysis of Harvard Business Review's coverage of women and gender. The case identifies six distinct phases in the... View Details

Keywords: History; Business History; Gender; Management; Employees; Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Work-Life Balance; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Equity; United States

Educators

29 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Trade Credit and Taxes

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines

25 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Why Do Countries Adopt International Financial Reporting Standards?

Keywords: by Karthik Ramanna & Ewa Sletten; Accounting

January 2014
Article

Pareto Efficiency in Robust Optimization

By: Dan Iancu and Nikolaos Trichakis

This paper formalizes and adapts the well-known concept of Pareto eﬃciency in the context of the popular robust optimization (RO) methodology for linear optimization problems. We argue that the classical RO paradigm need not produce solutions that possess the... View Details

Keywords: Robust Optimization; Pareto Optimality; Resource Allocation; Game Theory

Teaching Interest

Finance Reporting and Control

Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) is a course about how leaders can design and use performance measurement systems to build more effective organizations. Throughout their careers, business leaders are required to... View Details

24 May 2017
News

When Finance Is a Character in a Novel

November 1978 (Revised June 1985)
Case

Hanson Industries (B)

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Julie H. Hertenstein

Provides a complete description of the processes used in preparing a budget (annual operating plan). Starting with basic product line decisions, management prepares a budget that integrates production and marketing within constraints of financial feasibility. The... View Details

Keywords: Production; Negotiation; Marketing; Financing and Loans; Budgets and Budgeting; Planning

Educators

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

nation's social enterprise organizations. Today, the United States has more than 1.4 million non-profit organizations, and they account for 5 percent of GDP. Annual contributions have grown faster than the economy for years, and experts... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

19 Apr 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Top Executive Background and Financial Reporting Choice: The Case of Goodwill Impairment

Keywords: by Francois Brochet & Kyle Welch; Accounting

25 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

Keywords: by Roy Y.J. Chua & Xi Zou; Consumer Products; Retail

2010
Article

The Strategic Use of Brand Biographies

By: Jill Avery, Neeru Paharia, Anat Keinan and Juliet Schor

We introduce the concept of a brand biography to describe an emerging trend in branding in which firms author a dynamic, historical account of the events that have shaped the brand over time. Using a particular type of brand biography, "the underdog," we empirically... View Details

24 Nov 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Valuation When Cash Flow Forecasts Are Biased

Keywords: by Richard S. Ruback

25 Feb 2014
News

Is Gap Inc.'s Minimum Wage Hike Good Retail Politics? Harvard Historian Nancy Koehn Weighs In

2014
Book

Managerial Accounting: Making Decisions and Motivating Performance

By: Srikant M. Datar and Madhav Rajan

Managerial Accounting: Making Decisions and Motivating Performance enables future managers and business owners to attain the core skills they need to become integral members of their company’s decision-making teams. This new program from established authors... View Details